How to Use Worksheet Makers for Newcomers
Did you know you can use free online handwriting worksheet generators to customize vocabulary writing practice for your Newcomers? These sites are easy to use and infinitely adaptable to your students’ unique needs.
If your newcomer is not familiar with the Roman alphabet, s/he will need to spend some time tracing and/or writing letters to become intimately familiar with them (the alphabet’s letter names, shapes, and sounds should be over taught to automaticity). Handwriting worksheet generator sites will allow you to print the letter repeatedly for practice. They offer the option to print chosen text in dotted lines for tracing and solid lines for copying. This should be done in conjunction with oral practice, so that the student can connect the sound and letter together. You can also add a few meaningful words that begin with the same letter sound to the bottom of each sheet.
If your student can already write the Roman alphabet, you can jump right in to learning English vocabulary. I recommend starting with the student’s name. Once your newcomer is familiar with their written name, create worksheets for classmate’s names. You can then move on to common school words, easy nouns and verbs, etc. Again, this should always be done along with oral practice which connects the oral word, written word, and meaning together. From there you can move to phrases and finally simple sentences. Consider mirroring known sentence patterns from easy readers if you are doing repeated reads with the student.
If the student’s native language is a Romance language, consider targeting just those letters which produce different sounds in English (such as j and i in Spanish).
Make it interesting by giving the student various writing utensils to trace or copy with (highlighters, markers, funky pens etc).
Here are three easy to use sites to get you started:
* Please note I am not affiliated with these sites and cannot control their content nor access to it. I do not benefit from their use.
If you don’t have the time to create individual worksheets, consider using a highlighter on writing paper and allowing the student to trace what you have written. This can also be used to record student generated sentences, which s/he can then trace.
Need more idea for working with Newcomers? Check out these posts Teaching Newcomers Doesn’t Have To Be Stressful and Culture Shock: Learning Road Block
Find more Newcomer resources at my TPT store, such as the Newcomer Teacher’s Toolkits below:
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