For ELL students, what is critical in helping them with sounds that are new to them?

Helping English Language Learner (ELL) students with sounds that are new to them relies significantly on explicitly teaching them how to articulate those sounds. This approach allows teachers to break down the sounds into their basic components, demonstrate how to produce each sound, and provide practice opportunities.

By focusing on articulation, educators can also address specific phonetic challenges that ELL students may face based on their native languages. This direct instruction can improve their pronunciation, enhance their listening comprehension, and support their overall language acquisition process.

While providing extended reading materials, encouraging silent reading habits, and focusing on grammar structures can be beneficial elements of language instruction, they do not directly address the phonetic challenges that ELL students encounter when learning to pronounce sounds that are unfamiliar to them. Therefore, explicit instruction in sound articulation is a targeted and effective strategy for addressing these specific teaching needs.