Nell Scharff Panero

This book presents Combinations as a set of high-yield instructional strategies for advancing academic literacy for multilingual learners and all students. It discusses the strategies themselves as well as how they work to advance content and language learning simultaneously, across the grades and content areas. The book is particularly beneficial for all teachers working with linguistically and culturally diverse learners to accelerate their language and content learning. Utilizing these strategies will not only greatly improve students’ writing but also supports their critical thinking, content area reading and language comprehension skills. This book argues for utilizing Combinations with Strategic Inquiry, presenting evidence of how each amplifies the impact of the other, and how together they address many of the challenges to learning new and counter-cultural methods and to establishing school and district cultures in support of multilingual learners’ success. This book is a great resource for classroom teachers, literacy coaches and school and district administrators who want to support multilingual learners and all students to thrive.

This book presents Combinations as a set of high-yield instructional strategies for advancing academic literacy for multilingual learners and all students. It discusses the strategies themselves as well as how they work to advance content and language learning simultaneously, across the grades and content areas. The book is particularly beneficial for all teachers working with linguistically and culturally diverse learners to accelerate their language and content learning. Utilizing these strategies will not only greatly improve students’ writing but also supports their critical thinking, content area reading and language comprehension skills. This book argues for utilizing Combinations with Strategic Inquiry, presenting evidence of how each amplifies the impact of the other, and how together they address many of the challenges to learning new and counter-cultural methods and to establishing school and district cultures in support of multilingual learners’ success. This book is a great resource for classroom teachers, literacy coaches and school and district administrators who want to support multilingual learners and all students to thrive.

Strategic Inquiry is an innovative model for promoting teacher collaboration around identifying specific “learning gaps” that keep struggling students from succeeding. Gaps may include anything from the proper use of commas and conjunctions to concepts such as “slope” in math. The authors argue that addressing these critical learning gaps can lead to big changes in student success, in teachers’ sense of efficacy, and in school culture. The strategic inquiry model has been implemented in schools and districts around the country, including New York City, where it was rigorously evaluated with impressive results. As Common Core standards raise the bar for student learning ever higher, this proven approach promises to build teachers’ capacity for closing the gap between where struggling students are and where they need to be.

Strategic Inquiry is an innovative model for promoting teacher collaboration around identifying specific “learning gaps” that keep struggling students from succeeding. Gaps may include anything from the proper use of commas and conjunctions to concepts such as “slope” in math. The authors argue that addressing these critical learning gaps can lead to big changes in student success, in teachers’ sense of efficacy, and in school culture. The strategic inquiry model has been implemented in schools and districts around the country, including New York City, where it was rigorously evaluated with impressive results. As Common Core standards raise the bar for student learning ever higher, this proven approach promises to build teachers’ capacity for closing the gap between where struggling students are and where they need to be.