Background & Context
Jones Elementary in Bryan ISD, Texas is home to one of the most distinctive classrooms in the district. It is a newcomer bilingual classroom for third graders who are brand new to English and, in many cases, to the U.S. school system entirely.
Ms. Cobo, a bilingual educator originally from Venezuela, has taught this population for the past two years. This school year she has 22 students. Several are in their second year of the program. Five arrived mid-year. The instructional challenge goes beyond language acquisition. It means developing academic English while keeping up with grade-level content at the same time.
The results from last year tell an important story. More than half of Ms. Cobo’s students moved from Beginner to Intermediate on TELPAS — a level of growth her principal described as unusual. Thirty percent passed STAAR in English. This year, all 22 students were functioning in English by March.
The Challenge
Like every newcomer educator, Ms. Cobo works with students who span a wide range of English proficiency levels and educational backgrounds. Each one brings distinct cultural assets to the classroom.
A recent shift from Spanish- to English-medium instruction added another layer of complexity. Students who spent their first year building content knowledge in Spanish now needed the academic English to express that knowledge, while keeping pace with the core curriculum at the same time. For five students who arrived mid-year, there was no runway at all.
Ms. Cobo had always relied on proven bilingual strategies. Visual scaffolding. Cognate bridges. Carefully placed Spanish to anchor understanding before the move to English practice. These were effective tools, but even with strong instructional instincts, she needed a structured system to organize instruction, track progress, and keep 22 students developing across every language domain at once.
Her goal was clear. By the end of third grade, every student should be able to understand and communicate in English well enough to feel capable, confident, and ready for what comes next. Simple to state. Anything but simple to deliver.
The Solution: A Purposeful Start and a Daily Rhythm
Ms. Cobo came into this school year with one year of Connect to Literacy™ experience and a clear plan to build on what she had learned. She spent the first weeks of school walking students through the platform so that every feature, every task, and every question type was already familiar before they ever opened a device on their own.
“I started teaching them: this is what you’re going to find in Connect to Literacy. This is the writing part — what do you do when you see this box? And we practiced it together.”
— Ms. Cobo, Third Grade Newcomers Teacher, Jones Elementary
Connect to Literacy™ resources became the foundation of the daily warm-up, rotating through a different domain each day: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Speaking practice had its own structure. Students wrote out what they planned to say before reading it aloud to a partner, weaving oral language and literacy together every day.
By the time students sat down at their computers, the work felt familiar. “They were like, ‘Miss, we did this with you.’ I said, ‘Yes, so you know what to do.’”
Building a Rhythm That Works
At the heart of Ms. Cobo’s implementation is a daily 20-minute independent practice station. Students work with headphones while she circulates, coaches, and checks in with each learner individually. The structure is intentional, consistent, and personalized to where each student is in their language development.
She aligns independent practice directly to what she is teaching in class. When the class works on foundational grammar, she assigns the matching Connect to Literacy™ skills so students reinforce that learning on their own. Instruction and platform practice work together, delivering the same content in two complementary formats.
The Newcomer Treks, designed for students building foundational literacy and language skills, proved especially valuable.
“They started with the articles, the verbs, and we moved up. It was exactly what they needed.”
— Ms. Cobo
Most Impactful Features
- TELPAS alignment that turned test day anxiety into confidence — “Miss, this looks like Summit”
- Progress visualization students could track from red to green in real time
- AI writing feedback that gave students immediate, actionable insight
- ClassCade gamification that students chose to use voluntarily outside of school
- On Ramps for Newcomers with foundational content built for the earliest stages of English
Partnership and Support
Ms. Cobo describes the Summit K12 support team as consistently present and genuinely responsive. When she ran into a technical issue implementing ClassCade, she reached out and heard back the same day.
“They knew me. I could say which school, and they’d say, ‘I have you, and I know what the problem is.’”
— Ms. Cobo
Monthly Language Lunch sessions give teachers a live space to ask questions and explore new features. Every session is recorded so teachers who cannot attend can access it later.
Results: Numbers That Tell Half the Story
Ms. Cobo’s principal was astonished by the growth her students made. But what may be hardest to measure is also the most meaningful. Confidence.
By March, students who arrived in August unable to understand a word of English were competing to read the daily quote aloud. A former student who was once one of Ms. Cobo’s greatest challenges now delivers the school’s morning announcements in English.
“That kid struggled. He was new to the country. Now he can speak English and he can read it. That’s when you see the confidence, and that’s the why.”
— Ms. Cobo
If You’re Considering Summit K12
Ms. Cobo’s advice is direct. “Please get it.”
Her deeper message is about how to make it work. She encourages other teachers to walk students through the platform before they use it independently, to build Connect to Literacy™ into the daily schedule as a consistent commitment, and to align platform assignments to whatever is being taught that week.
For Ms. Cobo, English instruction does not stop at the classroom door. It follows her students into specials, into the hallways, into morning announcements, and into the next chapter of their education. Connect to Literacy™ makes the most important parts of that work possible — not by replacing the teacher, but by providing the structure and resources to deliver personalized instruction at scale.
“I feel blessed, really. It’s March, and I can tell you that the growth I’ve seen is incredible.”
— Ms. Cobo, Third Grade Newcomers Teacher, Jones Elementary, Bryan ISD, Texas
