Supporting English Learners in General Education Classrooms

With the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants and refugees—and especially with Trump rescinding the policy that protected schools and other sensitive locations from raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—it’s all the more important to ensure that students who are learning English feel safe and welcome in school. In the fall issue, elementary school teacher Kathryn Zamarrón shared how she and the Chicago Teachers Union are doing all they can to protect students and their families from ICE (see go.aft.org/9hp). Here, one of the nation’s leading researchers on English language development shares evidence-based strategies for ensuring that English learners are supported as they learn both a new language and grade-level content. For more resources for educators, school districts, and families, go to aft.org/our-community/immigration.

–EDITORS

During the 2024–25 school year, Ms. Carter took pride in creating engaging, structured lessons for her fourth-grade students. With three years of experience, she felt confident in her ability to support learners with varying needs. However, this year has been different.

After moving to a new school, her classroom now includes students struggling with reading. Some students have not acquired foundational reading skills, such as decoding, while others have struggled to comprehend texts at the fourth-grade level.

A colleague reassured her, saying, “Just stick to what works for all kids.” However, Ms. Carter soon realized these strategies were not sufficient for all of her students. While some students seemed to thrive, others struggled to read grade-level text. Those who were struggling included English learners because, on average, it can take these students three to five years to acquire oral English proficiency (everyday spoken language) and four to seven years to acquire academic language (language needed for grade-level schoolwork, such as reading and writing).¹ She questioned how to bridge the gap between evidence-based practices that had worked for most of her students and the unique needs of her English learners because the “gap” between English learners and native English speakers tends to widen over time if English learners are not given sufficient support.

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The challenges Ms. Carter faces are all too common. Many student groups are not doing well in reading, as the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicates. Results from the 2024 reading assessment indicate that 40 percent of fourth-graders nationally were below the NAEP basic level, as were 72 percent of fourth-graders with disabilities and 71 percent of fourth-graders acquiring English as a second language.² Nationwide, there has been an increase in the number of English learners integrated into general education classrooms for most of the day. Between fall 2011 and 2021, the number of English learners in US public schools increased from approximately 4.6 million to 5.3 million, rising from 9.4 to 10.6 percent of the total student population.³

Federal laws and policies mandate that English learners receive appropriate support to ensure meaningful participation in educational programs.⁴ This article focuses on methods for helping classroom teachers like Ms. Carter provide that support. It does not directly address foundational reading skills such as phonological awareness or instructional approaches like phonics; instead, it focuses on supporting students’ comprehension and oral and written expression.

Effectively teaching English learners to read in English rests on two principles, the first of which is described quickly here and the second of which is described in detail throughout the remainder of this article. As Ms. Carter knows, the first principle is using evidence-based practices for all students. This is especially important because most English learners spend the better part of their day in general education classrooms, and these methods support teachers in addressing the needs of all students, including English learners.

Reviewing these general evidence-based practices is beyond the scope of this article; however, readers seeking more information can refer to the What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guides, which are free resources available to educators and policymakers. To create the guides, panels of experts considered rigorous studies of instructional interventions. The guides provide evidence-based strategies to improve teaching and learning, practical recommendations, and suggestions for implementing these practices in real-world classrooms. Readers may want to review the guides for: developing foundational reading skills to support comprehension in students in grades K–3 (go.aft.org/jp6); improving reading comprehension in students in grades K–3 (go.aft.org/lxl); increasing elementary students’ writing achievement (go.aft.org/kob); and supporting struggling students in grades K–2 (go.aft.org/9lo) and grades 4–9 (go.aft.org/c6e).*

The expert panelists associated with these guides maintain that the recommendations are appropriate for English learners and other students with special needs when accompanied by appropriate modifications. That brings us to the second principle, which is the focus of the article: providing additional and differentiated support for English learners.

Providing Additional and Differentiated Support for English Learners

Although the research on supporting English learners is not as extensive as that on English-proficient students, we have a solid foundation to help teachers like Ms. Carter develop new instructional approaches. Seven research-based recommendations model the most critical practices for general education teachers:^†

1. Collect information on students’ language, literacy, and content-area knowledge and skills at the beginning of the school year.
2. Provide high-quality vocabulary instruction.
3. Develop students’ background knowledge.
4. Scaffold text using visual supports.
5. Support close reading of text.
6. Provide writing opportunities to solidify student learning and help students become effective writers.
7. Monitor and support student progress throughout the year with formative assessment.

