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CANN :: California Newcomer Network - CALNEW VIDEOS

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Posted on April 24, 2019

Creating and using visual supports

Did you know you can make printable low-tech resources in Grid? People with autism can often benefit from visual supports, to help understanding and communication.

For example, they can be used to help someone understand their daily routine, or help them to develop social skills.This may be in addition to using visual supports for communication, using a low-tech communication book, or a high-tech core vocabulary like Super Core.

Visual schedules

Using a visual schedule can really help people with autism to understand what is happening now, and what will happen next.

You can easily use Grid to create visual schedules - which you can use on a device, an interactive whiteboard, or printed and laminated. Just make a new grid and create a cell for each activity. If you want to make it low tech, just print it!

The number of activities in a schedule might vary from person to person. Some may benefit from seeing what's happening now, and next, and others may prefer to see the schedule for the full day.

Supports

Have a look at the Supports grid set for a selection of sample schedules, including now and next, full day and weekly timetables.
Download Supports
Symbol visual schedule template

This Symbol visual schedule template follows the SCERTS model for working with autism.
Download Symbol visual schedule template
Share how you're feeling

You can also use Grid to make resources that help people with autism understand and respond to their emotions. An example of this is the Today I'm feeling grid set, where learners can express how they're feeling each day.
Download Today I'm feeling
Today I'm feeling

This Emotion key ring grid set is another example. This can be printed and used to support a person with autism to label their emotion, and see what they can do when they feel that way.

To make an emotion key ring:

Print both grids and cut the page into four quarters

Then stick them together so that the emotion is on one side and the colour-matched behaviours are on the other side.

Download Emotion key ring
If someone is feeling excited, you can show them the excited symbol and say "you feel excited, you can clap your hands, smile or jump".

Emotion key ring
Try Grid for free
Where to find these resources

All of the grid sets mentioned are ready made and available in Grid, on Windows and iPad. Simply search for them in Online grids (via Add grid set). If you'd like any help feel free to get in touch with our friendly Support team.

For more information about using visual supports with people with autism, visit the National Autism Society website here.

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How to create and use visual support for people with autism, who can often benefit to help understanding and communication, from Smartbox.

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Introduction

Chapter 1 - Who Are Newcomers?

Chapter 2 - Welcoming Newcomers to a Safe, Inclusive and Thriving School Environment

Chapter 3 - Supporting Newcomers' Social, Emotional, and Mental Health Needs

Chapter 4 - Providing High-Quality Instruction for Newcomers

Chapter 5 - Establishing Partnerships with Families

To request the toolkit in an alternate format as a reasonable accommodation, i.e. large print, CD Rom or audio, please contact Melissa Escalante by phone, 202-987-1745 or email at: Melissa.Escalante@ed.gov.

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To request the toolkit in an alternate format as a reasonable accommodation, i.e. large print, CD Rom or audio, please contact Melissa Escalante by phone, 202-987-1745 or email at: Melissa.Escalante@ed.gov.

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These glossaries are to provide permitted testing accommodations of ELL/MLL students. They should also be used for instruction during the school year. These glossaries may be downloaded, printed and disseminated to educators, parents and ELLs/MLLs.

Bilingual glossaries are an essential and expected test accommodation for ELLs/MLLs in the State of New York. The languages of these glossaries cover the top 10 languages at the state level, with new languages added based on changing language populations in the NY State student demographic data.

Schools should provide testing accommodations to ELLs/MLLs, as needed, on all NYS ELA and content-area assessments (i.e., Mathematics, Science and Social Studies). Districts/schools must make all necessary arrangements to make these accommodations available for ELLs/MLLs who need them. Please click here for the New York State Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages Webpage on "Assessment and Testing Accommodations".

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These glossaries are to provide permitted testing accommodations of ELL/MLL students. They should also be used for instruction during the school year.

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EL and Cultural Connections Resources for Teachers

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The My Name, My Identity Campaign promotes awareness of valuing students' cultures and languages by learning about their stories, unique names and proper pronunciations.

