1) Family engagement
How can I welcome and engage families of Multilingual Learners to be active partners in their child’s learning?
Toolkit: Welcoming and Affirming Community
This link connects teachers to multiple resource toolkits across multiple grade bands. Topics include Social Emotional Learning, Family Partnerships, and Caring Communities.Read More
Video: Family Partnerships to Support Children’s Bilingual Development
This video shares the importance of engaging with families to support children's bilingual development. Provide families with tools and resources that help promote their home language with Multilingual Learners (as an example, provide books that celebrate the child's culture and also help develop a foundation for reading).Read More
Video: Supportive Emotional Climate for Relationships
This video highlights the importance of language to make Multilingual Learners feel comfortable; if they hear their home language spoken and see their culture represented in the classroom, it will create a more warm and inviting environment for them. Another key item to foster a supportive emotional climate are positive interactions between the educator and the child.Read More
Video: Integrating Family, Culture, and Language in the Curriculum
This video shares examples for how educators can incorporate various strategies to inform their curriculum: Collaboratively create an environment that represents families through books in different languages, music, and providing utensils/food/dolls in dramatic play that celebrate diversity.Read More
Video: Integrating Home Culture and Language in Learning Activities and Environments
This video provides examples for what educators can do to create a supportive classroom environment for Multilingual Learners. Activities can provide opportunities for MLs and their families to learn about other cultures. Materials (dolls, labeling, books) should celebrate and represent the diversity of the children in the classroom.Read More
Video: Being Responsive to Home Language and Culture
This video focuses on the importance for educators to remain flexible and responsive in order to support Multilingual Learners. Educators can create meaningful relationships with children and their families by getting to know them and respecting their preferences and practices (asking them about specific food needs as an example).Read More
Video: Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Communication
This video reinforces an asset-based approach towards supporting Multilingual Learners. It highlights the importance of family engagement and social-emotional development strategies to help create a warm and inviting environment for ML children.Read More
Video: Encourage Use of Home Language at Home and in Preschool
This video shares idea for educators to incorporate into their teaching to help encourage the use of children's home language.Read More
Strategy Overview: Haciendo conexciones lenguajes con nuestros niños
This guide (in Spanish) is designed to help families tap into the linguistic genius of their Multilingual children. It provides some common areas of transfer between Spanish and English and offers some suggestions for how to aid children in connecting their two languages at home.Read More
Strategy Overview: Making Cross-language Connections with our Children
This guide (in English) is designed to help families tap into the linguistic genius of their Multilingual children. It provides some common areas of transfer between Spanish and English and offers some suggestions for how to aid children in connecting their two languages at home.Read More
Strategy Overview: Family Empathy Interviews
A template designed to support conversation uncovering each family's "funds of knowledge" so teachers can design a culturally responsive and sustaining approach to instruction.Read More
Webinar: Family School Partnership—PreK
In this webinar video, building strong family partnerships is explained as well as providing some tangible strategies for early learning educators.Read More
Flyer: Mitos e investiaciones del bilinguismo
This document lists common myths about bilingual development and offers research-based responses. It explains dual language instruction for Multilingual Learners, and teaches families about the benefits of home language development. This version is in Spanish.Read More
Strategy Overview: Fostering Multilingual Pride
This strategy outlines ways teachers can foster multilingual pride with students.Read More
Strategy Overview: Promoting a Sense of Identity
This strategy outlines ways teachers can work with families to promote children's sense of identity, connection to home language and culture, plus respect for diversity.Read More
Strategy Overview: Conducting a Family Oral History—K-3rd
Everyone has stories that are worth sharing! This strategy deepens a child's knowledge about their heritage, makes use of their home language, and opens opportunities to share their stories with their peers.Read More
Video: Home Language
This video showcases different vignettes of families who have made an intentional decision to raise their children with with a home language different than English.Read More
Video: A Meeting At School
In this video, parents come into the classroom to help with a family project and discuss the language preferences of their children with the teacher. Collecting this type of information and exchanging language development goals for the child is key to partnering with families.Read More
Video: Helping with Homework (Parent-Child Relationship)
This is an example of a parent and a child working on a project at home together. Later the child will bring the project to school and share it with peers and the teacher to connect home-based learning to school-based learning.Read More
Video: A Letter From My Mom
In this video, parents are encouraged to write a letter to their child and drop it in a classroom mailbox. Children sort the letters into student mailboxes and then read them with the support of the teacher.Read More
Video: Our Chicks Have Hatched!—A Home School Connection
