Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners: The Blog

 Did you know there's a very effective way to design stems and frames for students, and a not-so-effective way also? I will be honest and share that during seasons of survival during the school year (I'm talking to you, winter months), these often get less of my attention. However, if I systemetize this with my teams, it becomes a much more sustainable scaffold !  Here's a quick tool to bring to your next team meeting where you identify your unit's vocabulary, set a timer for 5 months, and knock these all out so they're ready to go for all students! I don't make separate stems and frames for every proficiency level - instead I design one that's newcomer-facing (sometimes these are just full sentences!), one that's middle-level proficiency, and one that's fully linguistically stretched!  Don't think this works? I had eight and nine year olds in third grade using stretched stems. Instead of saying, "I was surprised when..." they started t

 Yikes - it's been a while since I've posted here y'all- but I've been sharing these when I go into schools & districts or when I'm speaking at conferences, and educators have shared that they've been helpful! Woohoo! So it's time to get these on the blog.  First - let's chat about the purpose of these tools. Depends on what you're doing with them, but a few quick ideas:  *Reinforce vocabulary with visual cues *Provide stems/starters for students to support EXPRESSION of certain skills, academic language, or provide social cueing (through speaking, writing, or representing). Please note there's a highly effective way to design stems - check out this Tri Level Stem Tool here !  *Provide a mini-version of your anchor charts as a more accessible tool for students Because I like to be playful, I set these up with different names based on coffee. I don't even "speak" coffee, but I think I got the sizing right.  VENTI:   Venti - the

Can you believe it's May? Let's continue with list-prompting-fun with a fresh new list! Don't forget to provide time for your students (or yourself) to get out your thoughts, and THEN go ahead and decorate, annotate, and beautify your list. Post educator lists on social media using the hashtag #EduListers to get more inspiration from other creative listers like yourself.  May Slide Deck to Project for Your Students  (see two sample slides below) Colors we see more in spring: When I’m overwhelmed, I can:  Things I’m thankful for today Favorite cold treats to eat: Favorite warm foods to eat: Things I can do away from my device/screen: Song lyrics that I love right now: Ways I feel appreciated: Ways I can show others how I appreciate them: To help myself get organized, I usually… Popular flavors of ice cream: Things I need to do this week: Sounds that relax me: Characters in books or shows that I’ve loved: Things that stress out adults: Things that stress out students: Things

 We've all utilized Word Banks to support students, but sometimes those can be linguistically limiting. I love when scaffolds can also serve as STRETCHERS. We typically say that we scaffold up for students at lower proficiency levels, but it's important to note that students of ALL proficiency levels (yes, including monolingual students) are also in need of linguistic stretching !  One easy way to provide both a scaffold AND a stretcher for students is by expanding on the idea of a word bank, and moving towards a Word-Phrase-Sentence-Question (WPSQ) Bank. Here's a simple template to demonstrate how quick this can be:  How might you use this template? Here are 5 different ways! 1. Whole Class: Warm Up - Prior to watching a video or doing a mini lesson, or as a review of previous days' learning, ask students to take a moment to think about what they'd fill into this template on their own. Then ask them to partner up and share information to build on to their banks.

April Listing Prompts April Slide Deck for Teachers to use with students  (slide deck template from Canva) Things I do pretty well: Ways I can be a good friend, classmate, or teammate: Things I’m thankful for today Questions I’d ask the moon or the sun: Current favorite songs My To-Do list for today: My current favorite colors: Common fears that people have: Small things that bring me joy When I feel overwhelmed, I usually… When I am in this room, I usually feel…: Colors I might see in a forest Adults I feel comfortable with: Modern inventions I’m thankful for: Something I’ve learned in school that’s still on my mind: Questions I have for the universe: I enjoy learning about these things: Small moments that are BIG for me: My favorite parts of spring: My best habits are: Little mini-goals that I have for myself for the next 30 days: My favorite words or phrases: Things/moments/people that make me laugh Things I might see on a beach: I feel excited about…

Curious about the #EduListers Challenge? Click here to check out the first post in this monthly series ! March Listing Prompts March Slide Deck for Teachers to use with students Foods I enjoy: Characteristics in a friend that are important to me: Things I’m thankful for today Questions I have about the world Current favorite songs My To-Do list for today: Animals I’d like to snuggle with if it was safe to do so Things I am afraid of: Things that make me smile Things I need to remind myself of when I’m stressed My comfort shows/movies Colors I might see in a sunset or sunrise Places around the world that would be cool to see A list of celebrities/famous folks that I’d like to meet Things I love to talk about with my friends A list of folks that I’m happy are in my life today I enjoy learning about these things: Sounds that I am loving right now Ways I celebrate myself  Ways I celebrate others When it’s raining outside, I can… Things I know about myself Things I can do well: Things I’d l