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Newcomer Resources

Newcomer Toolkit Adapted from "Newcomer Toolkit." Minneapolis Public Schools, multilingual.mpls.k12.mn.us/newcomer_toolkit

The Language, Culture and Equity Department is committed to providing the necessary support for the many new-to-country EL students that we serve. Their needs are unique in that many of these students may have had limited formal education experiences and may have not been previously exposed to the English language.

Assessments

Instructional Tools

Intake Guide

Resources for Staff

Checklist of Best Practices for Newcomer Students:

High school Newcomer students should be placed in a double-block of ELD and not enrolled in a mainstream English Language Arts class.

In collaboration with the ESL specialist, create a plan for how to help ELL students acquire the language of the content

Help ELL students by directly teaching content vocabulary which can be further reinforced by an ESL teacher

Have key terms and concepts on display all the time

Use drawings, diagrams, graphs and other visual aids to help the students to develop concepts and understanding

Use models or manipulatives to demonstrate concepts and/or processes

Use small groups

Using a "think-aloud" technique to solve the problem

Present activities that involve application of problems in contextual situations to make learning relevant to real-life experiences

Be flexible with student use of native language, if it is helpful in clarifying ideas and concepts

Focus on the meaning ELL students are conveying, not on their grammar and usage of the language. Increase the focus on reasoning and decrease the focus on language.

Adapted from "Newcomer Toolkit." Minneapolis Public Schools, multilingual.mpls.k12.mn.us/newcomer_toolkit

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Newcomer Resources Newcomer Toolkit Adapted from "Newcomer Toolkit." Minneapolis Public Schools, multilingual.mpls.k12.mn.us/newcomer_toolkit The Language, Culture and Equity Department is committed to providing the necessary support for the many new-to-country EL students that we serve. Their needs are unique in that many of these students may have had limited formal education experiences and may have not been previously exposed to the English language.

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Type: Partners

What you will need for QSSSA

1. Question(s) and Sentence Stem(s)

2. (Optional) Note Taking Paper for Yourself

Overview of QSSSA

The QSSSA stands for:

Q: Question - Give students a question to discuss.

S: Stem - Provide them with a sentence stem to answer the question.

S: Signal - Students think of an answer individually and signal when they are ready.

S: Share - Students get with a partner to share answers.

A: Assess - You randomly call on a few students to share their answers and/or walk around and listen in to their conversations.

How to organize QSSSA

Question:

This activity works with any topic. You just need a topic-related, open-ended question for students to discuss.
Examples:
What are two things you learned from the passage?

What did you do last weekend?

What do you not understand about earth's layers?

Stem:

After giving students the question(s) you want them to discuss. You then provide them with a sentence stem(s) to answer the question. i.e. In the passage, I learned that... Last weekend, I... I don't understand...

Signal:

You then give students time to think of the answer they want to share. When students are ready, they signal to the teacher with some sort of hand gesture or pose. i.e. thumbs up, muscle flex, light bulb "I have an idea" pose with one finger in the air and happy expression. If some students are ready quickly while others are still thinking, you can have those waiting students write their answer with their finger in the air.

Share:

When all students are ready, students get with a partner and share the answer(s) they thought of.

Assess:

You can assess students by having a few volunteers share their answers and/or you can walk around the class while students are discussing and attend to how students are using the language. You can take notes so that you remember any issues you would like to come back to work on more later. You can also ask students to write a response.

More Examples of QSSSA

Main Characters in a Story

Who are the main characters in the story? Why are they important? | The main characters in the story are... They are important because... | Raise your hand when you can finish the sentence.

Earthquakes

Why do earthquakes happen? | Earthquakes happen because... | Stand up when you can finish the sentence.

Tops and Bottoms Story

Do you think the rabbit in Tops in Bottoms was right to do what he did to the bear? | I think the rabbit was... He should have... He shouldn't have... | Do five jumping jacks when you can finish the sentence.

Benefits of QSSSA

This activity requires no preparation.

Students get an opportunity to verbalize what they are learning which helps solidify target vocabulary and sentence structures.

Everyone student is participating and few students are waiting around.