The first clip of this video is a conversation between a parent and a child as they discuss a school project about chicks that have been sent home. The second clip shows how the school project was made in the classroom. Children interact with live chicks in the classroom while the teacher helps them identify and write the language they want to use to express what they have learned.Read More
Video: The Joy of Reading—First Language Development
This video provides helpful examples of parents reading and discussing books with their children, and an example discussion about reading in home languages between a teacher and a group of parents.Read More
Video & Video Guide: Bilingual Classrooms
This resource outlines strategies teachers can use to model and extend Multilingual Learners' oral language skills. Strategies include narration (describing what the teacher is seeing and thinking) and amplification (paraphrasing a child's statement in more complex and extended language and asking a follow-up question).Read More
Tip Sheet: Parent Involvement and Family Engagement for Early Childhood Professionals
This resource compares and contrasts "parent involvement" and "family engagement." A spectrum of ideas in both categories for partnering with families are offered.Read More
Strategy Overview: 6 Ways Educators Can Overcome Language Barriers with Parents
This overview includes numerous ideas for educators who have difficulty communicating with parents of children who speak languages other than English. Resources are shared about how teachers and parents can connect, specific strategies are named, and data graphics share information about the types of activities in which parents are most likely to participate.Read More
Website Article: Early Literacy Instruction in Spanish
This article is a research overview for teachers about the early literacy development of Spanish-speaking children. The content covers stages of literacy development, explicitly notes the differences in reading instruction between English and Spanish, and includes some example literacy strategies and tips for parents.Read More
Article: Tips for Communicating with Non-English-Speaking Parents
Teachers who only speak English may have a difficult time communicating with non-English-speaking parents. This article offers six simple tips to help connect with parents of all students, regardless of the language they speak.Read More
App: CDC Milestone Tracker
This is an app that can be shared with parents in both Spanish and English to help them keep track of major developmental steps that their children make from birth-5 years old.Read More
Template: Language Presence in the Classroom
This simple form serves as a template for teachers to acknowledge and record the linguistic knowledge of families who are the "home language experts" for Multilingual Learners.Read More
Strategy Overview: Ensuring the Presence of Each Child’s Language
This resource provides a comprehensive list and explanation of the actions teachers can take to acknowledge, affirm, and support multiple languages in the classroom. Included are tips for engaging with families as "language experts" and capturing their linguistic knowledge on a planning template, and phrase cards with basic greetings in 10 common home languages.Read More
Tip Sheet: How to Support Your Child’s Social-Emotional Health – 8 Tips (in 16 languages)
This tip sheet helps parents, providers, and teachers communicate with children about their feelings in both home and school environments.Read More
Website: Project 2Inspire
This is a website maintained by CABE, the California Association for Bilingual Education, and is a resource hub for the Parent and Family Engagement Program.Read More
Video: Elementary Active Family Engagement at Home (Spanish)
This sample video demonstration, provided in Spanish, helps families know how to engage with children in learning games and activities at home.Read More
Video: Elementary Active Family Engagement at Home
This sample video demonstration helps families know how to engage with children in learning games and activities at home.Read More
Video: PreK Active Family Engagement at Home (Spanish)
This sample video demonstration, provided in Spanish, helps families know how to engage with children in learning games and activities at home.Read More
Video: PreK Active Family Engagement at Home
This sample video demonstration helps families know how to engage with children in learning games and activities at home.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Approaches to Learning (Arabic)
This tip sheet, provided in Arabic, can be helpful for providers who work with multilingual families and want to ask questions and share information about children's learning engagement and interactions in both school and home.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Approaches to Learning (Spanish)
This tip sheet, provided in Spanish, can be helpful for providers who work with multilingual families and want to ask questions and share information about children's learning engagement and interactions in both school and home.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Approaches to Learning
This tip sheet can be helpful for providers who work with multilingual families and want to ask questions and share information about children's learning engagement and interactions in both school and home.Read More
Website: For Families/Para las familias
This is a webpage intended to be shared with families. The links include resources for support on teaching children to read, partnering with the school, the use of technology, and the benefits of bilingualism.Read More
Website: For Families/Para las familias
This is a Spanish-language webpage intended to be shared with families. The links include resources for support on teaching children to read, partnering with the school, the use of technology, and the benefits of bilingualism.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Language and Literacy Development (Spanish)
This tip sheet, provided in Spanish, helps providers partner with parents and families of Multilingual Learners in order to develop language and literacy skills both in school and home environments.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Language and Literacy Development
