Last month, the House Appropriations Committee approved its version of fiscal year 2025 Department of Defense (DoD) appropriations legislation, including $15 million for the World Language Advancement and Readiness Grants Program (WLARP). This is a significant funding victory for world language advocates, as the same committee voted to cut the program in half for fiscal year 2024, which ultimately resulted in a $5 million reduction for the program.
Authorized in 2020, WLARP has provided more than $50 million in multiyear grants for innovative world language and dual language immersion programs to 24 military-connected public school districts, spread across 16 states. Languages represented by the awards include ASL, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish.
“The House Appropriations Committee’s vote to restore WLARP funding to $15 million is a major step forward in ensuring continued funding to support innovative language programs in military-connected schools,” said JNCL-NCLIS executive director Amanda Seewald. “The swift mobilization and dedicated advocacy of our JNCL-NCLIS advocates and current WLARP grantees undoubtedly played a pivotal role in this decision.”
Coming during an era of federal budget austerity, this significant funding increase compared to last year is a demonstration of support for world language funding. The full House is expected to take up the committee’s approved fiscal year 2025 DoD appropriations bill later this summer. Ultimately, the final House bill will need to be reconciled with the Senate’s version of the same bill, which has not yet been outlined.
“JNCL-NCLIS truly appreciates the House Appropriations Committee’s action and recognition of the importance of language education. We are grateful for the support of our House WLARP champions Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) and Rep. Young Kim (R-CA), and we look forward to continuing to work together to show Congress and the administration that WLARP provides essential value for our nation,” concluded Seewald.
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Howard, E. R., Lindholm-Leary, K. J., Rogers, D., Olague, N., Medina, J., Kennedy, B., Sugarman, J., & Christian, D. (2018). Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Mitchell,C. (2020, February 07). The Invisible Burden Some Bilingual Teachers Face. Education Week.
Rutherford-Quach, S., Torre Gibney, D., Kelly, H., Ballen Riccards, J., Garcia, E., Hsiao, M., Pellerin, E., & Parker, C. (2021). Bilingual education across the United States. CCNetwork.
Thomas, W.P., & Collier, V.P. (2012). Dual Language Education For a Transformed World. Albuquerque, NM: Dual Language Education of New Mexico – Fuente Press.
Walker, T. (2022, February 01). Survey: Alarming Number of Educators May Soon Leave the Profession. National Education Association.
OHIO The Ohio House Higher Education Committee recently started hosting testimony from educators and policy experts about the Science of Reading. “Explicitly teaching the sounds and symbols of our language and skills for language comprehension creates proficient readers,” said Steve Dackin, director of the Department of Education and Workforce.
Ohio’s two-year, $191 billion budget included Science of Reading provisions—$86 million for educator professional development, $64 million for curriculum and instructional materials, and $18 million for literacy coaches. Ohio colleges and universities are examining their teacher preparation programs as public school districts are starting to implement the Science of Reading.
The Ohio Department of Higher Education chancellor Mike Duffey is required to create an audit process that shows how every educator training program aligns with teaching the Science of Reading instruction.
The formal audits will start in January 2025, and Duffey can revoke a college or university’s approval if it fails the audit.
“Ohio is relatively unique among the states that have implemented the Science of Reading because we truly have teeth behind the legislative requirement,” Duffey said during a committee meeting. “This is our most powerful tool to ensure fidelity to the policy enacted by the legislature.”
Ohio has 50 approved educator preparation programs in 13 public universities and 37 independent colleges and universities. More than 4,430 people graduated through those programs in 2023, Duffey said. The state’s public school districts and community schools will start using core curriculum and instructional materials for English language arts and reading intervention programs from lists made by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce next school year.
About a third of Ohio’s school districts and community schools are already using at least one of the initially approved core reading instruction curricula.
House Higher Education Committee chairman Tom Young said he has received positive feedback on the Science of Reading from people in his district who are teachers.
“I’ve seen nothing but enthusiasm,” he said. “I was surprised, quite frankly.”
Higher Education Committee ranking member Joe Miller (D-Amherst) questioned why the Science of Reading isn’t being implemented for all Ohio students under the state budget.
“Why is this just public schools and charter schools?” he asked. “Everybody deserves to have this.”
Those who testified said nonpublic schools can use the Science of Reading if they want.
MICHIGAN Dyslexia bills supported by Science of Reading advocates have moved beyond all previous attempts to turn them into Michigan law.
Testimony for the two bills, which supporters say would help schools better identify and teach students with dyslexia or other reading difficulties, has begun in the House Education Committee. The bills have already passed a vote in the Senate.
The legislation would require Michigan’s K–12 public schools and teacher preparation programs to use principles from the Science of Reading. Previous iterations of the legislation passed in the Senate in 2022 but never got to a hearing in the House Education Committee.
Senator Jeff Irwin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor who has pushed for years for bills to address reading instruction for students with dyslexia, said the legislation would help all kids who have trouble grasping early literacy instruction.