Check out this article by Valentina Gonzalez on how to organize this activity. You can also read this article by Katie Toppel on Culturally Responsive Communication where she recommends this activity in the context of being culturally sensitive when setting up speaking activities.

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QSSSA - Better Conversation Practice for Your ELLs

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Type: Partners Question(s) and Sentence Stem(s) (Optional) Note Taking Paper for Yourself The QSSSA stands for: Q: Question - Give students a question to discuss. S: Stem - Provide them with a sentence stem to answer the question. S: Signal - Students think of an answer individually and signal when they are ready.

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Type: Individual or Small Groups
What You Will Need to Practice ESL Vocabulary with Sentence-Pattern Charts

Small Vocabulary Flashcards with Images and/or Words (See Below)

Sentence Chart (See Below)

Download Resources: Scroll to the end of this article to download resources for this activity.
Examples
You can grab a couple of these resources below. If you need more, you can get students to draw their own after brainstorming ideas, or you can find a whole catalogue of of these resources in the Kid-Inspired ESL Curriculum Membership.

Overview of This Activity

This activity was inspired in part by Katie Toppel. She's always posting great ideas on Twitter and she also manages an incredible online Book Club for teachers of English learners.

This activity can be used to practice a set of target vocabulary or respond to a reading passage. Students get into small groups. Each group gets a Sentence Chart with a sentence frame on it as well as a stack of small vocabulary flashcards with words they can organize onto the chart. Students get in groups and organize vocabulary flashcards onto the Sentence Chart. If you don't have flashcards, a word bank on the board can work well too. Students then write on their sentence charts. Afterward, students practice sharing their sentences with each other and then committing the sentences to writing.

How to Organize Sentence-Pattern Charts for ESL Vocabulary Practice

1. Choose a list of target vocabulary words or a reading passage you'd like them to respond to.

2. Prepare enough sets of pictures and vocabulary words for each group to have a set.

3. Print off a Sentence Pattern-Chart for students to organize the words onto.

4. Split students up into groups.

5. Students discuss what sentence they'd like to make and put the flashcards onto the sentence chart.

6. They share the sentences they've created.

7. They write the sentences when they're done.

8. For essays, you can provide them with a "Paragraph Frame" or "Essay Frame" where they can plug in the sentences they've created and fill in a few blanks for the topic sentence/paragraph and concluding sentence/paragraph.

Benefits of Sentence-Pattern Charts for ESL Vocabulary Practice

Students become more fluent with the words, having used them repeatedly in meaningful contexts.

Small teams keep everyone involved.

Students practice alsoget excellent grammar practice by putting together well-structured sentences.

Have you tried this activity? How did it go? Leave your comments below!

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How to Use Sentence-Pattern Charts to Improve Your ELLs' Vocabulary & More!

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Duration: 10-20 minutes Type: Individual or Small Groups What You Will Need to Practice ESL Vocabulary with Sentence-Pattern Charts Small Vocabulary Flashcards with Images and/or Words (See Below)Sentence Chart (See Below) Download Resources: Scroll to the end of this article to download resources for this activity.

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At Abraham Lincoln Middle School, in Selma, California, English language development teacher Efraín Tovar creates a vibrant classroom community for newcomers, immigrant students who have limited English proficiency. In Tovar's class, students come from a wide range of countries-Mexico, Yemen, India, Egypt, Guatemala, and beyond-and he uses this diversity not only to create a safe and welcoming space for learning, but also to further develop and personalize each student's English language learning curriculum. Tovar is an advocate for translanguaging, the practice of encouraging students to use all their linguistic resources to learn academic content and ultimately to be able to move fluently between two or more languages.

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Making Space for Native Languages in Newcomer Classrooms

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When English language learners are given consistent opportunities to practice their home languages in class, their English proficiency flourishes-along with their sense of belonging and identity.