This tip sheet helps providers partner with parents and families of Multilingual Learners in order to develop language and literacy skills both in school and home environments.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Social and Emotional Development (Arabic)
This tip sheet, provided in Arabic, can be helpful for providers who work with multilingual families and who might need support in how to best communicate and build relationships with them in a culturally responsive manner.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Social and Emotional Development (Spanish)
This tip sheet, provided in Spanish, can be helpful for providers who work with multilingual families and who might need support in how to best communicate and build relationships with them in a culturally responsive manner.Read More
Tip Sheet: Early Learning and School Readiness – Social and Emotional Development
This tip sheet can be helpful for providers who work with multilingual families and who might need support in how to best communicate and build relationships with them in a culturally responsive manner.Read More
Tip Sheet: Our Community Poster and Family Foldable (in 26 languages)
These example resources come from Australia and have been translated into 26 languages. The Community Poster shares with families a few ideas on how to support early education in the home. The family foldable is a template for a communication "chatterbox" that can be used at home to develop oral language and discuss connections between school and home.Read More
Tip Sheet: Helping Children Read (Spanish)
This handout can be shared in both English and Spanish; it shares research and ideas about what families can do to support literacy and language development for their children from infancy to 6 years old.Read More
Tip Sheet: Helping Children Read
This handout can be shared in both English and Spanish; it shares research and ideas about what families can do to support literacy and language development for their children from infancy to 6 years old.Read More
Resource List: Ideas and Resources for Parents of EL Students
This website offers an extensive list of online resources that can be shared with families of Multilingual Learners, or used by the teacher in class. Some resources are directly for students to practice language skills, while others are intended to inform teachers and parents about language learning.Read More
Tip Sheet: Reading Tips with Families (in 16 languages)
Teachers can access eight different literacy tip sheets for families in sixteen different languages. This information bolsters the home-school connection for Multilingual Learners and their families.Read More
Blog: 6 Strategies to Elevate the Status of Bilingualism
This blog post offers practical ideas to highlight the benefits and strengths of bilingualism in a school community.Read More
Tip Sheet: Family Grid
This resource supports teachers in providing families with learning activities to do at home that support Multilingual Learners’ development in multiple domains: motor, math, science, language, literacy, and social-emotional development. Teachers can individualize grids to align with their classrooms’ content and language needs.Read More
Tip Sheet: Gathering and Using Language Information That Families Share
This tip sheet provides teachers with examples of questions that they can ask Multilingual Learners’ families to learn about their language, interests, and experiences. This tip sheet also discusses the information that can be gathered from conversations with families and why this information is so important.Read More
Handout: The Importance of Home Language
This resource provides handouts with information about the benefits of bilingualism, the importance of maintaining the home language, and how families can support their Multilingual Learners. The handouts are available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Haitian Creole, and Russian, and can be used by teachers and families.Read More
Flyer: Keeping Your Home Language (in 16 languages)
This is a one-page handout available in 16 different languages. The flyer offers reasons for maintaining Multilingual Learners' home languages, as well as suggestions on what families can do to build children's home language skills.Read More
Newcomer Toolkit: Establishing Partnerships with Families
This is one chapter from the U.S. Department of Education's Newcomer Toolkit. This chapter focuses on how teachers can partner with the families of Multilingual Learners and invite them to share their language and culture and engage with a school community.Read More
Webinar: Supporting Dual Language Learners in the PreK Classroom
In this webinar, presenters discuss several strategies for supporting Multilingual Learners’ oral language and literacy development. Strategies include gathering information on children’s language and cultural background from families and talking with them about their language and learning goals for their children. Presenters also discuss how to display labels and functional print in multiple languages in the classroom, select content-specific words from texts and incorporate them into instruction, incorporate songs, and engage in interactive reading.Read More
Newcomer Toolkit: Welcoming Newcomers
This is one chapter from the U.S. Department of Education Newcomer Toolkit. This chapter focuses on how teachers can welcome both newcomer Multilingual Learners and their families into a school community.Read More
Handout: Message in a Backpack for Families
This resource provides links to different handouts teachers can give to families with learning activities to do at home. Teachers can select which topics to support at home, and links are available in multiple languages (English, Spanish, Farsi, Chinese).Read More
Website Article: Many Languages, One Classroom
This article offers explicit strategies for teachers who have language-diverse classrooms. Ideas are offered on how to partner with families and set up a culturally and linguistically responsive classroom environment.Read More
Website: Supporting Young English Learners at Home