1. Collect Information on Students’ Language, Literacy, and Content-Area Knowledge and Skills at the Beginning of the School Year

Ms. Carter knows how important it is for teachers to collect information about students’ language and literacy levels and content-area knowledge at the beginning of the school year. In addition to assessing students’ progress in English, as much as possible she assesses the first language and literacy skills of English learners who have been instructed in their first language. She uses this information to:

• Design appropriate instruction. Knowing her students’ English proficiency and literacy levels helps Ms. Carter tailor instruction to make content accessible.⁵
• Build on students’ strengths, since language proficiency and academic knowledge in students’ home language(s) can transfer across to English^‡ with the right supports.⁶
• Identify students needing additional services (such as reading interventions, support for language impairments, or language development support) and differentiate between second language acquisition needs and learning disabilities.⁷
• Comply with federal and state policies, such as the Every Student Succeeds Act, that require the assessment of English proficiency to place English learners appropriately and provide the services to which they are entitled.⁸

2. Provide High-Quality Vocabulary Instruction

One of the things Ms. Carter noticed early in the school year was that her English learners didn’t have the academic vocabulary they needed in English to understand her lessons fully. She found that pre-teaching essential content words helped, but she sensed that she could be doing more.

Ms. Carter’s instincts were right; vocabulary is critical, and there are effective methods for teaching general academic vocabulary as well as discipline-specific vocabulary—both of which are important. General academic vocabulary are words that are not tied to a specific subject but are commonly used across many texts (e.g., analyze, compare), while discipline-specific vocabulary belong to a particular subject area or field of study (e.g., photosynthesis). These methods can be used in general education classrooms, classrooms designated for English learners, small-group instruction, and individual tutoring sessions. Let’s see how Ms. Carter applies these methods as she supports her students in comprehending and writing about informational text—in this case, “Ellen Ochoa Makes History” (see box to the right).

Selecting Vocabulary

Reviewing this text on Dr. Ochoa, Ms. Carter sees so much vocabulary her English learners do not know. She narrows down what to teach by using three criteria: how frequently words appear in general texts; how important words are for understanding this text; and each word’s conceptual complexity (abstractness). She knows it is ideal to consider all three factors in selecting vocabulary, but she gives priority to words that help students understand the text. She also knows it is important to consider student-level factors, like each student’s level of English proficiency and background knowledge, so she refers to the information she gathered about her students at the beginning of the school year.

Frequency: English learners’ reading comprehension may be compromised because they do not know common English words that English-proficient students will likely have acquired. Ms. Carter used the AIR Word Analyzer (vocabularytool.airprojects.org)^§ to determine the frequency of the words in the first paragraph of the text about Dr. Ochoa. After she copied and pasted the paragraph into the Word Analyzer, it sorted words into quartiles based on the First 4,000 Words list. These 4,000 most frequent English words account for about 80 percent of words that readers encounter in general texts.⁹ This helped Ms. Carter select frequently used words to teach.

Importance for understanding the text: Students need to learn words central to comprehending the text they are reading or listening to. Ms. Carter identifies these words by determining the words that are needed to answer important questions about the text. In this case, she selects words that were also identified by the Word Analyzer—but with other texts, there could be words essential for understanding the text that do not appear on the First 4,000 Words list. Four words in the first paragraph of the text about Dr. Ochoa that are frequent and also important for understanding the text are astronaut, graduated, mission, and space. Ms. Carter realizes that the word space may be challenging for English learners because it has multiple meanings. A student might know one meaning (an empty area, like space in the closet) but not the meaning relevant to this passage (the area that contains the entire universe beyond Earth).

Conceptual complexity: Conceptually complex words are more difficult for students to learn without instruction because their meanings are less concrete and less likely to yield a mental image (e.g., throughout). Some of these words require students to have additional knowledge to understand them (e.g., space). Conceptually complex words can be taught using comprehensible definitions from wordsmyth.net (which offers beginner, intermediate, and advanced definitions), which Ms. Carter did for the words engineer and space. Such words can also be taught with visual aids such as labeled illustrations and multimedia clips, examples, analogies, and comparisons to more concrete things. (See Exhibit 1 below.)

