Everyone Smiles in the Same Language’

Karen Dakin teaches a lesson to a group of ESL students last week in Brewster. Eric Gross The demographics of Putnam County are changing, with more and more families from far-off lands relocating to the New York area in order to live as well as work and raise a family.

Latest census reports indicate that nearly 10 percent of Putnam’s residents originate from foreign countries, and the numbers are expected to be even higher once the 2010 census is tabulated later this year.

In the Brewster School District, a rigorous fifth-grade curriculum is underway that prepares ESL (English as a Second Language) children for large classroom activity.

Each day groups of boys and girls whose families moved to Putnam County from Central and South America as well as Eastern Europe meet with veteran teacher Karen Dakin, who assists them with their studies.

The instructional program at the C.V. Starr Intermediate School has been based on a program known as SIOP, or Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol, which Principal Frank Zamperlin described as a “coteaching model that makes content learning in the classroom more comprehensible for English-language learners.”

During a lesson about the Titanic last week, Dakin explained that beginning and intermediate level ESL children receive a minimum of 360 minutes per week of instruction in the classroom and “if the children need additional study time, pull-out classes take place, which are contentbased and are used to preview or review content area curriculum.”

The co-teaching model is practiced in both English Language Arts and science, where students are grouped on their proficiency level.

Zamperlin said in order to help the students meet New York State learning standards, “ESL teachers collaborate regularly with the administration, content area teachers and parents to develop a program whose strategies promote success.”

Dakin described her job as “the best in the school, because we are helping our newcomers to achieve success one day at a time, and because everyone smiles in the same language.”