8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Welcome and Featured Keynotes
Speakers:
Martha Hernandez
Kathy Escamilla
Ester De Jong
9:00 AM - 9:20 AM Blueprint for Action
Speakers:
Ester De Jong
9:30 AM - 10:20 AM Breakout Session Block #1
Research on Reading for Multilingual Learners
This session will review research findings from the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth, and the Carnegie Panel on Adolescent Literacy for English Learners. Connections to teaching language and literacy will highlight evidence-based instructional strategies stemming from the Panel's findings.. two panels: The National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, and the Carnegie New York Panel on Adolescent
Classroom Practice Research
Speakers:
Margarita Espino Calderó
Dr. Hector Montenegro
4 Spaces 4 Biliteracy: A Framework for Effective DLBE Instruction
The Bridge? Bridging? Translanguaging? Cross-linguistic connections? Bridge moments? Oh, my! With so many approaches to biliteracy in the field, it’s easy for practitioners to feel overwhelmed. This session will introduce DLeNM’s 4 Spaces 4 Biliteracy, a clear and practical framework that helps educators make sense of these approaches and apply them with purpose. Participants will leave with a deepened understanding of biliteracy development and concrete strategies to strengthen effective Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) instruction.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Natalie Olague
Azul Cortés
Cross-Language Connections From the Start
Cross-language connections don’t belong only at the end of a unit—they can and should be part of instruction from the start. Making purposeful, strategic connections across the literacy block invites students to draw on and further develop their entire linguistic repertoire, creating a strong foundation for biliteracy. In this session, the Literacy Squared® team will share ways to connect Spanish and English instruction that foster metalinguistic awareness and strengthen biliteracy development in bilingual and dual language classrooms.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Dr. Jody Slavick
Claudia Norez
Understanding Translanguaging
This presentation will define the term “translanguaging” - what it is and what it isn’t. We will consider how we can incorporate translanguaging pedagogy into the dual language classroom setting to foster cross linguistic connections that leverage the unique benefits a dual language program brings to student learning. We will discuss ways to balance utilizing all the resources in our students’ bilingual linguistic repertoire for effective multilingual learning with achieving teachers’ goals of selecting linguistic features in the target language, including protecting the minority partner language in the English-dominant US academic system.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Elissa Washburn
A Seat at the Table; A Voice in the Future: The Role of Local Leadership Beyond OELA
The closure of the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) marks more than the end of a federal office — it marks the beginning of a new era of state and local leadership.
The future of multilingual learner success will not be written in Washington — it will be written at your table, through your criteria, your committees, and your leadership.
This session calls leaders to action — to reimagine how curriculum adoption can become a systemwide lever for equity, access, and excellence. Discover how to move from compliance to commitment by:
- Designing comprehensive adoption criteria that set a new standard for quality and opportunity.
- Assembling representative committees that blend evidence, expertise, and lived experience.
- Empowering superintendent and cabinet leadership to bridge the federal gap and lead with courage and clarity.
You’ll leave inspired and equipped to mobilize the right people, ask the right questions, and make decisions that reflect the brilliance of every learner — ensuring multilingual learners are not just represented, but centered, in every adoption that shapes their future.
Research
Speakers:
Amelia Larson
Beyond Monolingual Measures: Reimagining Literacy Assessment through Biliteracy Trajectories
Despite growing research affirming the benefits of bilingualism, assessment systems in the U.S. still largely measure literacy through monolingual, English-dominant frameworks. This session presents an equity-centered alternative: biliteracy trajectories—a holistic, research-based model that honors literacy development across two languages. This approach is grounded in the foundational work of Dr. Kathy Escamilla and the Literacy Squared team at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Bueno Center for Multicultural Education, who developed the original biliteracy trajectory to reflect how bilingual students develop literacy across time and languages. Building on that legacy, the Renaissance Biliteracy Trajectories Project—developed in collaboration with the Bueno Center—scales this concept using national Star Reading data to develop parallel benchmarks for bilingual learners. This session will also share emerging findings from a dissertation study exploring the impact of biliteracy-aligned assessments on equity, instructional decision-making, and policy conversations in dual language contexts. Together, these two efforts—the national-scale white paper and localized district case studies—illustrate how biliteracy trajectories can transform assessment systems, center multilingual learners' strengths, and drive more equitable outcomes.