“I’m not here to argue that phonics is the only fundamental skill,” said Irwin during the hearing. “And I’m not here to argue that it’s the only thing that we need to be teaching kids. I’m here to argue that it is a fundamental skill, and it is a thing that we must be attending to, and that by failing to attend to it, we miss a lot.”
Michigan schools currently are not required to follow a set reading curriculum and are able to select their own under local control. The state provides some guidance on using evidence-based programs. The bills would add more direction to schools on approaches teachers should use.
Kansas Governor Laura Kelly signed into law the Kansas Blueprint for Literacy legislation, which would “amend teacher education programs to improve classroom instruction in reading,” adhering to “evidence-based research on phonemic awareness, phonetics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.” The bipartisan bill would align higher education and K–12 resources to retrain Kansas educators in the science of reading, structured literacy, literacy screening, and assessment tools. It directed the Kansas Board of Regents, which has oversight responsibilities for state universities, to appoint a director of literacy education and create a literacy committee. The measure appropriated $10 million to the Kansas Board of Regents for the cost of training teachers in reading and preparing them to earn a reading science credential. Centers for excellence in reading would be established at the six state universities to provide assessment and diagnosis of reading difficulties, train in-service and preservice educators through the use of simulation labs, and support school-based instructional coaches.
California State superintendent of public instruction Tony Thurmond testified in Senate Education Committee about the need for results-proven training for all teachers of reading and math. Thurmond’s testimony was in support of SB 1115, which proposes to fund “evidence-backed educator training in order to address the urgent need for improved student outcomes across the state.” According to the California Department of Education, current efforts to fund educator training in literacy and math are only sufficient to train one third of California’s educator workforce. SB 1115 would fund the remaining two thirds. “This is an issue of moral clarity,” said Thurmond. “In the fifth-largest economy in the world, and in an age when we have access to substantial brain science about how students learn, it should be unacceptable to train only some educators in the best strategies to teach essential skills.” SB 1115 includes support for multiple methods backed by research, including phonics, as well as language development strategies aligned to the California ELA/ELD Framework proven to support and encourage biliteracy and multilingualism.
Oklahoma If passed by the Senate, legislation passed by the Oklahoma House of Representatives could ban teachers from using the “three-cueing” method to teach reading, and instead train them in the science of reading, including phonics instruction. Senate Bill 362 renames Oklahoma’s existing state Reading Sufficiency Act as the Strong Readers Act and includes the following provisions: Oklahoma public school teachers “shall be prohibited from using the three-cueing system model of teaching students to read” starting in the 2027–28 school year. It defines the three-cueing system as “any model of teaching students to read based on meaning, structure, syntax, and visual cues, which may also be known as meaning, structure, and visual (MSV), balanced literacy, or whole language.” Oklahoma teachers are to be trained in “the science of reading to provide explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, encoding, writing, and comprehension, and implement reading strategies that research has shown to be successful in improving reading among students with reading difficulties.” Teacher candidates seeking degrees in early childhood education or elementary education are to pass a comprehensive assessment measuring their teaching skills in reading instruction. SB 362 passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives on a 78–3 vote. The amended legislation now returns to the Oklahoma Senate.
Wisconsin The Wisconsin Legislature is suing Governor Tony Evers and the Department of Public Instruction over literacy legislation passed last summer and the partial veto of SB 971 in February, which empowered the Joint Finance Committee to direct $50 million for specific early literacy programs that were included in the 2023 bill. The lawsuit argues partial vetoes to that bill issued by Evers were unconstitutional. Evers’s partial veto (Act 100) struck out language allocating money for school boards and charter schools to comply with the early literacy program requirements. The lawsuit argues the changes “will allow DPI to treat any money directed to it as money that can be used by the Office of Literacy for any literacy program that office deems fit.” The bipartisan reading bill, known as Act 20, with its emphasis on phonics, is scheduled to be implemented in the 2024–25 school year.
Maryland Maryland’s new Freedom to Read act outlaws book bans within library systems that receive money from the state. The law states material may not be excluded or removed from a school library because of the origin, background, or views of the author and not for partisan, ideological, or religious disapproval either. It also calls for school systems to create a procedure to review titles that may be challenged but must remain available on the shelves during the process. The legislation adds protections against retaliation for library staff who follow the law. A violation of the law could lead to loss of state funding. The law comes to light as Maryland libraries report seeing a 130% increase in formal challenges in their collections since 2019, according to the Maryland State Library Agency.
The Council for Exceptional Children estimates that multilinguals with disabilities make up approximately 14% of the multilingual population—more than 718,000 students. We know the number of multilingual students with disabilities in the U.S. grew by close to 30% between 2012 and 2020. Roughly 5 million students have been identified as English language learners or 10% of the school population. The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has identified the percentage of students with disabilities that are multilinguals by state. It ranges from 26.37% in California to 8.58% in Florida and includes students from age 5 to age 21.
Despite these statistics, we know that multilingual students with dyslexia are currently both over and under-identified in public schools. Often, schools under-identify multilinguals with dyslexia because they think the issue is language-based, so they don’t evaluate the student. There are places where multilingual students are overrepresented because we think we’ve given them the right kind of intervention when we actually haven’t. So, the relationship between multilingual students and special education is complicated.
