Making Content Comprehensible for Elementary English Learners

Jana Echevarria is Professor Emerita of Education at California State University, Long Beach. She has taught in elementary, middle, and high school in general education, special education, ESL, and bilingual programs. She has lived in Taiwan, Spain, and Mexico. Her UCLA doctorate earned her an award from the National Association for Bilingual Education's Outstanding Dissertations Competition. Her research and publications focus on effective instruction for English learners, including those with learning disabilities. She has presented her research across the U.S. and internationally including Oxford University (England), Wits University (South Africa), South East Europe University (Macedonia), and University of Barcelona (Spain). Currently, she is Co-Principal Investigator with the Center for Research on the Educational Achievement and Teaching of English Language Learners (CREATE). In 2005, Dr. Echevarria was selected as Outstanding Professor at CSULB.



MaryEllen Vogt is Professor Emerita of Education at California State University, Long Beach. Dr. Vogt has been a classroom teacher, reading specialist, special education teacher, curriculum coordinator, and university teacher educator. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a co-author of fifteen books, including Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches in the Real World (3rd ed.) (Allyn & Bacon, 2011), and the SIOP (R) book series. Her research interests include improving comprehension in the content areas, teacher change and development, and content literacy for English learners. She has provided professional development for teachers and administrators in all 50 states and in nine countries. Dr. Vogt received her university's Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award, and is a Past President of the International Reading Association.



Deborah J. Short, Ph. D., directs Academic Language Research & Training and provides professional development on sheltered instruction and academic literacy worldwide. Formerly she was a Division Director at the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC, where she co-developed the research-validated SIOP (R) Model for sheltered instruction. She has directed quasi-experimental and experimental studies on English language learners funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education, among others. Her publications include research journal articles, the SIOP Model book series, and ESL textbook series for National Geographic Learning/Hampton-Brown. She taught English as a second/foreign language in New York, California, Virginia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.