Systems Change Research
Speakers:
Doris Chavez-Linville
A Biliteracy Blueprint for Success: Culturally Embedded Programmatic Pathways and Pedagogical Practices
In this session we examine the elements of a comprehensive biliteracy blueprint that lays the foundations and conditions for multilingual learners to develop high levels of biliteracy over time. Key areas include increasing understanding of biliteracy and bilingual development; developing foundational literacy skills that are always embedded in meaning; creating a biliteracy instructional plan grounded on authentic native and second language curriculum; anchoring meaning-based instructional practices on linguistic and culturally responsive/authentic materials and children/young adult literature; using assessments that are appropriate for second language learners; and leveraging students’ languages, heritages, and cultures to foster meaningful learning experiences, promote academic achievement, and affirm multilingual learners’ identities.
Systems Change Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Sonia Soltero
From Language to Literacy: Unpacking WIDA’s ELD and SLD Standards
This session is grounded in the WIDA Spanish and English Language Development Standards Frameworks and highlights how honoring students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds enhances literacy success for all learners. Participants will unpack both frameworks to explore how language proficiency goals can be intentionally aligned with literacy standards to support instruction. Through classroom-based strategies such as translanguaging, mentor texts, and cross-linguistic analysis, attendees will gain insights into practical instructional moves that support biliteracy, foster metalinguistic awareness, and implement integrated language and literacy instruction. The session centers multilingual learners by affirming their identities, languages, and cultures while advancing literacy and learning through standards-aligned, asset-based practices.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Jessica Canul Diaz
From Words to Worlds: Multilingual Story Boxes
This session reimagines multilingual story boxes for elementary and secondary classrooms. Participants will explore how story boxes can serve as platforms for inquiry, identity exploration, and literacy development across disciplines. Using five guiding principles – dialogic pedagogy, multimodal and multilingual response, translanguaging, multilingual text creation, and family and community engagement – teachers will learn how to design story box projects that connect students’ linguistic repertoires to curricular goals. Through reflection and collaborative planning, educators will discover how storytelling can transform content learning into culturally sustaining literacy practice. Target Audience: K-12 Educators
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Maria Cieslak
10:25 AM - 10:55 AM Breakout Session Block #2
Legislating Literacy: Where are Multilingual Learners?
With most states mandating Science of Reading instruction in legislation, previous investigations have looked at the different requirements of legislative mandates. However, there has not been a thorough review of the consideration of Multilingual Learners in this policy. We explore the various ways in which Multilingual Learners are present in Science of Reading legislation via a state-by-state comparative analysis and present our summarized findings for ongoing conversations toward purposeful consideration of linguistic and cultural diversity within literacy instruction.
Policy and Advocacy
Speakers:
Diep Nguyen
Keira Ballantyne
Sarah Marie Howard
Dual Language Bilingual Educator Preparation with the EMMA Standards
Schools in the Southwest and Northeast are utilizing the EMMA Standards, and National Dual Language Certificate™ as their learning curriculum to ensure pre- and in-service educators are prepared and supported in providing effective literacy (and language) instruction in the classroom. Project SEMBRAR (EMMAStandards.org) is a five-year initiative (NPD grant) that brings Educator Preparation Programs together with school districts to help 400 community members develop and/or strengthen their DLBE competencies and become effective dual language educators.