These kinds of contradictions often leave students stuck in the middle and they don’t receive proper identification for several years, by which time they’ve missed critical early literacy instruction. More than 400 languages are represented in public schools, but 75% of multilinguals speak Spanish at home. Federal data shows that approximately 15% of English learners have learning disabilities, and 80% of these disabilities identify as dyslexia.
Defining Dyslexia
The International Dyslexia Association offers this standard definition of dyslexia:
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.
These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction.
Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede the growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.
Most states don’t have guidance to help diagnose multilinguals with disabilities, although the US Department of Education issued a directive in 2016 to help schools distinguish between multilinguals who struggle with language and those who have learning disabilities. Multilinguals who are misidentified as having learning disabilities often have less opportunity to develop their language and higher-order thinking skills. In fact, research has shown that multilinguals with disabilities achieve better outcomes when they are exposed to two or more languages.
Even though dyslexia screening has not been mandated in all states, most have a screener which really must be used between kindergarten and second grade. By third grade, too much early literacy instruction has been missed, and multilinguals must start earlier to build their foundation skills and academic vocabulary through direct, explicit instruction.
Early Identification is Critical to Literacy Success
In a study1, researcher Sara Kangas, an applied linguist and assistant professor at Lehigh University’s College of Education, found that some educators didn’t prioritize language services for multilingual students because they had low expectations for the students. She asserted that dismissing the importance of bilingual language development for these students with special needs was rooted in a deficit mindset that did not value those who were not native English speakers.
It seems clear that there is a need for further work to train teachers to recognize the difference between students who are learning a language and students who have a learning disability. And appreciate that some students fit into both categories—working from a language other than English and requiring special education support.
Other barriers to inconsistent identification of multilingual students with learning disabilities include:
Lack of multi-tiered early intervention strategies
Poorly designed and implemented referral processes
Lack of options other than referral to special education services
Outdated and disproven methods of literacy instruction
The ramifications of inadequate identification include multilinguals:
With disabilities who miss out on services
Who are misidentified and receive special education services they don’t need
Who end up in classrooms that don’t meet their needs
Who miss out on educational opportunities because they’ve been misidentified
All states should mandate dyslexia screening for early identification as research shows that the sooner students can begin systematic, explicit, sequential literacy instruction, the sooner they can become proficient readers and writers.
Demystifying Dyslexia
Despite there being a lot of myths about dyslexia, multilingualism making dyslexia more complicated is not one of them, because multilinguals are learning two or more languages that have different sound systems.
Dyslexia is not:
Caused by being multilingual
A result of laziness
A lack of motivation
A socioeconomic advantage or disadvantage
A visual problem
:
“Dyslexia is a phonological processing problem that is neurobiological and makes it difficult to decode words accurately and fluently, as well as making spelling very difficult. Dyslexia is highly genetic and occurs on a continuum from mild to severe. People with dyslexia have the ability to learn to read, they just need to be taught the way they learn, and they require accommodations to succeed via other learning modalities, such as the audio presentation of information,” explains Kelli-Sandman-Hurley, cofounder of the Dyslexia Training Institute, wrote
Screening and Assessment for Dyslexia
More than 1 in 10 native English speakers have dyslexia. There is wide agreement that genetic history is the leading cause. Although some schools may attribute reading and writing difficulties to the students learning English, there are primary characteristics to look for. Screening and assessments for dyslexia must include the evaluation of phonological awareness, decoding, fluent word recognition, and spelling. Observing how these skills impact reading comprehension, vocabulary, and background knowledge is also important.
When screening for dyslexia:
Determine the number of years of high-quality native language instruction in reading and writing as well as instruction in English to determine if the problem is a lack of instruction.
Consider whether the student has difficulty reading and writing in their heritage language. That might point to dyslexia. If the students have literacy skills in their native language but struggle with English, perhaps the issue is limited exposure to high-quality instruction in English.
Review specific error patterns to ensure they are not overgeneralizations from a student’s native language to English.
Test reading fluency and spelling as multilingual students with dyslexia may be able to decode well in Spanish and need further investigation.
Gather family information because dyslexia is hereditary.
Look for students with below-average phonemic awareness in their native language. They are likely to have difficulty learning a new language.
The International Dyslexia Association provides guidance on areas to examine for dyslexia. All of these attributes can serve as risk factors for multilingual students with dyslexia.
Student’s understanding and use of language in general
Phoneme awareness
Rapid naming, which can include letters, numbers, or pictures
Word reading skills, including real words and pseudo-words
Ability to rhyme
Word reading fluency, including accuracy and rate
Sentence reading fluency, including accuracy, prosody, and rate
Paragraph reading fluency, including, accuracy, prosody, and rate
Reading comprehension at the sentence and paragraph level
Written language skills to include word-level spelling as well as writing composition (narrative and informational) at the sentence and paragraph levels.