Instructing Vocabulary

Multiple strategies can clarify the meaning of vocabulary in text or oral discourse. Ms. Carter uses many of these strategies. She previews key vocabulary, defines challenging words in context and the margins, provides labeled illustrations, and supplies bilingual glossaries. She also uses activities to reinforce the meanings of target words and teach her students word-learning strategies.

Knowing that many essential words in this text will be challenging for English learners, Ms. Carter uses picture cards or slides to preview vocabulary words and phrases that are conceptually complex and important for understanding the text. (See Exhibit 2 below.)

To preview vocabulary using picture cards or slides, she uses visuals such as photos or illustrations to clarify the word’s meaning and capture the students’ attention. She labels the visuals and, in some cases, important parts of the visuals. She provides a comprehensible definition corresponding to the word’s use in the target text. Since many students speak the same home language, she translates the word and definition into their home language(s). She asks students if the word shares cognate status with their home language (if applicable). Then she asks the students to spell the word, read a sentence from the text that used it, and work with partners to answer a question requiring them to use the target word. With labeled visuals, definitions, a translation, the partner talk activity, and more, Ms. Carter’s picture cards or slides allow students to begin to learn the meanings of conceptually complex words or words central to understanding the text before encountering them in the text.

Ms. Carter uses two additional methods to clarify the meanings of words that are important for understanding the text: defining words within the text and providing definitions in the margins. Defining words in the text refers to defining words or phrases at the point where they are encountered in the text. The definitions are inserted orally or in writing (as Ms. Carter did) and provide the meanings of the words or phrases in the text. When possible, Ms. Carter uses definitions that can easily be swapped into the passage.

Defining in the margins refers to providing concise definitions for unfamiliar words and phrases that are generally more complex than words that are defined at the point when they appear in the text. These margin definitions provide information that corresponds to the words’ or phrases’ meanings in the text.

With this in mind, for many other words and phrases that her English learners might struggle with, Ms. Carter types a new version of the text with definitions of words and phrases in context or the margins. (See Exhibit 3 below.) As an alternative to typing a new version of the text, she could have created notes for herself with target words she underlined in her version of the text with definitions that could easily be swapped in to define the challenging words or phrases. For example, for “orbited Earth,” she could note “(traveled around Earth).” These definitions still require some English proficiency, but they are more accessible than the academic vocabulary in the text.

To further support English learners, and for words that Ms. Carter wanted her English learners to refer to while reading or studying, she creates a bilingual glossary to build on English learners’ prior knowledge in their first language. Beyond bilingual definitions in the glossaries, she adds space for students to rewrite the words, provides examples from the passage, and flags cognates. (See Exhibit 4 below.)

Studies suggest that the number of repetitions needed to learn a word is about 10–15 on average, with some estimates suggesting up to 17 exposures. However, what is crucial is not just how often learners see a word, but how much cognitive effort they put into processing a new word’s meaning and how conceptually complex the word is.¹⁰ Other factors include the importance of providing visual support, definitional and contextual information, encounters in multiple contexts, and learner variables such as age and levels of vocabulary knowledge. So, in addition to her many strategies to help students understand new vocabulary, Ms. Carter uses several methods to provide multiple exposures. Her methods include vocabulary quizzes, crossword puzzles, and games.

One game her students really enjoy is similar to Chutes and Ladders. (See Exhibit 5 below.) Students are divided into small groups, with each group then divided into two teams. One team picks a vocabulary card (that has both a vocabulary word and its definition) and reads aloud the definition. If the other team correctly provides the associated vocabulary word, it rolls a die and moves accordingly on the board. If it can’t provide the word, the team holding the card does so. Either way, the team that just read the definition now takes a turn. The team that reaches the end of the board first wins. (Digital platforms for creating games, like Blooket and Kahoot, can also be used to reinforce vocabulary learning.)

Because it is not feasible to directly teach students all of the words they need to know to be successful readers, Ms. Carter also teaches students to use word-learning strategies to figure out word meanings. Ms. Carter uses two games to teach her students common prefixes and suffixes to figure out word meanings:

• Word Building Relay: Write base words, prefixes, and suffixes on separate cards. Ensure students know the meanings of the prefixes and suffixes. Divide the group or class into teams. Each team races to combine the cards to form and define valid words. The team with the most correctly formed words within a set time, such as five minutes, wins.
• Story Building Game: Have students work in pairs to create a story. Each student contributes sentences using words with prefixes or suffixes. Encourage them to explain the meanings of the words they use.

