Cristina Sanchez -Lopez

Multilingual learners in Grades K–12 are often overidentified or underidentified for special education. The third edition of this groundbreaking text offers a better way to meet the needs of multilingual learners: by creating a culturally and linguistically responsive multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) and implementing a continuum of services that meets the needs of the whole child. Shifting away from traditional ways that schools address the needs of students who experience challenges, the new edition of this text takes a strengths-based approach to supporting multilingual students and focuses on the complex issues that affect a multilingual learner's development. Chapters have been fully updated to reflect the latest best practices and reorganized to better align with MTSS. Educators and other school-based professionals will be fully prepared to: Form collaborative MTSS teams that blend the diverse expertise of staff membersEvaluate and enhance the learning environment for multilingual learnersGather extensive data about six critical factors in students’ home and school life, from previous schooling experiences to cross-cultural factorsAuthentically assess the strengths of multilingual learnersCreate a continuum of services that addresses the individual needs of each studentPlan effective instruction and intervention using a multilingual lensMonitor the effectiveness of support strategies and programming for multilingual learnersPRACTICAL FEATURES:MTSS team activities to support professional learningTemplates, a rating scale, and other reproducible toolsReal-world examples from the fieldDiscussion questions to help teams apply the concepts to their own student population

A In the spring of 2015, a chance poetic conversation began between two poets separated by decades, continents, languages and literary traditions. Colombian poet Cristina S nchez L pez was writing from her bed, irreversibly ailed by aortic aneurysm and congestive heart failure leading to multiple complications. With reduced mobility, "breathing room" and daily bouts of bleeding and excruciating pain, Cristina was living a vestige of a life hanging like icicle from a sliver of desperate hope. Writing, when her body permitted, became her mechanism of deconstruction. Almost all of her bedridden work assumed an epistolary form and was directed at Aryanil Mukherjee, a bilingual Indian American poet whose work she had found on the web and began to admire. In response to her poetic inquiry, Aryanil began advancing the conversation in the form of a poem, taking it to crevices of comfort extrinsic to both the plexus of pain and the refuge of nature. A part of this ongoing conversation, conducted in its entirety via texting makes the content of this book.

Focus on Special Educational Needs explores the characteristics of effective classroom instruction for language learners aged 5 -18 with special educational needs. It guides teachers and other educational practitioners to combine their multiple perspectives in providing balanced, coordinated, cohesive, and comprehensive approaches to serve these learners. The authors present a framework for developing inclusive learning environments which are culturally and linguistically responsive, based on socio-cultural and strengths-based perspectives. Research studies along with examples from real classrooms are highlighted to illustrate collaborative practice in action.