Our Favorite Resources for Supporting Multilingual Learners
We compiled a list of some of our favorite free and practical resources for supporting multilingual learners—check them out below.
Browse the full list or skip straight to the resources you’re looking for:
Resource hubs
Alternate English Language Learning Assessment Project (ATELLA)
ALTELLA provides research-based resources about English language proficiency assessment and learning for multilingual students with cognitive disabilities.
Center to Support Excellence in Teaching: Understanding Language
This project from the Stanford Graduate School of Education synthesizes knowledge, conducts research, and develops resources to meet students’ evolving linguistic needs.
¡Colorîn Colorado!
This bilingual website provides research as well as practical resources for families and educators supporting multilingual learners.
English Learners Success Forum
This organization created a library of evidence-based resources and tools that support ELA and math educators in creating and adapting instructional materials to be more inclusive of multilingual learners.
Multilingual Learning Toolkit
This toolkit includes answers to key questions along with strategies gleaned from the latest research on multilingual learners.
Cross-subject instructional leadership
A Framework for Raising Expectations and Instructional Rigor for English Language Learners
The Council of the Great City Schools outlines a framework for acquiring English and attaining content mastery, and it provides criteria by which educators can determine whether instructional materials are appropriate for multilingual learners.
Highest Aspirations Podcast
This podcast from Ellevation features conversations with educators and students, researchers and policy makers, and parents and community members about how we can help multilingual students reach their highest aspirations.
Linguistically Responsive Teachers
This research story from the Harvard Graduate School of Education shares six essential understandings of second language learning as well as pedagogical expertise that classroom teachers need in order to support multilingual learners.
MTSS Learning Briefs
This collection of model demonstration research on multitiered systems of supports (MTSS) includes a series on meeting the needs of multilingual learners with and without disabilities.
Translanguaging
CUNY-New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (NYSIEB) created guides to help multilingual learners make use of their full linguistic repertoires to meet communicative and academic needs and to learn challenging new content.
Reading
A Framework for Foundational Literacy Skills Instruction for English Learners
This framework from the Council of the Great City Schools outlines six guiding principles for the foundational skills development of multilingual learners.
National Committee for Effective Literacy
The National Committee for Effective Literacy uplifts research, policies, and practices to ensure that multilingual learners leave school as proficient readers and writers.
Literacy Instruction for ELLs
This collection of resources covers grade-level strategies as well as suggestions for teaching more advanced reading and writing skills.
Using the Science of Reading to Improve Literacy Instruction for English Learners
This 30-minute webinar from the Consortium on Reaching Excellence in Education focuses on how the science of reading can be applied to teaching multilingual learners to read and write in English.
Supporting Early Literacy for Multilingual Learners
Explore Instruction Partners’ research-based tools, guidance, and blog posts—intentionally developed by our team to help educators provide targeted and effective early literacy support for multilingual learners.
What Does Research Tell Us About Teaching Reading to English Language Learners?
In this article, Suzanne Irujo discusses the findings of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth in the context of her own experience as an ELL teacher.
STEM
5 Common misconceptions about teaching multilingual learners math
In this blog post, the Instruction Partners team challenges five common misconceptions that limit multilingual learners’ success in math—and offer practical, classroom-ready strategies to better support them.
A Framework for Re-envisioning Mathematics Instruction for English Language Learners
This report from the Council of the Great City Schools provides a framework for understanding the interdependence of language and math, and it presents criteria by which educators can determine whether instructional materials are appropriate for multilingual learners.
Amplify and Facilitate Student Curiosity About Language
This guidance from the English Learners Success Forum can help ensure language is not a barrier to multilingual students’ learning of mathematical concepts.
Doing and Talking Math and Science
This website provides quick access to educator resources that support students’ simultaneous meaning-making in science and mathematics and meaning-making in English.
English Learners in STEM Subjects: Transforming Classrooms, Schools, and Lives
This report from the National Academy of Sciences provides guidance on how to improve learning outcomes in STEM for multilingual learners.
Teaching Mathematics to English Language Learners
This presentation from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics describes strategies for teaching math to multilingual learners, including strategies for facilitating class discussion and helping learners tackle word problems.