For students who speak a language that shares cognate status with English, a word learning strategy is to teach them to bootstrap on their home language to figure out the meanings of English words. It is important to explain that there are false cognates—words that are spelled similarly in two languages but do not mean the same thing. For example, éxito in Spanish does not mean “exit”; it means “success.”

Another strategy is to teach students to use reference materials to look up the meanings of unfamiliar words. Reference materials include bilingual dictionaries, translation platforms (e.g., Google Translate, DeepL), and text-to-speech platforms (e.g., Microsoft Immersive Reader).

3. Develop Students’ Background Knowledge

Across all ages and levels of ability, reading comprehension depends on the reader having relevant background knowledge and having the ability to integrate that knowledge with new information in the text. English learners may not have acquired the background knowledge needed to understand specialized content for a variety of reasons, including (1) a lack of proficiency in the language of instruction, (2) arrival in US schools after the content was instructed, and/or (3) interrupted formal education in their home country or in the United States. Developing English learners’ background knowledge—which may include cultural, historical, chronological, scientific, or spatial information—that is relevant to current coursework and capitalizing on students’ prior knowledge support learning.

With this text on Dr. Ochoa, Ms. Carter suspects that her English learners, and possibly many of her English-proficient students, will not have enough background knowledge about astronauts. So, before they attempt to read about Dr. Ochoa, she wants to introduce them to what astronauts do.

It is important to first identify the relevant background information. Ms. Carter looks online, but she cannot find a single source that provides all the key information her students will need. So, she creates a text by drawing from multiple sources.** She intentionally keeps the background passage succinct and ensures it does not summarize the main text about Dr. Ochoa because the point is for students to use the background knowledge and other instructional supports to understand the text. (See Exhibit 6 below.)

It is also important to adapt the background information. When she shares this background text with her students, Ms. Carter scaffolds it with visual and linguistic supports, focusing on important terms and concepts (e.g., gravity, rockets, and spacecraft) that students might not know. She also provides visuals and checks for understanding by asking comprehension questions related to the background text and provides sentence starters or frames to help students who need additional support.

4. Scaffold Text Using Visual Supports

Ms. Carter recognizes that she needs to support her English learners in developing their academic language while learning challenging new content. She has learned—and is seeing in her classroom—that visuals enhance her English learners’ comprehension and engagement,¹¹ especially with complex and unfamiliar topics or word meanings.

Visual supports are often photos, such as images of the International Space Station, but they also include gestures, illustrations, realia, multimedia (i.e., a combination of text, sound, and/or video), and graphic organizers. Many visuals are not labeled, so it is important to label them (as Ms. Carter did with the photo of the space station in Exhibit 7 below) to the extent possible.

5. Support Close Reading of Text

Ms. Carter’s picture card of a space shuttle (Exhibit 2) and other strategies to support students’ understanding of individual words helped her English learners understand the terms in selections from the text about Dr. Ochoa, as did providing background information and various visuals. However, she also wants to support all students in reading and understanding connected text, so she now focuses on close reading. Close reading involves analyzing a text by reading parts of it more than once; paying attention to details such as word choice, sentence structure, and meaning; asking and answering text-based questions; and making inferences and drawing conclusions based on evidence in the text.

Help Students Understand Compound and Complex Sentences

Because compound and complex sentences, as well as text with referential chains, can make text challenging to understand for many students, Ms. Carter spends time supporting her fourth-grade students in comprehending these sentence types and text with referential chains.

Compound Sentences

Ms. Carter starts by ensuring her students know about nouns and verbs. She explains that a noun is a word or words that name a person, place, thing, or idea, and a verb is a word or words that show action. She provides some example sentences from the text about Dr. Ochoa and asks students to identify the nouns and verbs. She then tells students that a complete sentence must have a subject, which is a noun (or pronoun) that performs the action and identifies who or what the sentence is about, and a predicate, which tells something about the subject and contains a verb. Asking students to look again at the sentences about Dr. Ochoa, she has the students pick out the subjects and predicates.

