Manny

Manny is 6 years old, and is in Kindergarten at an urban elementary school in a large Midwest city. He has an older brother who lives away from home, and a baby sister. Manny was born in the United States, and his parents are from Mexico. They met and married in the U.S. about 8 years ago.

His mother used to work in a small market catering to the Latino community, but is now a stay-at-home mom. She only speaks a minimal amount of English. His father works at a factory, but is currently attending a community college and plans to pursue a degree at a four-year university in engineering. Spanish is the dominant language of the home. Manny enjoys school, likes to read, and especially likes to play with Legos and blocks in the classroom.

At school Manny receives sheltered English content-area instruction in his classroom and receives 30 minutes of daily ESL instruction through a pull-out program with a certified ESL teacher. His classroom teacher has also recently completed licensure in working with ELL students. Manny’s official English language proficiency level is 2 (WIDA). His teacher is concerned that Manny may have some developmental challenges, but he has not been identified for special education services. Per district policy, students are usually not evaluated until after Kindergarten.

At home Manny loves to build with his Lego superhero sets, and loves watching TV shows like Spider Man and Uncle Grandpa.