Professional Development and Teacher Education
Speakers:
David Rogers
Dr. Joan Lachance, NC
Phyllis Hardy, MA
Beyond Word Learning: A Quantitative Systematic Review of Literacy Interventions and Reading Comprehension Outcomes for Emergent Bilinguals
Despite growing recognition of emergent bilinguals’ unique linguistic assets, much of the research on literacy interventions continues to emphasize word-level processes (e.g., vocabulary acquisition and decoding), with comparatively less attention to how these interventions foster deeper reading comprehension skills. This talk presents findings from a quantitative systematic review examining the impact of literacy interventions on the reading comprehension of emergent bilinguals across K–12 contexts. The review synthesizes results from multiple experimental and quasi-experimental studies, applying meta-analytic techniques to estimate the magnitude of intervention effects and to evaluate the extent to which emergent bilinguals were systematically included as focal participants. The analysis addresses three guiding questions: (1) To what extent do literacy interventions explicitly measure comprehension outcomes beyond word-learning and processing? (2) How often are emergent bilinguals clearly identified, disaggregated, and analyzed in ways that allow for specific conclusions about their comprehension development? (3) What patterns of effectiveness emerge across intervention types, grade levels, and linguistic profiles of participants? By attending to these questions, the review highlights both the strengths and limitations of the existing evidence base, drawing attention to gaps in how research designs and reporting practices either illuminate or obscure the literacy trajectories of emergent bilingual students. Findings suggest that while many interventions demonstrate positive effects on comprehension outcomes, the degree to which studies intentionally incorporate emergent bilinguals varies widely. In some cases, emergent bilingual status is treated as a demographic descriptor rather than a central analytic focus, limiting the field’s ability to make evidence-based claims about what works for students with diverse language backgrounds. The talk concludes by identifying methodological and policy recommendations for ensuring that future literacy intervention research more systematically and meaningfully includes emergent bilinguals to advance equitable educational opportunities.
Research
Speakers:
Zenaida Aguirre-Munoz
Nancy Rodas De Leon
Local CA Opportunity:Project CLEAR (California Literacy Elevation by Accelerating Reading) state grant pays teachers stipends/tuition to learn to become reading interventionists and accelerators
Explore a California statewide literacy grant: free, high caliber professional learning for site/district level teacher leaders and others who will serve students in their own communities (e.g., English learners, students with special needs, others needing acceleration) for language arts acceleration in English and/or Spanish
Systems Change Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Michanne Hoctor
Jorge Cuevas Antillón
Creating Effective Professional Development Practices – The Road to Capacity Building
Effective PD enables educators to build capacity and expand upon the knowledge and skills they need to address students’ learning challenges (Zepeda, 2019). In utilizing a long-term, job embedded approach, teachers are provided opportunities for a greater intensity of study and implementation, access to more follow-up support as they apply their learning, and as a result, a greater likelihood of success in classroom implementation (Coldwell, 2017). This 30-minute presentation seeks to provide a model for capacity building PD that highlights the use of guided lesson design, lesson study, and developing a training format for lead teachers and coaches. Three fun activities are included to help participants visualize the implementation process.
Professional Development and Teacher Education
Speakers:
Marybelle Marrero-Colon
Early Literacy Screeners: Guidance for Implementation with Multilingual Learners
Across the nation more and more states are requiring that early literacy screeners be administered to students in K – 2/3 grade to make decisions about instruction, intervention and possible identification of reading difficulties. It is critical that these tools support, not hinder multilingual learners. The session will include: • Considerations on how to select and implement screeners with multilingual learners in mind • Strategies for interpreting results accurately and equitably • Guidance for communicating results with families and vendors • Questions every district should ask during adoption and implementation This session will provide the foundational knowledge and practical tools you need to align your screening practices with current mandates, while centering equity for your multilingual students in English medium and bilingual classrooms.