Structured Literacy: Effective Instruction for Multilinguals with Dyslexia
Research indicates that multilingual students with some foundation in reading in their native language who are struggling to learn English should receive direct instruction that includes speech perception, phoneme awareness, and sound-symbol connections. Literacy in a student’s initial language is the key to helping them learn English, especially with dyslexia.
To help all students with dyslexia, including multilingual students, teachers must have a deep understanding of the science of reading and the extensive body of evidence-based research that supports teacher-led direct instruction. Structured Literacy is a classroom application of the science of reading, and explicitly teaches systematic word identification and decoding strategies.
Explicit instruction doesn’t assume that students will grasp essential literacy concepts on their own. It is teacher-led as it requires continuous teacher-student interaction. Systematic and cumulative instruction means the organization of the content follows a sequence from easiest to most difficult concepts and elements. Cumulative means that each new step is based on the previous step.
Another critical aspect of structured literacy is that teachers must differentiate instruction for each student. This is determined by continual assessments that are both formal and informal. The goal for students is to develop automaticity as that is what’s required for comprehension and written expression.
Students with learning disabilities greatly benefit from explicit, step-by-step instructions for every part of the literacy-acquisition process—especially reading comprehension. Explicit instruction means teachers are stating exactly what is expected, defining terms, modeling, giving examples, and including step-by-step directions on the board for students to follow.
Some best practices to apply Structured Literacy strategies for multilingual students with dyslexia include:
Implement research-based professional learning and instruction.
Empower educators with proven methodologies for positive outcomes.
Train educators to identify students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities according to proven, fair, and unbiased methods.
Provide teachers with high-quality learning materials based on the science of reading.
Monitor student progress. Literacy specialists and teachers must be able to guide instruction with real-time data.
Make systematic reviews of the process of identifying and responding to the needs of all students creating equitable outcomes for all students, including multilinguals with dyslexia.
Key Takeaways for Identifying Multilinguals with Dyslexia
Multilingual students are both over- and under-identified as dyslexic in public schools. The most common reason for this is likely a lack of training for educators on how to screen for dyslexia, and how to maximize instruction once the diagnosis is made. Here are some takeaways on this topic to keep in mind:
The number of non-English speakers in US schools continues to increase.
While some states require screeners for dyslexia, not all do, and early identification is critical for multilingual students to optimize their literacy opportunities.
The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has identified the percentage of students with disabilities that are multilinguals by state.
Genetic history is the leading cause of dyslexia and has nothing to do with what the student’s primary language is.
The International Dyslexia Association provides a lot of guidance for educators on how to identify dyslexia and the instructional strategies to apply.
The science of reading and Structured Literacy, in particular, offers evidence-based instructional strategies that help all readers, including multilinguals with dyslexia, and opportunities to become excellent readers and writers.
Provide teachers with high-quality professional development and instructional materials to help all students become proficient readers and writers.
Raúl Escarpio, Ed.D, has worked in special education with multilingual students for more than 30 years and now serves as a National Literacy Consultant for Lexia.
A First Nations lawmaker in Ontario, Canada, has addressed the province’s legislature in Anishininiimowin, in a move that repudiates a centuries-long colonial “war” on Indigenous languages.
Sol Mamakwa, a New Democratic Party member from the community of Kingfisher Lake First Nation, gave the province’s first-ever Indigenous-language speech in Queen’s Park, adding that the “historic” milestone made him feel “thankful and proud.”
Before speaking, Mamakwa asked for the unanimous consent of the house to speak at length in Anishininiimowin, also known as Oji-Cree, receiving applause from lawmakers in response.
“I am speaking for those who couldn’t use their language… and for every Indigenous person in Ontario,” he said. “The language was taken from us by the arrival of the settlers, colonization, and residential school. This history removed the children from our ways of life.” He added that children had their mouths washed out with soap for speaking their mother tongue.
Decades of hostile government policies, including the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families and a system of residential schools, stripped many peoples of their cultures and, by extension, their languages.
The historic moment follows a decision by Ontario’s government house leader, Paul Calandra, to amend a standing order that previously required lawmakers to use either English or French. Members are now allowed to use an “Indigenous language spoken in Canada” when addressing the speaker or chamber. When Mamakwa spoke, simultaneous translation was available in English and French.
More than two dozen members of Kingfisher Lake First Nation traveled to Toronto to witness the event, standing alongside Indigenous political leaders from across the province.
Although nearly two million Canadians identify as Indigenous, only 260,000 can speak an Indigenous language, a government committee found. And of the 58 distinct Indigenous languages spoken throughout the country, a growing number are at risk of disappearing.
While Cree, Ojibwe, and Inuktitut have relatively large numbers of speakers, others are on the brink of extinction: the Sechelt language, historically spoken in what is now British Columbia, has just four native speakers. In the region of Haida Gwaii, the youngest native Haida speaker is in her 70s.
Mamakwa’s mother, Kezia, who does not speak English, was also in attendance on Tuesday. She was recognized with a standing ovation from lawmakers, and after Mamakwa noted she was celebrating her 79th birthday, the legislature broke into song.