This website offers nine downloadable flyers in both Spanish and English that include tips for parents on how to ask questions while reading with children, as well as numerous ideas for educational games and activities to try at home. There are additional links for an Educators' Guide to teaching academic language and content to Multilingual Learners, and an archived webinar presentation on additional activities to strengthen language development at home.Read More
Webinar: Helping Young English Learners at Home
This webinar offers a summary of nine downloadable flyers (in both Spanish and English) that include tips for parents on how to ask questions while reading with children, as well as numerous ideas for educational games and activities to conduct at home.Read More
Strategy Overview: Supporting Oral Language
To develop language, children need many opportunities to practice speaking. This overview describes how teachers can support families to give Multilingual Learners opportunities to practice oral language.Read More
Strategy Overview: Supporting Bilingualism
Research has proven that the strongest foundation for academic success and high levels of literacy for Multilingual Learners is the development of both their home language and English. This overview describes strategies that schools, teachers, and families can use to support multilingualism.Read More
Strategy Overview: Development of Literacy Skills
Children become lovers of reading and writing through exposure to a variety of meaningful texts and wonderful literature. This overview describes how school can be organized to support this learning from a young age, and how caregivers can develop this learning at home through reading, discussing books, and noticing text in the world around them.Read More
Checklist: Diversity of Experiences
This simple checklist helps teachers identify the diversity across a classroom of learners. Reflecting and gathering information about family and student backgrounds helps build relationships and trust.Read More
Video & Video Guide: Integrated Thematic Unit – 3rd Grade
This video provides a rich opportunity to look inside a classroom and note the intentional supports for English language and literacy development embedded in a thematic unit of study. The teacher implements a Daily 5 structure, which allows Multilingual Learners to learn both academic language and content across multiple modalities and learning activities. The accompanying guide suggests moments in the video to pause to notice teachers’ practice, along with prompts for reflection and discussion.Read More
Strategy Overview: Testimonios
Testimonio, a Spanish term for "witness account," is a storytelling pedagogy that emerged from Latin American culture and narrative research methodology. Used in the classroom, testimonios can be written, oral, and/or visual representations of Multilingual Learners' experiences that support home language development and engage families in children's learning.Read More
Strategy Overview: Family-Centered Goal Setting
This guide breaks down how to set simple, targeted, short-term learning goals in partnership with families. By engaging families in developing learning goals, teachers ensure that the goals are rooted in a shared understanding of the whole child, and prepare families to support their children in working toward their goals.Read More
Strategy Overview: Gallery Walks
In this culminating activity at the end of a thematic unit, posters and student work are displayed around the classroom while children guide family members, teachers, or peers through the room, explaining the concepts they've learned. The opportunity to explain concepts to visitors gives children an authentic purpose for using language and demonstrating their knowledge.Read More
Strategy Overview: My Name
Nothing is closer to a Multilingual Learner's identity than their name. This resource offers culturally relevant examples of how to engage in meaningful activities with children about their names.Read More
Strategy Overview: Celebrating Bilingualism-Pathways to Biliteracy
This document offers a variety of examples for both classroom and school-wide implementation for a Seal of Biliteracy. Now that a biliteracy seal is available in California and other U.S. states, offering high-quality bilingual materials and structuring opportunities to celebrate bilingualism with students and families can begin as early as PreK.Read More
Strategy Overview: Family Cohorts
This resource explains how to partner with families by establishing cohorts and home-school connections. Family cohorts can help to create a site-wide culture that values family engagement to support dual language learning. Resources for family cohort meetings are provided, such as a sample agenda and a blank planning template.Read More
Strategy Overview: Family Conversations, Home-School Connections, & Projects
This resource describes how to engage families in their children’s learning by facilitating family conversations, home-school connections, and projects. This resource includes guidance on how to partner with families and connect the curriculum to learning at home.Read More
Parent Letter: Start of Theme (Spanish)
These letters can be sent home to families to announce upcoming topics in classroom thematic units. They prepare families to connect content learning to home experiences, and offer the opportunity to invite parents to share experiences or artifacts that relate to the themes.Read More
Parent Letter: Start of Theme (English)
These letters can be sent home to families to announce upcoming topics in classroom thematic units. They prepare families to connect content learning to home experiences, and offer the opportunity to invite parents to share experiences or artifacts that relate to the themes.Read More
Video & Video Guide: Bilingualism Through the Eyes of a Student
Students share their ideas about the benefits of being bilingual. They explain why speaking two languages is important and a source of pride. The accompanying guide suggests moments in the video to pause to notice teachers’ practice, along with prompts for reflection and discussion.Read More
