Librarian Influencer of the Week is Ruth Gilmore Ingulsrud who hails originally from California but now works at a K-5 international school in Tokyo, Japan where she works with students from Japan, Korea, and other countries. Many parents place their children at her school so they will be bilingual with their primary language and English. Click here to listen in now!
In this podcast, Ruth does a wonderful job recalling her first year in the bilingual library overseas.
She uses puppets to help her students learn English. She uses the puppets to ask questions during lessons she thinks the students are wondering about. For example, the puppet might ask about a word she used in the lesson to help the students better understand the lesson’s vocabulary.
She learned to buy books for bilingual early readers with simple vocabulary and supportive pictures.
She included more physical movement in storytime to help students stay focused.
Here are some Librarian Influencer strategies Ruth shared:
Use Action Research to try to solve a problem in your library.
Get to know your collection. What’s there. What’s missing.
Get to know your students and their interests so you can match the students to books that would interest them.
She made a poster to show all the units being covered over the year. This helps her plan to support what's happening in the classroom.
My chat with Ruth was insightful in helping me learn more strategies for working with bilingual students.
You can follow Librarian Influencer Ruth Gilmore Ingulsrud at:
Twitter: Ruth Ingulsrud — @Ringulsrud
Facebook: Ruth Gilmore Ingulsrud
Blog: Ruthful; A View from the Trees — http://Ruth.ingulsrud.net/blog
Websites
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