Melissa A. Holmes

The need for teachers who have both the knowledge and the skills to teach students in special education, especially students who are emergent bilinguals, is more critical today than ever before. Assumptions about the assurances outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have led to practices that have limited the scope of opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with disabilities. This book examines the intent of special education policy, challenges existing systems, and explores the promise of using biography-driven instruction to transform students’ learning and enhance their personal growth and community life. With a focus on inclusive practices for working with CLD students with disabilities and their families, the book examines decision-making processes for placement, access, instruction, assessment, and evaluation. The authors show how inclusionary practices create contexts and conditions for teachers to foster their students’ academic abilities through authentic cariño and an ecology of care. Book Features:Elucidates the challenges faced by educators and support personnel as they navigate and prioritize the needs of CLD students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms. Discloses the outdated, politically driven, inequitable, and inconsequential educational opportunities often afforded to CLD students receiving special services. Provides a framework for creating learning opportunities grounded in the six principles of IDEA and the personal and academic biography of learners and their families. Supports teachers and other staff to maximize four interrelated facets of the CLD student biography: sociocultural, linguistic, cognitive, and academic. Explores the multiple meanings of inclusion and academic engagement at the intersection of IDEA and biography-driven instruction.

The need for teachers who have both the knowledge and the skills to teach students in special education, especially students who are emergent bilinguals, is more critical today than ever before. Assumptions about the assurances outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have led to practices that have limited the scope of opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with disabilities. This book examines the intent of special education policy, challenges existing systems, and explores the promise of using biography-driven instruction to transform students' learning and enhance their personal growth and community life. With a focus on inclusive practices for working with CLD students with disabilities and their families, the book examines decision-making processes for placement, access, instruction, assessment, and evaluation. The authors show how inclusionary practices create contexts and conditions for teachers to foster their students' academic abilities through authentic cariño and an ecology of care. Book Features:Elucidates the challenges faced by educators and support personnel as they navigate and prioritize the needs of CLD students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms. Reveals the outdated, politically driven, inequitable, and inconsequential educational opportunities often afforded to CLD students receiving special services. Provides a framework for creating learning opportunities grounded in the six principles of IDEA and the personal and academic biography of learners and their families. Supports teachers and other staff to maximize four interrelated facets of the CLD student biography: sociocultural, linguistic, cognitive, and academic. Explores the multiple meanings of inclusion and academic engagement at the intersection of IDEA and biography-driven instruction.

In her new book, nationally known professional development consultant and literacy expert Socorro Herrera is joined by two colleagues to provide a framework for academic vocabulary and language instruction in today’s diverse classrooms. The authors present a set of strategies and tools that work effectively across all content to support enhanced comprehension and academic success. The strategies have evolved from over a decade of research and classroom observation to provide teachers with multiple avenues for making content accessible and relevant for all students, especially those who are culturally and linguistically diverse. Each strategy supports teachers in using what students already know as a foundation for integrating new vocabulary and building content-area language skills. The authors provide a thorough explanation of how to use each strategy to document student knowledge and learning throughout the before, during, after phases of the lesson. Drawing on current research about how the brain works, second language acquisition, and classroom communities, this user-friendly resource features:Filled-in samples of student work that provide evidence of what is possible. Teacher-to-teacher voices highlighting successful applications in secondary classrooms. Teaching tips to accompany every strategy. Templates for vocabulary-building student artefacts.