Policy and Advocacy
Speakers:
Shelly Spiegel Coleman
11:00 AM - 11:50 AM Breakout Session Block #3
Asset-Based Assessment as a Tool for Holistic Biliteracy Development
This session will examine how a holistic approach to student observation and formative assessment can effectively inform our oracy and literacy instruction when teaching for biliteracy in Dual Language contexts. We will examine examples of student talk and writing to analyze students’ approximations as evidence of their strategic use of their full linguistic repertoire. We will discuss implications for instruction including the importance of oracy strategies as a foundation for literacy.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Meg Burns
Empowering Multilingual Learners during Foundational Skills Instruction
What does responsive foundational skills instruction look and sound like for multilingual learners? In this interactive session, participants will explore practical resources that integrate K–2 foundational skills standards with English language development and bilingual language standards. Attendees will engage with strategies that support both literacy and language development, then connect these ideas to their own contexts to identify concrete applications for classroom practice.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Dr. Jessica Costa-Jones
Biliteracy con Cariño: Using Interactive Dialogue Journals as a Bridge to Proficient Reading while Writing in L1 and L2
Using children’s longitudinal writing vignette/samples, this presentation will highlight the following three goals: 1) Why interactive dialogue journals are an effective bridge to proficient reading while writing; 2) How the daily social interactions, both oral and written, between the teacher and the student promote literacy and biliteracy development and learning; 3) How "deliberate mediation/ scaffolding" by the teacher with the students advances the children literacy and biliteracy development and learning of TK-2 children; and 4) What pedagogical knowledge teachers need to know and understand.
Research Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Barbara Flores
Welcoming Multilingual Learners with Disabilities: Strategies, Practices and Resources
In this session, participants will explore the characteristics of inclusive practices that welcome multilingual learners with disabilities into all of our classrooms. As practitioners, Theresa and Cristina will share strategies, practices and resources that have been found to support multilingual learners with disabilities to develop language, literacy and content area knowledge in a variety of learning contexts.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Cristina Sanchez-Lopez
Theresa Young
Beyond Monolingual Models: Reading Development in Emergent Bilinguals
To fully understand reading development in emergent bilinguals (EBs), we must recognize both their strengths and the unique challenges they face in becoming engaged readers across languages. This presentation shares findings on EBs’ literacy and cognitive growth in the elementary years, highlighting their instructional needs in reading comprehension and exploring implications for practice based on current research.
Research
Speakers:
Ana Taboada Barber
Developmentally appropriate, culturally and linguistically sustaining early literacy for preschool classroom
Effective early literacy practices for Dual Language Learners is built on a foundation of developmentally appropriate practice, literacy development research, and an understanding of bilingual development. This session focuses on what it looks like in a preschool classroom to set children on a path towards literacy, build precursor skills and engage young children in the world of books and text while avoiding harmful ""push-down"" overly academic approaches from the elementary grades.
Systems Change Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Dr. Laurie Olsen
Creating Long Term, Job-embedded Professional Development – An Effective Approach
This 50-minute discussion looks at the important attributes of effective professional development. Some of the aspects explored include ongoing practices and topics, collaborative job-embedded approaches amongst educators both at the school and district level, the inclusion of multiple stakeholders (Vega, Howell, Kaminski & Bates, 2024), focus on evidence-based approaches, coaching, research, and identified components to effect teacher and instructional changes (Ankeny, Marichal, & Coady (2019), and personal/professional reflection. The presentation will look at the key components of applicable professional development and offer suggestions on how to begin implementing an effective process (Weiss& Zweirs, 2019) through fun, job-embedded, ongoing practices.
Professional Development and Teacher Education
Speakers:
Marybelle Marrero-Colon
El lobo con piel de oveja: Advocacy to combat linguistic violence in early-literacy initiatives
Community advocacy groups recently pushed our state to adopt new early literacy frameworks aligned with the Science of Reading. While these advocacy groups intend to promote literacy as a civil rights initiative, their impact appears to be another language-blind attempt at reform. In this session, we share a critical analysis of the recent report of “Oregon’s 42 most neglected schools.” We discuss consequential validity issues in this report and we argue that there is a history of misunderstanding the reading achievement of our dual language schools resulting in the trauma of school-based linguistic violence. Several disrupter lenses are modeled to support school and educator advocacy.
