7E) Invite home language into classroom
Invite parents and other speakers of the home language to join classroom activities and speak, tell and share stories, and read in the home language.
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
Video: Home Language as Foundation for English-Language Development
This video promotes the importance of supporting the child's home language along with learning English. Both languages should receive supports through intentional instruction, specific language interactions, and a culturally sensitive engagement with children and their families.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
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: 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
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
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
Website Article: Family Dichos – Bringing the Language of Home into the Classroom
Bringing proverbs and sayings or "dichos" into the classroom is an instructional move to bridge family language and culture into classroom learning. This article describes this practice and provides resources on familiar "dichos."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
Guide: Selecting and Using Culturally Appropriate Children’s Books in Languages Other than English
This resource provides guidance on how to select culturally appropriate children’s books in Multilingual Learners’ home languages and how to share those books with children and their families. This guide also provides ideas for sharing books in languages that are not familiar to teachers and links to other book lists and digital libraries.Read More
Tip Sheet: Inviting and Supporting Cultural Guides and Home Language Models
Cultural guides and home language models are people who can help make Multilingual Learners (MLs) and families feel welcome as they adjust to new environments. This resource explains how to identify and include cultural guides and home language models in the classroom to support MLs.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
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: 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
Video: Monolingual Provider Preview and Review
In this video, a teacher explains how monolingual English-speaking teachers can support Multilingual Learners. The teacher previews books with children, uses props and tangible materials, and provides parents and other speakers of the home language with books and materials for them to use with children.Read More
Template: Thinking about Home Language Support
This resource helps teachers and administrators think about the staff and/or community members that serve as language models for Multilingual Learners. Language models can integrate the home language(s) and English and join classroom activities to speak and read in children’s home languages.Read More
Video: Supporting Home Language through Language Models
This video discusses how "language models" can support Multilingual Learners by integrating English and the home language(s) into classroom activities and conversations throughout the day. Parents and other speakers of children’s home languages can join classroom activities to support children’s development of multiple languages. Language models can provide high-quality and extended talk in each language, including a variety of questions to elicit talk from children.Read More
