Episodes

Dr. Ingrid Heidrick joins Mary and Katherine to explore how educators can use district-adopted literacy curricula while making intentional adjustments for multilingual learners. The conversation examines language demands, background knowledge and comprehension, foundational literacy, oral language development, instructional routines, and the gradual release of scaffolds. Throughout the episode, Ingrid emphasizes teacher knowledge and agency in integrating language development across content area...

Dr. Antonio Fierro explores why language must be understood as the foundation of literacy for English Learners, connecting phonological awareness, word recognition, sentences, and discourse. He discusses how teachers can create language-rich classrooms, listen closely to students’ oral language, build on cross-linguistic knowledge, and pair structured literacy with multilingual education so that rigorous instruction remains accessible without treating language differences as deficits. Antonio A...

Kari Kurto of The Reading League joins Literacy Across Languages to explore how the science of reading and structured literacy can support multilingual learners and English learners. The conversation examines language as common ground between literacy and EL/EB education, including explicit and systematic instruction, linguistic assets, assessment, contrastive analysis, and how educators can provide comprehensive, evidence-aligned literacy instruction that is responsive to multilingual learners....