Partner with families to learn about their language practices, stories, and literacy-related interactions at home, recognizing that children bring rich knowledge and skills from their first languages and cultural experiences. Dual language learners should have opportunities to demonstrate proficiency in the standard in both their first language and English, with supports such as first-language use, cross-language connections, gestures, visuals, and props. These opportunities allow young dual language learners to build on what they know and can do in their first language as they continue to develop communication, language, and literacy skills in all their languages.
Serve two of the same kinds of crackers in different sizes, such as one small cheese cracker and one large cheese cracker. Give each child a few of each size. Name the size as you distribute them. Encourage conversation about the size as the children eat the snack. Say, "Johnny's eating his big cracker." Ask, "Can you show me a small cracker?"