Flyer: Myths and Research about Bilingual Development
This document lists common myths about bilingual development and offers research-based responses. It explains dual language instruction for Multilingual Learners, and teaches families about the benefits of home language development.Read More
Tip Sheet: Interactive Read Alouds
This handout for families reviews strategies for interactive reading at home. Information about how to ask questions, and engage in conversations with children while reading at home, will help support literacy development for Multilingual Learners.Read More
Video: Home-School Connection and Projects
Opportunities for curriculum-based learning at home help build relationships with families and support language development for Multilingual Learners. This video showcases an example of a home-school project presentation in a preschool classroom where educators provide high-quality extended talk in multiple languages and provide hands-on, inquiry-based experiences.Read More
Tip Sheet: Interactive Read Alouds (Chinese)
This handout for families, written in Chinese, reviews strategies for interactive reading at home. Information about how to ask questions, and engage in conversations with children while reading at home, will help support literacy development for Multilingual Learners.Read More
Tip Sheet: Interactive Read Alouds (Spanish)
This handout for families, written in Spanish, reviews strategies for interactive reading at home. Information about how to ask questions, and engage in conversations with children while reading at home, will help support literacy development for Multilingual Learners.Read More
Strategy Overview: Bridging School to Family Assignments
This resource offers examples of projects and activities that provide families with opportunities to connect school-based content with learning at home. Examples demonstrate how teachers can also invite home language into the classroom.Read More
Tip Sheet: Communication with Parents / Comunicación con los padres
This bilingual (Spanish) document explains to parents the benefits of speaking a home language. Advice is shared on how to develop oral home language proficiency and provide high-quality and extended talk opportunities for children.Read More
Tip Sheet: Special Topic & Mini-Strategy Workshops for Families
Workshops provide rich opportunities to talk with families about language development goals for their children, and to invite and prepare them to share their language and culture in the classroom. This document explains two different structures for family workshops.Read More
Flyer: How Families Can Develop Oral Language/Como familias pueden desarrollar lenguaje oral
Teachers can share this flyer in English and/or Spanish with the families of Multilingual Learners. This flyer provides families with learning activities that can support home language development.Read More
Video: Affirming Language, Culture & Identity
This video shares asset-based strategies for teachers to engage with families, develop the socio-emotional health of children, and set up a classroom environment to support Multilingual Learners. This resource focuses on preschool but the content applies to all grade bands. Examples come from dual language classrooms.Read More
Handout: Support Bilingualism (Spanish)
This handout shares nine different strategies that families can use to support the home language development of their children. Sharing this type of information builds a culture that values dual language learning and family engagement.Read More
Video & Video Guide: Bilingualism Through the Eyes of Families
Family members share their ideas about the benefits of being bilingual. They explain how speaking two languages is critical to maintain family life and cultural identity. The accompanying guide suggests moments in the video to pause to notice teachers’ practice, along with prompts for reflection and discussion.Read More
Video: Key Points of Home Language Preview and Review
This resource explains how educators can engage families in previewing and reviewing books with Multilingual Learners. Teachers can provide families with books to preview at home to connect curriculum with learning at home. Teachers can invite families and other speakers of the home language to come to classrooms to share books in their home languages.Read More
Template: Family Languages and Interests Interview Form
This resource contains a template of the Family Languages and Interests Interview that teachers can use to gather information from families on each child’s language and cultural background. Teachers can also use this interview form to talk with families about their language and learning goals for their children.Read More
Template: Family Languages and Interests Interview Form (Spanish)
This resource contains a template of the Family Languages and Interests Interview in Spanish that teachers can use to gather information on each child’s language and cultural background from children’s Spanish-speaking families. Teachers can also use this interview form to talk with families about their language and learning goals for their children.Read More
Video & Video Guide: Family Languages and Interests Interview (Spanish)
In this video, a Spanish-speaking teacher conducts the Family Languages and Interests Interview with a Spanish-speaking parent to gather information on their child’s language and cultural background. This interview also helps teachers talk with families about their language and learning goals for their children. The accompanying guide suggests moments in the video to pause to notice teachers’ practice, along with prompts for reflection and discussion.Read More
Video & Video Guide: Family Languages and Interests Interview
In this video, a teacher conducts the Family Languages and Interests Interview with a parent to gather information on their child’s language and cultural background. This interview also helps teachers think about how to talk with families about their language and learning goals for their children. The accompanying guide suggests moments in the video to pause to notice teachers’ practice, along with prompts for reflection and discussion.Read More
