It is hard to believe that we have reached this milestone – 20 years of SIOP teaching! We never expected, in the early days, that the SIOP Model would be used by more than 425,000 teachers in schools throughout all 50 states in the United States, and in dozens of countries.
SIOP has never been more relevant than it is today with the emphasis on rigorous
academic standards for all students such as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
Teachers––now more than ever––need a proven approach for making instruction understandable for English learners while at the same time developing their academic language skills. SIOP is a mechanism for helping students reach high academic standards, and many of the features of SIOP are reflected in the standards, such as the emphasis on speaking and listening skills.
Most gratifying, though, is its impact on educators and students alike. As one teacher wrote to us (posted in a blog entitled, Another Teacher Saved Through Effective Professional Development, https://siopblog.wordpress.com
I implemented only some of the lesson to my freshmen class to try it out and it made me feel so much more successful than I have ever felt in the full 15 years I’ve been teaching. I think you and your colleagues are on to something with SIOP! T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U! You came into my life just in the nick of time. I was headed out of teaching all together after this year because I didn’t believe that I could help students anymore. SIOP has given me hope!:)
Thanks to all of the dedicated educators who have found SIOP to be useful in providing an equitable education to all students – English learners and English speakers alike.
We are excited to celebrate SIOP’s birthday in 2016!