“She used to take me out into the wilderness and onto the land, teaching me the language. That’s why I’m able to speak my First Nations language,” said Mamakwa.
He also acknowledged the influence of his late father, Jerry. “He’s hearing us today,” he said, holding up an eagle feather. But Mamakwa, who represents the vast, Indigenous-majority electoral district of Kiiwetinoong, said a recent meeting with an elder revealed he is slowly losing his command of Anishininiimowin, hastening the need for more official use of the language.
“When we speak our own language, it’s like we’re one with the land. There is a strength in speaking our language—it’s like a healing medicine,” he said.
After his speech, ministers from the governing Progressive Conservative Party crossed the aisle to congratulate and embrace Mamakwa, as did the Ontario premier, Doug Ford.
“I’m proud of you,” Ford told Mamakwa before embracing the lawmaker.
Mamakwa also led the opening to the question period, asking in Anishininiimowin about funding for health care beds for elderly residents in his community.
In Canada’s Parliament, a 2019 rule change allowed lawmakers to address colleagues in an Indigenous language. They must give two days’ notice to request translation. Mamakwa said he was “praying” that other provincial legislatures would adopt Ontario’s rules to allow Indigenous languages to be spoken. “This is a healing moment,” he said. “It overwhelms my heart.”
Luis García Montero, director of the Instituto Cervantes, recently visited China to sign several academic agreements with the superpower’s educational organizations of the Asian giant. In 2023, China was among the countries with the most DELE (Diplomas de Español) exam takers enrolled in the Cervantes network of the Instituto Cervantes with more than 5,500 examinees and had the best SIELE results.
The demand for Spanish is increasing, and it is now taught in high schools and universities. Since the opening of the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute in Beijing in 2006 and of the Biblioteca Miguel de Cervantes in Shanghai, the number of Spanish students in China has grown to around 60,000.
In 2018, the Instituto Cervantes signed an agreement for the recognition of DELE as certification exams for Spanish knowledge in China and for their realization through the National Authority for Educational Examinations (NEEA), the government body that authorizes the administration of examinations in foreign languages throughout the country.
After visiting Beijing, García Montero traveled to Shanghai, where he met with the head of the CIIC (China International Intellectech Co., Ltd.) to sign an extension of the collaboration contract for 2024–2026 and an agreement with Spanish universities that will facilitate internships in the city of Shanghai for their Chinese students.
García Montero spoke at Shanghai University’s International Education Center conference, themed “Spanish, language for a new globalization,” during which he analyzed how the language can contribute to establishing more equitable relationships on the international stage as well as acting as a bridge between different societies.
More than 60,000 students of Spanish in China Spanish is establishing itself as the second most in-demand foreign language in China, due in part to the important economic and cultural ties that the Chinese government maintains with the Spanish-speaking world.
Furthermore, in 2018, the growing weight of Spanish on the international scene led the Chinese authorities to allow it to be offered as the first foreign language in the school and university curriculum. According to the latest data, there are more than 60,000 Spanish students in the People’s Republic, 25,000 of them at the university, where, according to sources from China’s Ministry of Education, it is taught in more than a hundred faculties. There is also a significant growth in certifications (DELE and SIELE) in the country, mainly due to demand from students who wish to continue their studies in a Spanish-speaking country, or from those who are learning Spanish in the private sector and who require a diploma with global recognition.
Furthermore, with Spain being a stable trading partner of China, mastery of Spanish opens multiple opportunities in business, tourism, and education, not only with Spain but with the entire American continent.
Schools are placing a greater emphasis on foundational skills than ever before, and rightly so. For many years, schools struggled to develop frameworks that explicitly and systematically teach these skills while also ensuring other components of literacy are present, such as reading grade-level texts and writing. In dual language and multilingual programming, the task is even more complex. How do we ensure that our multilingual students are developing critical literacy skills in the target language as well as in English? As districts work to provide systematic phonics instruction, it is important to keep our perspective inclusive and ensure that we maintain a holistic approach to literacy instruction.
A quality framework will ensure that all of the essential components for literacy instruction are well-developed and also must consider how language learners will acquire language. So, how do we develop proficient literacy skills (in one or more languages) while also developing language proficiency? How can we shift this practice to strengthen not only literacy skills but also language development? How can we elevate the language comprehension piece in our classrooms and engage students in discourse that will elevate their oral language while deepening explicit instruction with code-based skills? Oracy.
If you were to analyze the various frameworks that exist for effective literacy development, you would likely notice some overlapping key components. One component that is evident in all frameworks, whether it is a framework for monolingual students or multilingual students, is language comprehension. Language comprehension is an essential element for learning how to read. If a child does not speak or understand the language they are learning to decode, they will not develop comprehension, nor will they develop language. However, language comprehension looks very different for students who are monolingual speakers versus multilingual students.