Research Systems Change Policy and Advocacy
Speakers:
Jaclyn Caires-Hurley
Ofelia Castro Schepers
Kathy Escamilia
11:55 AM - 12:25 PM Extended Break
12:15 PM - 1:05 PM Breakout Session Block #4
Translanguaging and Informal Reading Assessments: Truly Knowing your Students
Participants will explore both practice-based and theoretical considerations in assessing emergent bilinguals' reading development. Through an introduction to translanguaging and a critical translingual lens, teachers will learn about responsive adaptations—a framework for reimagining assessment in ways that honor students’ multilingual and multimodal expressions of knowledge. The session aims to deepen educators’ understanding of reading assessment for emergent bilinguals, empowering them to reclaim agency and view assessment as an extension of the curriculum.
Classroom Practice Professional Development and Teacher Education
Speakers:
Laura Ascenzi-Moreno
Let’s Explore & Practice: Strategies and Resources to Promote Language Development and Literacy-Language Arts, in English and/or Spanish
This Universal Designed for Learning-infused session explores literacy and language development instructional strategies to increase access, participation and language mastery of K-6th grade multilingual/English learners. Participants will study practical and facile approaches to promote language learner success during language arts, with applicable models and rich examples for those teaching in English and/or Spanish. Particular attention will be paid to students who are dually identified (English learner students with disabilities) with an assets-building lens emphasizing compassion, belongingness and caring. Participants will have access to free printed and digital resources that can be implemented right away to try out the recommendations when they next teach a language arts lesson. Everyone will also learn about an opportunity to become a literacy interventionist for their community, all paid by a statewide Learning Acceleration System Grant that also provides stipends for their time dedicated to students at their schools. Participants will: __ Consider effective schemas and strategies for understanding and teaching language and literacy to language learners __ Study how to accommodate what students are expected to learn about language and literacy according to the Common Core State Standards of California __ Discuss the application of this session's recommendations in an upcoming language arts class __ Enjoying interaction with other educators during the session.
Classroom Practice Professional Development and Teacher Education
Speakers:
Jorge Cuevas Antillón
Michanne Hoctor
CREATE!: Planning for Critical Literacy/Biliteracy Instruction in Practice
CREATE! is CABE’s holistic planning framework for student success in multilingual and monolingual settings. It takes into consideration pedagogical practices that lead to a more just and intellectually challenging educational experience for diverse student populations. This session will analyze the 6 critical components of an effective instructional plan in multilingual and monolingual settings, based on research-based best practices, sociocultural competence, and linguistic assets that our students bring.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Rubi Flores
Using Structured Visuals to Develop Oracy in the Dual-Language Classroom
Research shows that oracy development directly leads to literacy development (Wilkinson, 1970). In practice, there are many challenges for teachers to provide language learning opportunities, in both English and Spanish, as a vehicle to promote biliteracy. Partner talks/small group discussions often result in off-topic conversations. In this presentation, participants will experience a simple and powerful approach to develop oracy in two languages in a dual-language classroom. Structured visuals provide students language and content support, and serve as an anchor for structured and accountable peer-to-peer conversations. This presentation will be delivered in both Spanish and English.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Dr. Monica Lara
Stephen Fleenor
Literacy for EL’s: A Comprehensive Approach to Learning
This session will introduce participants to a comprehensive and integrated approach to literacy and then take a deep dive into one classroom strategy as an example of how we can use content as the jumping off place to teach and strengthen literacy skills.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Cory Wechsler
Good Intentions, Ineffective Interventions: The Miseducation of Mica
