This essential book offers clear guidelines for determining if the Culturally Linguistically Diverse (CLD) students / English Language Learners (ELL) in your general education classroom are experiencing typical language differences, learning disabilities, or both. By combining helpful case-studies with insightful research, the authors provide a framework for differentiating instruction that uses culturally appropriate interventions to build upon student strengths while creating a foundation for further learning and achievement. You will discover how to:

Connect your own and your students’ cultural assets to classroom content

Review language acquisition stages and design corresponding instruction

Collaborate with peers and discuss the realities of reaching out for support and problem solving

Choose effective and appropriate instructional strategies based on documentation of data through progress monitoring

Move from a traditional behavioristic perspective to a more culturally responsive perspective

Identify patterns in formal assessments and informal instruction in order to distinguish between language differences and learning disabilities

In addition, the book includes a number of activities and graphs that can be implemented immediately in any classroom. Many of these materials can be downloaded for free from the book’s product page: www.routledge.com/9781138577756.