SRI Education’s Carrie Parker sat down with Ruchika Chopra of the Urban Collaborative to discuss Carrie’s research and reflections on policies and practices around identifying and supporting multilingual learners with disabilities in kindergarten to third grade.
SRI’s director of Multilingual Learner Program Area, Carrie Parker, co-hosted this episode and shares reflections from work she has done over the last five years to better understand how teachers in grades K-3 identify disabilities among multilingual learners.
Reclassification from English learner to English proficient is a crucial outcome for English learner (EL) students’ academic progress because it can open the door to more rigorous courses and lead to stronger academic outcomes.
When I arrived in the United States, I was not quite eight, and did not know how to even say “hello” in English. All I knew was that education was my opportunity to live a better life, and that I had to learn English to access it.
The language we use affects the way we perceive our world. Language can help create new understandings and expand our view of what exists and what is possible, and it also can limit our understanding. The terms we use to describe students who speak two or more languages or speak a language other than English at home, for example, impacts how we envision and develop programs and policies for those students.
Margarita Muñiz Academy in Boston, MA, was founded in 2012 with the mission of providing full cultural and linguistic fluency in Spanish and English for all of its students. The school’s development of its “Portrait of a Scholar” project led to a number of changes focused on providing greater opportunities for student voice and participation. … Continue reading Think Forward New England: Profiles of Innovation | Margarita Muñiz Academy
SRI Education is leading an external evaluation of bilingual professional development developed by faculty from Santa Clara University and San Jose State University. The National Professional Development Program of the Office of English Language Acquisition has funded this 5-year project to develop bilingual professional development for in-service teachers, pre-service teachers, and student caregivers. The project … Continue reading Bilingual/Biliterate Instruction for Bilingual Youth (BBILY) Evaluation
The Adapting and Innovating Project examined the experiences of students, teachers and administrators across New England districts during the 2020-2021 school year to better understand how they responded to COVID. The work included an Innovation Profile of the Maria Muniz Academy, the only dual language high school in Boston, as well as a blog summarizing … Continue reading Think Forward New England: New England’s Education Systems Navigate COVID-19 and Map a New Way Forward
Many teachers struggle with identifying disabilities among multilingual learners. How can they determine whether a particular child’s learning difficulties stem from typical English language development or a diagnosable learning disability?
Project: Pathway for Academic Success
The evaluation of the Pathway to Academic Success expansion grant is a 2-year RCT designed to meet WWC group standards without reservations that assesses the impact of this reading and writing intervention for teachers who serve secondary English Learners. It also includes a 1-year implementation study, which focuses specifically on how Pathway instructional strategies and … Continue reading Pathway for Academic Success
The purpose of this study is to explore factors associated with positive transition outcomes from high school to postsecondary life for students who are both English learners (ELs) and have a disability. Research suggests these students face multiple barriers to postsecondary success, but few studies have identified the challenges or successes these students experience during … Continue reading Mixed-Methods Exploration of Factors Associated with Postsecondary Success English Language Learners with Disabilities
From 2017 to 2020, REL Northeast & Islands staff worked with state and local partners in the region to learn about the policies and practices they use to identify disabilities among English learners and to provide resources to implement key policies and practices at the district, school, and classroom levels. » Learn more Project Leaders: … Continue reading REL Northeast & Islands Identifying Disabilities among English Learners
Extending prior research that explores the relationship between contextual factors, engagement, and learning in online settings, this mixed-methods study examines outcomes in a MOOC designed for teachers of English learners (ELs). The study identifies structural and social supports available to some course participants (release time, stipends, participating with colleagues, and having a facilitator who convened … Continue reading Taking Away Excuses to Quit: The Role of Supports in Completion and Learning in Online Professional Development for Teachers
This practioner brief describes four districts are using key practices to identify disabilities among English learners.
Resource: Supporting Educators in Determining Special Education Eligibility of English Learner Students
A slide deck with a summary of key practices using multi-tiered systems of support with English learners, including tools for understanding language vs. disability, screening and progress monitoring processes and tools, and a description of how to implement the three tiers of multi-tiered systems of support. View Resource Citation: Parker, C.E. & Grindal, T., (2021). … Continue reading Supporting Educators in Determining Special Education Eligibility of English Learner Students