When teaching multilingual learners how to read, we must consider the other factors at play. We must ensure that language comprehension and language development are connected with skill-based instruction. We must put intention into planning for activities that authentically engage our students and emphasize speaking and listening. “Connecting oral language development, other language-based skills, and content learning to code-based skills (decoding, phonemic awareness, etc.) development deepens English learners’ understanding of how English works” (Council of the Great City Schools Organization, 2023, p. 35).
Districts are feeling the pressure to shift their literacy frameworks and practices to include more systematic instruction. While literacy frameworks such as Scarborough’s rope (2001) and the simple view of reading (1986) highlight several integral components that develop effective literacy, many educators interpret from these frameworks that phonics instruction should be the primary focus. This attention to a systematic approach to phonics instruction is important for the development of literate students. Nevertheless, we cannot allow the pendulum to swing so far toward phonics instruction that we do not develop the other components of effective literacy instruction. English learners do need phonics instruction. They also need to understand the meanings of the words they are sounding out. With overemphasis on the decoding of words, multilingual students can become word callers and proficient decoders but will not understand what they are reading. They will miss out on explicit instruction on how English works. Following a strict phonics-only approach does not allow multilingual learners to develop more complex language structures and vocabulary that will begin to appear at higher-proficiency text levels.
As we develop proficient readers, it is essential to consider ways to incorporate more sophisticated language structures throughout our instruction and expand the vocabulary students will need to engage with in the literacy task and the content. Engaging students in dedicated oracy will ensure that students are engaged in discourse that develops language structures and also strengthens the acquisition of vocabulary needed to complete literacy tasks. In many cases and classrooms, oracy development is one of the least emphasized and most often forgotten components of effective literacy instruction.
Oracy is deeply connected to oral language. All children need oral language development in order to comprehend language both in spoken and in written form. Oral language is the precursor to literacy. Multilingual learners must consistently be engaged in oral language development throughout their school day. Enhancing opportunities for English learners to engage orally at school becomes an urgent challenge and requires that teachers offer well-structured support (Soto-Hinman, 2011). Maximizing access to rich oral language development at school is important, especially for those who may not have been exposed to rich oral language development at home.
Providing this structured access to oral language development in school will allow students to acquire the language needed to become proficient readers, who are able to hear the sounds needed for decoding text while also comprehending the meaning of text. Time needs to be dedicated to intentionally planning for productive talk and ensuring that effective, structured talk is woven into all subjects: reading, writing, math, social studies, science, art, music, physical education, etc. “Sadly, academic talk is most scarce where it is most needed—in classrooms with high numbers of linguistically and culturally diverse students” (Zwiers and Crawford, 2011, p. 8). What steps should we take to not only engage our students with activities that promote talk but also link that talk to literacy?
Let us start out by defining the term oracy. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, oracy is defined as “proficiency in oral expression and comprehension. Oral + -acy (as in literacy) = oracy.” Below is a table that defines oracy from two different sources.
Oracy
Oracy is understood as learning both to talk and through talk. Transform Teaching and Learning through Talk: The Oracy Imperative, p. 8
The oral language skills that contribute to the acquisition of literacy. Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action, p. 19
When we look at these definitions side by side, we can see that both definitions include talk and move us to understand that it is through continual and explicitly planned opportunities for talk that students will not only strengthen their understanding of content but also use the language to acquire literacy skills.
While states continue to pass legislation regarding guidelines for effective literacy, many are also mandating a list of approved core instructional materials that districts must use. Districts are working feverishly to develop literacy plans that align with evidence-based practices in order to close the opportunity gap with students. Unfortunately, many are relying on these approved core materials to solve the reading crisis in an effort to raise reading achievement in their state, requiring teachers to follow the program “with fidelity.” Instructional materials are the resource to guide systematic literacy instruction; however, it is important for teachers to have the flexibility to adapt instruction to meet the diverse needs of their classes. Oracy will develop foundational skills and language development when it is comprehensible for students, explicitly connected to foundational skills, purposeful, and engaging.
Connecting Oracy with Foundational Skills
Let us begin with the importance of connection. When teaching students how to read in two languages (or in a language that is different from their home language), it’s important to explicitly teach skills in context and build connections for students. Research shows that what is known and understood in one language will help to contribute to what is known and understood in the other (Cummins, 2000; Dworin, 2003). Foundational skills instruction must be embedded in context and connected for students. “For students who speak languages other than English at home, foundational skills instruction must be informed by second language acquisition pedagogy and contrastive linguistics to help ELs distinguish similarities and differences between English and their home languages and to learn how meaning is constructed in English” (Council of the Great City Schools Organization, p. 10). When developing biliteracy with our students, we must dedicate time to developing oracy with our students in both the target language and English while capitalizing on the cross-linguistic transfer between languages.
As we develop literacy skills in one language, connecting those skills to the other language will help solidify students’ biliteracy development. In developing foundational skills, we must first identify the skills that are similar between languages that we can transfer and skills that are unique to the English language, which will need to be explicitly taught. Once an identified scope and sequence of foundational skills have been developed in the two languages (identifying transferable skills and explicitly taught skills), teachers can develop cohesive lessons embedded in context and build connections for students. Once we have established a structure for explicit connections, we have another task at hand: planning for oracy.