Over the past decade, policy and practice in the US for all children including emerging bilingual learners has been heavily influenced by an educational movement referred to as the Science of Reading (SOR). Schools and districts implementing Science of Reading instruction generally have Tier I instruction as a basic program, followed by Tier II interventions for students who may be struggling with Tier 1 material and then Tier III for students who may need more intensive interventions. For emerging bilingual learners, research has indicated that the monolingual English focused instructional practices in monolingual English instruction need to be modified in Tier I dual language programs to align with research and practice on how (bi)literacy develops in children who are acquiring literacy in more than one language (Escamilla, Olsen, Slavick, 2022; Olsen, 2022). While many dual language programs have aligned their Tier 1 instruction to biliteracy instruction, it is less clear the extent to which Tier 2 interventions and assessments have been aligned to biliteracy instruction for emerging bilingual students. This research paper presents a case study of Mica, a simultaneous emergent bilingual learner in the 5th grade, who has spent her entire elementary schooling in a two-way dual language program. Mica comes from a home where both parents are bilingual/biliterate with one parent being a native Spanish speaker and one being a native English speaker. Since entering school Mica has been in dual language programs influenced by the Science of Reading. Since 2nd grade she has been identified as a struggling reader and has received Tier 2 interventions. This paper addresses the following research questions: •What assessments were used to identify Mica as a struggling reader and to what extent did they consider her developing biliteracy skills? •What were the instructional components of the intervention at each grade level, how were biliteracy strategies included in the intervention? •What academic progress did Mica make at each grade level as measured by formal and informal assessments? Was acceleration to the mean achieved? Using the theoretical framework of holistic bilingualism/biliteracy that posits developing biliteracy as an asset along with the theory of effective Tier II instruction as resulting in acceleration so that struggling students catch up to student who are considered on a normal growth trajectory, we will examine how each of these theories was applied to the interventions and assessments recommended for Mica over the course of 4 years and examine her current situation as a 5th grader who continues to be labeled as a “struggling reader.” Preliminary findings indicate that Mica’s intervention was not aligned to biliteracy development, nor was it aligned to her identified needs, and did not result in acceleration, rather had some unintended outcomes. We argue that while Mica is a case study she represents thousands of emerging bilingual students, who, like her and despite the dual language program received ineffective interventions.
Research Policy and Advocacy
Speakers:
Kathy Escamilla
Kim Strong
Disrupting the Monolingual Bias Through Academic Languaging
As educators and strong defenders of multilingual learners, we illustrate how to convert a monolingual mindset that tends to permeate our educational institutions to one that nourishes and sustains multilingualism. In conducting disruptor analysis to uncover partiality and applying a lens of academic languaging to envision a fluid dynamic environment for learning, we uncover strategies to overcome pervasive biases and stagnant thinking. Ultimately in undergoing a paradigm shift, we aim at system change so that empowerment strategies prevail for both teachers and students.
Systems Change
Speakers:
Margo Gottlieb
Lillian Ardell
Supporting Culturally Responsive Literacy with Native Ways of Knowing Literacy Resources
This session introduces the Native Ways of Knowing Literacy Resources designed to support educators and librarians in selecting and teaching high-quality, culturally responsive literature. Participants will explore research-based literacy strategies that foster decolonized and indigenized learning environments for K–12 American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students. Educators and families will gain tools to identify and incorporate Indigenous-authored books that offer authentic insights into Native cultures, storytelling traditions, and tribal languages. Participants will learn how to expand their collections with works that honor cultural sovereignty and promote empathy, resilience, and deeper understanding among all students. Grounded in the work of scholars such as Reese, Fryberg, Sabzalian, and Pewewardy, this session provides strategies for culturally and linguistically responsive instruction that supports Indigenous learners. Educators will explore ways to create inclusive classrooms and libraries that reflect Native Ways of Knowing and literacy practices. Led by Native educators, cultural leaders, and Tribal experts, the training empowers participants to advocate for Indigenous education and cultural preservation. Attendees will gain practical tools, including Native read-aloud strategies, indigenized lesson plans, award-winning book lists, place-based learning activities, and Indigenous author and illustrator webinar recordings. By the end of the session, participants will have access to several free digital resources to promote Native Ways of Knowing literacy. These resources will help educators feel more confident teaching Native cultures, histories, and contributions—ensuring that educational spaces honor and uplift Indigenous voices.
Classroom Practice
Speakers:
Staci Block
1:10 PM - 2:10 PM Expert Panel Discussion
Facilitator:
Amelia Larson
Panelists:
Dr. Miguel Cardona
Nell K Duke
Dr. Jody Slavick
Julie Washington
2:10 PM - 2:30 PM Closing
Speakers:
Dr. Laurie Olsen
Martha Hernandez