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Multilingual learners are the fastest-growing demographic in K-12 classrooms (Language Magazine, 2018). Currently they make up 10.3% of the national student body (NCES, 2020) and are predicted to account for 25% of public school students in the United States by the year 2025 (Language Magazine, 2018). This trend doesn't just apply to urban schools, since the number of multilingual learners is also increasing quickly in suburban and rural settings, where the percentage of enrolled multilingual learners has risen at faster rates in these classrooms than in city schools (NCES, 2020; NCES, 2023). Among them is a group of multilingual learners known as newcomers; a term coined for students that recently arrived in the United States. These students come to the classroom with rich and unique experiences, but also with new and varied linguistic, academic and social-emotional needs.

Read on to learn the five ways you can help in welcoming newcomers into your classrooms with links to helpful resources after each strategy and how you can dive deeper with WIDA's virtual, self-paced offering - Newcomers: Promoting Success through Strengthening Practice. This workshop offers opportunities to reflect on learning practices in your individual teaching and learning context, create an atmosphere and system of shared responsibility and incorporate and build on the rich resources that multilingual newcomers bring.

When your multilingual newcomers and their families join your school community, get to know them, as well as their abilities and strengths and consider what assets they are bringing to your teaching and learning setting. Family and student questionnaires, delivered in an accessible language and format, are great ways to gather this information! They can capture insights on unique experiences, personal interests, hobbies and skills, language, schooling backgrounds and potential resource-based needs.

Once the academic and linguistic screening is complete, adopt an asset-based, can do approach to identify areas in which your multilingual newcomer demonstrates abilities that can be capitalized on for language and content learning. Use student portfolios to highlight academic, linguistic, cultural and experiential assets that can be shared with fellow educators who will also be working with these students.

We know that language and content are not learned in isolation, yet the meaningful integration of language and content is not automatic. How do we draw on students' unique strengths and experiences to bring them into the content of our classroom and ensure accessibility to language and grade-level academic learning? There are several research-based instructional practices that have been found to encourage more equitable engagement and participation of newcomers in the classroom.

Here is a short list of some of these methods:

Culturally Responsive Teaching is important for newcomers as it encourages educators to focus on their students' wealth of assets, languages they speak and heterogenous perspectives they bring to classroom communities.

What is Culturally Responsive Teaching? Education Week Article

Thematic instruction connects all curricula to a chosen theme, allowing students to see the "big picture" and patterns across academic disciplines. For newcomers, research suggests that the more students participate in diverse engagements around a unified theme, the clearer their understanding of ideas and relationships will become.

How do I implement thematic instruction? Colorín Colorado

Structured teaching protocols, including highly structured environments, high-impact teaching and highly structured activities encourage educators to be intentional about learning environments, activities and multimodal supports for communication.
Highly Structured Approach - Open Library Ed Guide
Translanguaging is a nuanced, multilingual practice. Through translanguaging, students make use of their full linguistic skillset creating connections between languages and extending repertoires.

Be multimodal! "In addition to the use of spoken and written language, students also communicate through gestures, facial expressions, images, equations, maps, symbols, diagrams, charts, videos, graphs, computer-mediated content and other means." (p. 19, WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework, 2020 Edition)
WIDA ELD Standards Framework, 2020 Edition
ELD Standard 1, Language for Social and Instructional Purposes, extends beyond the other ELD Standards Statements, applying universally across educational settings. It addresses multilingual learners' diverse backgrounds, identities and their significance in content comprehension. A crucial aspect of ELD Standard 1 is that it emphasizes the language skills essential for both social interaction and academic engagement within classroom communities. For that reason, educators must consistently ensure that students possess the linguistic tools required to fully participate in classroom activities and learning.

With that in mind, we should always ask ourselves, "Did I equip my students with the tools to be successful in understanding and using language necessary to access, participate and equitably engage in the activities and content learning taking place in the classroom?"

To explore how considerations for ELD Standard 1 informs our work with multilingual learners in classrooms across the K-12 sphere, check out the grade-level cluster-specific versions of the 2020 Edition below.

Creating a welcoming and secure environment for newcomers and their families starts from the moment they arrive at the school. Tailoring enrollment systems, policies and practices to multilingual newcomers ensures clarity and equity in navigating school procedures. Familiarizing them with these processes enhances their comfort, equips them for social and academic success and promotes equitable access to school resources.