She then explains that a compound sentence is two complete sentences joined by a coordinating conjunction, such as and, but, or so. She provides the following example: “Ellen Ochoa was born in Los Angeles, California, on May 10, 1958, and she grew up in La Mesa, California.” Understanding compound sentences helps students understand complex sentences.

Complex Sentences

Ms. Carter follows a similar routine to help students understand complex sentences, explaining that a complex sentence is made up of at least one complete sentence (independent clause) and at least one incomplete sentence (dependent clause). She then shares one more feature of a complete sentence: In addition to a subject and a predicate, it expresses a complete thought. Incomplete sentences are missing at least one of those three components. She shows students examples of complete and incomplete sentences and asks them to work in pairs to decide which are complete sentences and which are incomplete sentences.

She tells students that in complex sentences, independent and dependent clauses are connected by words like because, although, when, since, and if (subordinating conjunctions). She provides the following example and indicates which part of the complex sentence is an independent clause and which part is a dependent clause: “Astronauts measured gases in the air (independent clause or complete sentence) because they wanted to understand climate change (dependent clause or incomplete sentence).” She indicates that the two clauses are joined by the subordinating conjunction because.

She gives students examples of complex sentences, ensuring they are comprehensible for English learners. She asks them to work with a partner to identify the complete sentence (independent clause), the incomplete sentence (dependent clause), and the subordinating conjunction and then report what information the dependent clause provides about the independent clause.

When she encounters complex sentences in text, she asks students questions that require them to unpack their meaning. For example, with this complex sentence, “Astronauts measured gases in the air because they wanted to understand climate change,” she asks why astronauts measured gases in the air. And to help students review, she prepares a worksheet for students to write compound and complex sentences. (See Exhibit 8 below.)

Help Students Understand Referential Chains

Referential chains are sequences of words or sentences in a text that all refer to the same person, place, or thing (called a referent). These words can include nouns, pronouns, or descriptive phrases. The sequences often use pronouns to refer to the referent, which can make it confusing for students to follow the meaning of the sentence within the referential chain.

To avoid confusion among her students, Ms. Carter has them discuss these two sentences: “Dr. Ochoa’s third and fourth missions were to the International Space Station. It is 356 feet long and orbits Earth sixteen times every day.” She wants to ensure that all the students understand that the word it is a pronoun that refers to the International Space Station. She provides other examples with different pronouns or nouns that are named differently from the referent.

Support Overall Understanding by Using Guiding and Supplemental Questions

Taking one paragraph from the passage about Dr. Ochoa, Ms. Carter writes a guiding question and three supplemental questions. She also provides English learners with differentiated scaffolding, such as sentence starters, to help them answer the questions. (See Exhibit 9 below.)

Seeing how well this worked, Ms. Carter uses these techniques for all of the text about Dr. Ochoa. After segmenting “Ellen Ochoa Makes History” into manageable chunks, she first reads out loud a guiding question focused on main ideas, themes, or events from one or two paragraphs. Next, if necessary, she reads out loud or asks students to read out loud the relevant portion of the passage. Then, students work together to answer supplemental questions about details (what, where, when, why, who, and how) to help them answer the guiding question. Ms. Carter pairs students so that, if called for, one student can support the other in answering the questions by rereading relevant portions of the passage.

She employs techniques that help students answer supplemental questions, including asking questions about details in chronological order; inquiring about word meanings that are defined in context or the margins; defining key terms that appear in the questions; restating information from the text before asking a question; and providing scaffolded support, such as sentence starters, sentence frames, and word banks.

When needed, Ms. Carter offers some of these supports in students’ home languages. Typically, she offers side-by-side bilingual versions with students’ home language and English, followed by questions in both languages. When possible, she also provides related multimedia with subtitles and voice-overs (where a recorded voice narrates the film or video in the target language providing an alternative audio track alongside the original).

6. Provide Writing Opportunities to Solidify Student Learning and Help Students Become Effective Writers

Ms. Carter was thrilled with her students’ engagement and comprehension as they closely read the passage about Dr. Ochoa. They have learned a lot of new vocabulary and concepts. Writing is a great way to deepen and solidify students’ learning, so Ms. Carter wants to develop two writing exercises: expository and narrative. She comes up with writing prompts for each type of writing (see Exhibit 10 below). The prompts clarify what students are supposed to write about and what to include in their writing. Then, since expository writing tends to be less familiar to students, she creates a framework to help them write expository text and completes it to serve as a model. This breaks each part into a manageable task (topic sentence, facts, and conclusion) and models sample responses for the topic sentence, facts, and conclusion.