When planning for oracy, where does one begin? Let’s equate planning for oracy with building a house. When we are building a house, our first step isn’t running out to buy a load of bricks and random materials. We start with the big picture: What do we want our dream home to look like once it is built? We first have to develop the vision and the target plan for what our house will look like. This is the discourse level of oracy. We then take the steps to begin building this dream home, from pouring a strong foundation to constructing the walls. This is the sentence level of oracy. Finally, we identify the materials we need to purchase in order to build those walls. These are the bricks, or in oracy-speak, the word level.
To recap, the first step in planning for oracy is to start with the end in mind: Identify the standards that will be taught. Develop your objectives: content and language.
Objectives
Next, think about what the dialogue would sound like if students were engaged in a conversation around that specific skill. What would students say to each other? How would they respond appropriately, ask questions, or deepen the conversation? This is the result of what language you would like students to practice and produce in order to develop the foundational skill that you have identified. Once you have that ideal conversation, begin to plan for the explicit language structures for students to engage with:
Analyze the language structures in the dialogue to develop sentence frames or sentence stems that students will rely on to produce this talk.
Differentiate the sentence structures for students who have higher and more developing language proficiencies.
Identify the vocabulary that you will need to introduce to students in a comprehensible manner, such as using TPR (total physical response) and visuals.
Select the cooperative structure you would like students to use in order to engage in the oracy activity.
As you can see in each example, the activities taught a specific foundational skill and also developed language skills. Students were using the concept in context, practicing asking and answering questions and identifying high-frequency words. These types of activities will take extra time to plan and implement in the schedule. And yet they are well worth the time they will take. In linking oracy with foundational skills, students will begin to develop the code-based skills needed for literacy simultaneously with the language-based skills needed for language development.
Here are a few practical examples that could be integrated into any foundational skills block:
Songs/Poems: Use to teach fluency, beginning sounds, sight words, language structures and syntax, rhyming words, and grammar
Guided language strategies: PWIM (picture, word, inductive model), sentence patterning charts (Project GLAD), language experience approach (LEA)
Oracy through Play: Modeling the use of language frames and visuals alongside play activities in purposeful play centers
Any of these activities can and should be connected to content, giving students additional opportunities to practice academic/content language while strengthening their foundational skills. Our school days are packed with initiatives, and teachers are constantly tasked with “fitting it all in.” When we purposefully integrate oracy, students will not only gain the foundational skills to develop literacy but will also continue to develop their language-acquisition skills.
As you start out planning for increased oracy opportunities in the classroom, ask yourself these questions to help guide the planning process:
Where am I currently providing opportunities for structured talk with my students?
Where can I increase structured talk in my daily practice with my students? How can I connect that talk to content and foundational skills?
How can I explicitly expand students’ language structures through planned talk, meeting them in the stage of language proficiency where they are and supporting them to higher levels?
What collaborative structures can I use to help facilitate productive talk?
Planning for oracy is an important part of developing foundational skills with multilingual students. While it will take additional time to plan for oracy and engage students in oracy development, it will lead to improved literacy for all students.
References: Council of the Great City Schools Organization (2023). A Framework for Foundational Literacy Skills Instruction for English Learners. Cummins, J. (2000). Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Multilingual Matters. Dworin, J. (2003). “Insights into Biliteracy Development: Toward a bidirectional theory of bilingual pedagogy.” Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 2(2), 171–186. Escamilla, K., Hopewell, S., Butvilofsky, S., Sparrow, W., Soltero-González, L., Ruiz-Figueroa, O., and Escamilla, M. (2014). Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action. Caslon. Gaunt, A., and Stott, A. (2019). Transform Teaching and Learning through Talk: The Oracy Imperative. Rowman and Littlefield. “Oracy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oracy Soto-Hinman, I. (2011). “Increasing Academic Oral Language Development: Using English language learner shadowing in classrooms.” Multicultural Education, 18(2), 21–23. Zwiers, J., and Crawford, M. (2011). Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings. Stenhouse.
Amy Mosquera is the CEO of Adelante Educational Specialists Group (www.adelantespecialists.com). Her team works closely with school districts, providing support and professional development in the areas of effective dual language programming, second-language acquisition, and biliteracy instruction. With over 30 years in education, Amy Mosquera’s work has focused in the areas of second-language acquisition and bilingual education with an emphasis in dual language/two-way immersion programming. Amy holds a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis on bilingual education and a master’s degree in educational leadership.
On June 14, Disney+ releases the Lakota-dubbed full-length version of the blockbuster Avengers movie, marking a milestone for Indigenous representation in mainstream media.
This project is the result of painstaking and groundbreaking work by Grey Willow Music Studios and Production, a Native-owned sound company, along with the help of the Lakota Reclamation Project, students from McLaughlin school, elders from the Standing Rock community, and others.
“Our goal is to bring the Lakota language into living rooms and give our community something to be proud of. This project is not just ours; it’s for the people,” Cyril “Chuck” Archambault (Standing Rock), executive producer of the Lakota dub of Avengers, told Native News Online.
