Teaching English is the first step 
Arizona Republic
September 3, 2006

Author: Karina Bland, The Arizona Republic Estimated printed pages: 2

English immersion: Emaretta Hines

This is Emaretta Hines' first time teaching third grade.

Come spring, her 25 students will take the AIMS test for the first time, and how they do will reflect on her. Normally, she wouldn't be too worried.
After all, she has taught kindergarten and first grade for three years and worked as a reading intervention specialist in Gary, Ind. She knows how to teach kids to read.

But the majority of the children in her class are still learning English. A few speak no English at all. So teaching them to read in English won't be easy.

Hines will read to her students, with them, and they'll read to one another.
The school has a new reading program this year, and third-graders will spend an additional 45 minutes a day in reading. She'll bring in the school's literacy and language acquisition specialists.

Not all of Hines' students will be reading on grade level by year's end, she says, but it won't be from a lack of trying.

At the end of the first day of school, Hines, 28, presses stickers to their shirtfronts that say, "I'm a star."

"Do you think I deserve one?" she asks, a sticker on her upraised fingertip.

"Yes, because you helped us learn," says Felix Fonseca, 8.

Javier Duarte, 8, nods in agreement: "You should get three of them."

CAPTION: Emaretta Hines works with a student in her third-grade classroom at Creighton. It's her first time teaching Grade 3.
Edition: Final Chaser
Section: Front
Page: A18

Index Terms: SERIES
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Record Number: pho149007059