Changes in the U.S. demographics over the past few decades reflect the growing diversity in American classrooms as more students come to school speaking, reading, or writing two or more languages. By building on students' full repertoire of linguistic and cultural resources, educators have the potential to transform literacy instruction in…

Decades of research, reports, and political mobilization on rights to quality education for linguistically diverse students attest to our rumination on this problem and suggest that what has been studied, peer-reviewed, and published ought to result in real change. Nonetheless, challenges remain in converging robust strategies with critical…

Schools in the United States are becoming increasingly diverse, and more culturally and linguistically competent school psychologists are needed to ensure all students receive the services they need to succeed. As schools in the United States grow increasingly diverse, effective interventions are essential for meeting the needs of emergent…

Laura Hamman-Ortiz, a language and literacy researcher, discusses Translanguaging, an emerging instructional theory that challenges traditional understandings of bilingualism view the different languages used by a student as distinct skill sets. By contrast, translanguaging reframes bilingualism as a flexible linguistic activity that is intimately…

Since many bilingual students do not have access to bilingual education, this article illustrates how to collaborate with families and create instructional innovations to support biliteracy for all young bilinguals. The authors implemented a Biliteracy Jumpstart for 6 weeks at the beginning of school year culminating in Family Biliteracy Day with…

This article argues for the need to center Latine students' experiences and language practices in Spanish programs at Hispanic Serving Institutions. We describe the work and possibilities of designing programs informed by Latine Studies perspectives as well by culturally and linguistically sustaining approaches to teaching Heritage Language…

Evaluating students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (i.e., emergent bilinguals) presents challenges to evaluation teams, as distinguishing between a language disorder and typical second language development is more complex. The skills and knowledge required to do this task often exceed the level of training that evaluators…

In the United States, the number of dual language learners has rapidly increased, requiring essential instructional support, especially for young children. Without the intentional teaching of academic vocabulary, academic words are not incorporated into the repertoire of emergent bilingual children (EBC). A recent systematic review of vocabulary…

California has one of the largest populations of multilingual learners (MLs) in the United States (California Department of Education [CDE], 2020; 2021). These MLs have unique strengths and needs, which require school psychologists to have specialized training (Gonzalez et al., 2022; Harris et al., 2021). However, few school psychology training…

In here, I provide a description of a multiliteracies elementary classroom's ecology according to how an elementary bilingual teacher and bilingual language learners in her classroom interact and engage with traditional (linguistic) and alternative (multimodal) texts in language arts. This multiliteracies classroom ecology shows their dynamic…

Emergent bilingual children express their ideas in written language through meaningful marks on a page by leveraging their oral language and print focused skills from home and school languages. Because writing is a complex task, particularly for children learning more than one language, teachers must make decisions about how they guide children…

The aim of the current systematic review and meta-analysis is to comprehensively synthesize the effectiveness of language promotion interventions in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings on L1 and L2 development of dual language learners (DLLs). We will use the PICOC-Strategy (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Context)…

In the U.S., programming for students classified as English Learners must adhere to the framework outlined in "Castañeda v. Pickard" (1981), which demands a basis in "legitimate educational theory," implementation with "adequate techniques," and regular evaluation (p. 1010), while remaining explicitly agnostic about…

With the number of emergent bilingual students (also known as English language learners) in classrooms increasing, it's key that teachers practice "linguistically sustaining practices" so students don't lose their native language as they learn English. Hill describes ways teachers and school leaders can support retaining native…

Educators consider guided reading one of the most powerful instructional tools in a reading teacher's arsenal. Yet, when it comes to emergent bilinguals in both monolingual English and bilingual settings, guided reading is implemented monolingually, or in one language at a time. As the field of reading instruction has moved toward a more…