Additionally, fostering a sense of the classroom as a safe space is crucial. Multilingual newcomers must feel valued and supported within their classroom community before fully engaging in language and content learning. Despite the necessity of high grade-level expectations and authentic participation for equitable academic outcomes, achieving these goals can be challenging for newcomers requiring intentional support and understanding.

Actionable ways to encourage safe spaces at the classroom level include the following:

Acknowledge individual identities and strengths in classroom materials and décor.

Encourage translanguaging to deepen understanding of new content.

Structure group work to promote collaboration among diverse students.

Empower students with choices in their learning process.

Implement regular social-emotional check-ins and restorative conversations.

To foster inclusivity within our school community, consider

Gathering background information to inform decision-making

Providing professional development for staff

Ensuring accessibility to communication platforms and services

Offering supportive resources and clear signage in school buildings

U.S. Department of Education's Office Of English Language Acquisition's Newcomer Toolkit
Family Engagement page
Greater integration and collaboration challenges teachers to make meaning with multilingual learners as they expand their linguistic repertoire while learning rigorous, grade-level academic content. In today's educational landscape, everyone within the school community bears responsibility for the success of all students, valuing their diverse experiences and assets. When we come together - sharing our deep knowledge of students and content through our unique lenses - we build capacity to facilitate greater depth to content learning and greater breadth to language instruction. Fostering purposeful collaboration among stakeholders is a shared responsibility that supports our learners and is particularly essential for our multilingual newcomers to succeed across our nation's K-12 classrooms.

In the fully virtual, self-paced workshop, Newcomers: Promoting Success through Strengthening Practice, participants begin with an introductory opening module then choose their own adventure to continue down a pathway most relevant to their teaching and learning context. These strands include learning and thinking critically about newcomers through three different perspectives: collaborative school systems, school community considerations and administrators as change-makers.

The workshop includes insight from teachers, families and newcomer students themselves. It offers space and place for self-reflection, goal setting and check-ins for understanding of new learning, along with turnkey handouts and templates to integrate considerations for newcomers into school practices.
*Note: Workshops available in the Secure Portal may vary by state.
Ready to dive into a fully self-paced workshop? Follow the steps below.

1. Log in to your WIDA Secure Portal (Valid login required. Don't have an account yet? Visit your member/state page to learn how).

2. Go to "Professional Learning" in the Portal's main menu to view available virtual workshops.

3. Complete a self-paced workshop and print your certificate.

Questions? Contact the WIDA Client Services Center at (866) 276-7735 or help@wida.us.

Hussar, B., Zhang, J., Hein, S., Wang, K., Roberts, A., Cui, J., Smith, M., Bullock Mann, F., Barmer, A., and Dilig, R. (2020). The condition of education 2020 (NCES 2020-144). U.S. Department of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020144.pdf

Language Magazine. (2018, October 22). 1 in 4 students is an English language learner: Are we leaving them behind?. https://www.languagemagazine.com/2018/10/22/1-in-4-students-is-an-english-language-learner-are-we-leaving-them-behind/

National Center for Education Statistics. (2023). English learners in public schools. The Condition of Education 2023. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgf

Lauren Bartholomae is a professional learning specialist on WIDA's Educator Learning, Research and Practice team. In this role, she engages in the development and facilitation of WIDA's professional learning with educators of multilingual learners across the consortium. Her research and work interests focus on special populations of multilingual newcomers and students identified as students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE), as well as utilizing STEM initiatives and project-based learning to bridge content and language learning in the K-12 classroom.

Elise Sheikh is a marketing specialist on WIDA's Communications and Marketing team. She collaborates with teams across the organization in the development and execution of communications for WIDA projects, products and services.

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Five strategies to welcome newcomers into your classroom

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Multilingual learners are the fastest-growing demographic in K-12 classrooms (Language Magazine, 2018). Currently they make up 10.3% of the national student body (NCES, 2020) and are predicted to account for 25% of public school students in the United States by the year 2025 (Language Magazine, 2018).