While writing is a great way to solidify learning, it is also essential that students become effective writers. There is strong evidence for teaching students how to write for a variety of purposes, moderate evidence for teaching them “to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing, and word processing,” and minimal evidence for having students write daily and creating a writing community.¹² There is also evidence that consistently modeling for students—and providing opportunities for them to practice—strategies for planning, revising, and editing positively impact students’ writing.¹³

Research also demonstrates that for English learners to become effective writers, instruction should integrate oral language development with writing methods while also providing scaffolds that support language production. Oral language practices, such as oral rehearsal before writing, help students generate and organize ideas, and explicit sentence-level instruction (e.g., sentence combining and sentence expansion) strengthens syntactic knowledge needed for written expression.¹⁴ Research further underscores that scaffolds such as sentence frames, starters, and collaborative discussion—that include opportunities for English learners with entering and emerging levels of proficiency to use their home language—are important supports.¹⁵ More recent empirical work in science classrooms confirms that writing helps English learners better master science concepts and scientific language.¹⁶ Wanting to incorporate this research into her classroom, Ms. Carter has students discuss the expository and narrative paragraphs they wrote and then supports them as they revise and edit their work.

7. Monitor and Support Student Progress Throughout the Year with Formative Assessment

Ms. Carter knows that formative assessment is essential for determining students’ reading and language proficiency levels, monitoring students’ progress, and figuring out what supports they need.¹⁷ Although her school has some formative assessment, Ms. Carter likes to supplement them with assessments she develops based on what she is teaching. She developed an exit ticket for the passage on Dr. Ochoa, using an activity in which students match vocabulary words with their definitions and respond to four questions about the space station and one question about whether they would like to be on the space station. (See Exhibit 11 below.)

Ms. Carter assigns students to pairs, reviews the answers to the exit ticket with the class by writing them on the whiteboard, and asks students to correct each other’s answers. When they are turned in, she identifies students who have not done well. While those who performed well are reading independently, she puts those needing more support into a small group and reviews the passage and responses with them.

Although there have been moments when Ms. Carter felt overwhelmed as she realized just how much support her English learners need to learn English and to learn in English at the same time, she is grateful to now have so many more strategies at hand to support their needs. And, as she gets to know her colleagues at her new school, she sees that they can collaborate in using these strategies to create and share English learner supports for the content they teach.

Diane August is a co-principal investigator of the Center for the Success of English Learners and a research professor at the University of Houston. She brings 40 years of experience in the many aspects of educating multilingual learners. Her expertise includes policy, research, and technical assistance in educating preschool and school-age multilingual learners.

*Upon publication of this article in December 2025, these practice guides were still online. Given the Trump administration’s cuts to the US Department of Education and to education grants, AFT staff downloaded these guides to ensure that they remain available. If they are taken offline, email ae@aft.org to request copies.
(return to article)

^†For details beyond those shared in this article, readers should see two more What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guides—Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades and Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School—and a very detailed report from the National Academies (go.aft.org/l0c). (return to article)

^‡The same applies to students learning second languages other than English. (return to article)

^§Another tool that can be used to find frequent words in text is WordSift.org. (return to article)

**While Ms. Carter uses text and a photo in this example, for other passages teachers may find that it’s best to share a variety of sources with students, such as auxiliary texts, video clips, illustrations, tables, graphs, and/or maps. (return to article)

Endnotes

1. K. Hakuta, Y. Butler, and D. Witt, How Long Does It Take English Learners to Attain Proficiency? (Stanford, CA: University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute, January 2000), web.stanford.edu/~hakuta/Publications/(2000)%20-%20HOW%20LONG%20DOES%20IT%20TAKE%20ENGLISH%20LEARNERS%20TO%20ATTAIN%20PR.pdf; and X. Zhang and P. Winke, “Time to Proficiency in Young English Learners and Factors That Affect Progress,” TESOL Quarterly 59, no. 2 (June 2025): 695–729.