Translating an action movie like Avengers into Lakota presented unique challenges, and elders played a crucial role in this process, helping to create new terms for concepts. “Lakota is a very descriptive, verb-based language, which made translating certain words tricky,” Ray Taken Alive (Standing Rock), executive producer of the Lakota dub of Avengers, told Native News Online. “For instance, the word tank in English is one syllable, but in Lakota, the translation was a phrase describing its characteristics, which took about 17 syllables. This created timing issues, since a single word in English could take several seconds to say in Lakota.”
Taken Alive and Archambault plan to create curriculum materials based on the film and incorporating Lakota language projects into popular media to promote and preserve the Lakota language and culture.
“The potential for educational use is vast. One of my dreams is to incorporate this work into Marvel Comics, creating educational resources that are freely available to our Indigenous people,” Archambault said. “This project is just the beginning, and there’s so much more we can achieve together.”
Poynter’s PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize–winning fact-checking newsroom, has launched a new Spanish-language experience, PolitiFact en Español (www.politifact.com/espanol), to help more than 40 million Spanish speakers in the US sort out the truth in politics.
A new Spanish-language website and a related social media presence are the culmination of an effort that began in 2023 when PolitiFact launched a Spanish-language team. The team’s fact checks have appeared on pages of PolitiFact’s existing website and via Telemundo stations in Florida through a partnership that brings fact checks to the stations’ newscasts and digital and streaming platforms.
“We are excited about taking this next step to better serve the millions of people in the United States who consume news primarily in Spanish,” said Katie Sanders, PolitiFact editor-in-chief. Deputy editor Miriam Valverde, who started fact-checking immigration claims for PolitiFact in 2016, leads PolitiFact en Español and its team of Spanish-speaking reporters.
“Our new website and social media presence will provide Spanish speakers with fact-based information and help them guard against dangerous misinformation that is increasingly pervasive across platforms,” Valverde said.
The free website features fact checks from the PolitiFact en Español team, who root out Spanish-language misinformation in its many forms and write in-depth stories and fact checks. Much of the fact-checking falls under Meta’s third-party fact-checking program, debunking misinformation on Instagram and Facebook. The team also translates trending fact checks and stories, both from English to Spanish and vice versa.
Valverde said the premise was not to simply copy PolitiFact.com into Spanish but to find ways to best serve the target audience. To that end, the effort has included launching a WhatsApp tipline to solicit reader ideas, as well as a WhatsApp channel. PolitiFact en Español also is active on TikTok and Instagram. With the 2024 US presidential election later this year, and Hispanic voters a coveted demographic from both parties, there will be no shortage of political claims to check, Sanders said.
“It’s especially important that PolitiFact en Español is a resource for Spanish-speaking voters, who will be bombarded with political messages, many of them false, during the campaign season,” she said.
Other partnerships include Factchequeado, a fact-checking organization that shares PolitiFact’s work with its network, which includes Hispanic media outlets. PolitiFact also has a partnership with Telemundo and NBCUniversal’s TV stations in Florida to bring its fact checks to the stations’ newscasts and digital, mobile, and streaming platforms. A recent survey by Poynter of Hispanics in North Carolina’s Raleigh/Durham area revealed that local Hispanic residents rely predominantly on social media for news, followed by television and websites: “Sparse translation, coupled with inadequate representation, creates barriers to news access and may drive distrust in English-language news organizations for Hispanics.”
Discussing translation, respondents lamented that there are few attempts at translation of local news into Spanish. When it is translated, the translations are often sensationalist and inaccurate. As one respondent summarized: “The American media does little to address the realities that affect Hispanic families. There is not enough translation and, sadly, many attempts lack quality because they translate very poorly and I end up uninformed.”
According to a report last month in China Daily, “The surge in demand for Chinese lessons in Russia reflects the nation’s shift toward the East as tensions escalate between Moscow and the West.”
Natalia Danina, a manager at Head-Hunter, Russia’s leading online recruitment company, told China Daily that there were almost 11,000 job vacancies last year requiring proficiency in Chinese, up 44% from 2021.
Over the same period, the number of jobs for Chinese speakers in Russia has doubled in the areas of sales, transportation, and logistics, she said, noting an “accelerated transition” to Chinese-made equipment and spare parts. Danina added that the need for Chinese speakers in energy-related positions has tripled. Cao Shihai, minister-counselor of education at the Chinese embassy in Russia, said that educational and cultural exchanges have emerged as crucial components of bilateral relations, playing an irreplaceable role in fostering mutual trust and friendship among the people of both countries.
Universities and other educational institutions in China and Russia have entered into over 3,000 agreements and formed 13 university alliances, encompassing more than 800 universities, he said.
With the rising popularity of language learning, approximately 120,000 Chinese students are studying Russian, while the number of Russian students learning Chinese has reached 113,000. Moreover, 150 universities and nearly 200 high schools have introduced Chinese language classes, Cao added.
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