“[MTSS] offers a way to look at the whole child. MTSS says we're looking at the social emotional learning of the students, how their language and cultural considerations are impacting accessing the curriculum. We're looking at math and literacy and looking how all these things kind of integrate together to create the most effective and more high quality instruction or experience for the student.”
– Dr. Claudia Rinaldi in the webinar "Supporting English Language Learners Within MTSS"
How MTSS Comprehensively Supports English Language Learners (ELLs)
A Multi-Tiered System of Supports is a powerful tool in meeting the needs of students, and in particular students who may need targeted support, whether that be in reading, math, or even language learning. However, there are specific ways to ensure that students learning English as a second language are being supported and not overlooked or even over-identified.
It's helpful to consider the following things when supporting ELLs through an MTSS model:
Culturally Responsive Teaching: The student's prior experiences should be considered, including home language background and socio-cultural background.
Interplay of English Language Learning & Reading Instruction: Teachers should consider the relationship between a student's language proficiency and his/her literacy skills. Reading fluency and comprehension may be strongly determined by vocabulary and linguistic proficiency of both the first and second language.
Interplay of English Language Learning & Math Instruction: Linguistic proficiency and vocabulary comprehension are important when understanding math concepts. Several concepts of math are not necessarily universal.
English Language Learning: Core instruction for all LEP/ELL students must always include English language learning as well.
Assessment: In order to better understand the needs of LEP/ELLs students.