2. Nation’s Report Card, “NAEP Report Card: Reading: Performance by Student Group,” National Assessment of Educational Progress, nationsreportcard.gov/reports/reading/2024/g4_8/performance-by-student-group/?grade=4; J. Hermida et al., “What Are Effective Screening Practices for Multilingual Learners?,” Ask HEDCO (blog), HEDCO Institute, University of Oregon, April 30, 2025, hedcoinstitute.uoregon.edu/blog/20/multilingual-learners-mclass-multitudes; and K. Arundel, “What Does NAEP Show for Special Education Students?,” K-12 Dive, February 13, 2025, k12dive.com/news/NAEP-special-education-scores-decline-assessment/739715.

3. National Center for Education Statistics, “Condition of Education: English Learners in Public Schools,” US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, 2024, nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgf.

4. The Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 requires educational agencies to take appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede students’ equal participation in instructional programs. In the landmark case Lau v. Nichols (1974), the US Supreme Court ruled that providing the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum to non-English-speaking students as to English-speaking students was insufficient. The court emphasized that schools must take affirmative steps to help non-English-speaking students overcome language barriers to ensure they can participate meaningfully in educational programs. Plyler v. Doe (1982) is a landmark decision by the US Supreme Court that established important protections for the rights of undocumented immigrant children to access public education. The decision requires that public schools in the United States provide free K–12 education to all children, regardless of their immigration status. Denying access to public education based on immigration status violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Finally, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, particularly Title III, Part A, mandates that state educational agencies monitor the implementation of English language development programs. This includes ensuring that English learners are integrated into general education settings with the necessary support to achieve language proficiency and meet academic standards.

5. WIDA, WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework, 2020 Edition: Kindergarten–Grade 12 (Madison, WI: Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, 2020), wida.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/resource/WIDA-ELD-Standards-Framework-2020.pdf; and D. August and T. Shanahan, eds., Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report on the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006).

6. O. García, J. Kleifgen, and L. Falchi, From English Language Learners to Emergent Bilinguals (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 2008); and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English: Promising Futures (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2017).

7. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Promoting the Educational Success.

8. Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, Pub. L. No. 114-95, 129 Stat. 1802 (2015), congress.gov/114/plaws/publ95/PLAW-114publ95.pdf.

9. M. Graves, D. August, and J. Mancilla-Martinez, Teaching Vocabulary to English Language Learners (New York: Teachers College Press, 2012).

10. S. Webb, “The Effects of Repetition on Vocabulary Knowledge,” Applied Linguistics 28, no. 1 (2007): 46–65; N. Schmitt, “Review Article: Instructed Second Language Vocabulary Learning,” Language Teaching Research 12, no. 3 (2008): 329–63; M. McKeown, “Effective Vocabulary Instruction Fosters Knowing Words, Using Words, and Understanding How Words Work,” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 50, no. 4 (October 10, 2019): 466–76; T. Uchihara, S. Webb, and A. Yanagisawa, “The Effects of Repetition on Incidental Vocabulary Learning: A Meta-Analysis of Correlational Studies,” Language Learning 69, no. 3 (2019): 559–99; and M. Kamil et al., Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices (Washington, DC: US Department of Education, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, 2008), ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/docs/practiceguide/adlit_pg_082608.pdf.

11. D. August, L. Artzi, and C. Barr, “Helping ELLs Meet Standards in English Language Arts and Science: An Intervention Focused on Academic Vocabulary,” Reading and Writing Quarterly 32, no. 4 (2016): 373–96; and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Promoting the Educational Success.

12. S. Graham et al., Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers: A Practice Guide (Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, 2012), ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/practiceguide/writing_pg_062612.pdf.

13. Graham et al., Teaching Elementary School Students.

14. S. Baker et al., Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School (Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, 2014), ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/19.

15. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Promoting the Educational Success.

16. S. Kim and D. Kim, “English Learners’ Science-Literacy Practice Through Explicit Writing Instruction in Invention-Based Learning,” International Journal of Educational Research Open 2, no. 2 (2021): 100029.

17. J. Abedi, “Research and Recommendations for Formative Assessment with English Language Learners,” in Handbook of Formative Assessment, ed. H. Andrade and G. Cizek (New York: Routledge, 2010), 181–97; A. Bailey and M. Heritage, Formative Assessment for Literacy, Grades K–6: Building Reading and Academic Language Skills Across the Curriculum (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2008); and A. Bailey and M. Heritage, Progressing Students’ Language Day by Day (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2019).

[Illustrations by Edu Fuentes]