Using the Language Experience Approach with English Language Learners: Strategies for Engaging Students and Developing Literacy

Denise Nessel is an associate of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA), where she focuses on teaching reading and writing as thinking processes in grades K-12. She has worked as a secondary English teacher, elementary reading specialist, reading clinician, university professor, district-level curriculum supervisor, co-director of a statewide staff development project, curriculum manager at educational software companies, and consultant to schools around the country and abroad. Nessel has conducted numerous workshops and demonstration lessons for teachers and administrators and has served as a consultant and writer for educational publishers and multimedia firms. She has written several books and classroom resources for teachers and a number of articles for professional journals.

Carol N. Dixon has worked as a reading clinician, university professor and administrator, and consultant to schools and universities around the country and abroad. In her role as a university faculty member, she directed a reading clinic and an MA in Reading/Reading Specialist Credential Program for 20 years. She has conducted numerous workshops and demonstration lessons for classroom teachers and has made numerous presentations at scholarly conferences in the United States and internationally. She has written or co-authored books and journal articles as resources for teachers, as well as over 50 research-based articles for professional publications. In her current work, she focuses on classroom research that investigates the teaching of reading and writing as thinking processes, particularly to English Language Learners.