The Language of Content

Articles from the Speak Agent team that provide classroom resources, implementation strategies, research-based perspectives, and updates regarding our Content+LanguageSM platform.

Speaking in Crisis

The latest report from WIDA shows a precipitous nationwide decline in language growth for multilingual learners (aka English Learners) in grades K to 8. The chart below compares the gains in WIDA ACCESS scores from the largely pre-pandemic era of...

Learning to Use the WIDA ELD Standards

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the sweeping changes made by WIDA in their latest ELD standards framework? You are not alone! WIDA's 2020 edition is a fundamental rethinking of how we serve multilingual learners. There's also quite a bit of new...

ELL Strategies Webinar Recording Now Available

More than 750 ESL teachers, specialists, and coordinators joined us on September 30th for our webinar English Learners: Strategies for Digital Learning and the Language of Academic Content. Many thanks to our sponsor, DigitalPromise.org. 

Webinar: ELL Strategies for Digital Learning

Last year, Digital Promise hosted our first-ever professional learning webinar, and it made #1 EdWeb.net that week. This year, we are returning with an even more popular session. It focuses on research-based academic language learning strategies...

Announcing the ELL Digital Strategies Workspace

The Speak Agent academic language learning platform applies 32 research-based instructional strategies across its varied activities. The research behind these strategies is compiled by the Learner Variability Project, a service provided by Digital...

Fighting the COVID Slide Among English Learners

Last week's post recounted the story of unopened boxes filled with unread packets of student work mailed in by thousands of families. In this post, I intend to share an alternative vision. To be clear, being physically present at school is...

The Widening Gap for English Learners

Last week I was on a webconference that examined the internet access gap. I was struck by one district administrator's story: For weeks, thousands of students had been diligently mailing in the packets of work they'd been assigned. All of those...

The Language Deficit and the COVID-19 Slide

I was recently reading an article about the challenges the NYCDOE is facing in supporting their ELLs and how these students are faring in the "new normal." Here's how one Brooklyn teen described it:

Academic Language Strategies Webinar Series Now Available!

After a chart-topping debut on EdWeb.net, we now bring our highly rated Academic Language Strategies webinar series directly to you! The webinar will identify specific strategies to help reduce the achievement gap by teaching content knowledge...

Close the ELL Gap Before WIDA and TELPAS Testing

WIDA ACCESS test scores in many states dropped again in May 2019. Now the latest NAEP Math and Reading scores are also showing stagnation or slight downturns. The 2020 testing window will soon be upon us. Now is the time to act and make a...

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