Linguistically Diverse Students with Disabilities

 1. Colorin Colorado- 8 Strategies for Building Relationships with ELL's in any Learning Environment

Summary: Colorin Colorado is a billingual site that for educators and families of English Language learners that provides strategies on how to approach ELL lingustic development, how to best support them and their needs within the classroom, and most importantly how to connect with their families in the most meaningful ways. Colorin Colorado provides useful books, authors, guides and tips to help educators who are teaching, supporting ELL students. 

Rationale: This website is perfect and a necessary tool for my teacher toolkit because it provides a myriad of articles, readings and even a series of book collection and authors that showcase and pinpoint how to best serve ELL'S. This website focuses on the different settings, learning environments and even abilities that often times come into play when serving ELL's and how to best serve and adapt to their needs. This website provides much wholesome knowledge on how to integrate and implement support for our ELL's inside of the classroom. 

Citation: Lbreiseth, Lydia. “8 Strategies for Building Relationships with ELLs in Any Learning Environment.” Colorín Colorado, 23 Nov. 2020, www.colorincolorado.org/article/building-relationships-ells-distance-learning. 

2. Video Cathy Kea- Serving our Culturally and Lingustically Diverse Students with Learning Challenges and Behavior Problems 

Summary: In this 2 minute long video, Cathy Kea concisely breaks down the different steps and strategies required to provide wholesome intervention to our lingustically diverse students with disabilities. She emphasizes implementing their culture (aspect of their identity that they are familiar with) into their learning process and curriculum, and how utilizing and fostering their learning along with their culture is one of the best practices we as educators can adopt. 

Rationale: I chose this video for my toolkit because it was a wholesome guide that enlightened my knowledge on how to work with language barriers of students who have disabilites while serving them in the best ways possible. This video highlights the important steps needed, including the incorporation of these students parents and families which is crucila in serving our students with disabilities. 

Citation: Kea, Cathy, director. How Do We Better Serve Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. National Center on Intensive Intervention, 1 Mar. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXzmsYF-Cas. 

3.  Video- Dr. Alba Ortiz- Consider Culture Before Referral for Culturally and Lingustically Diverse Students 

Summary: In this video Dr. Alba Ortiz expresses the different ways one's culture impacts their behavior. She address all educators to understand and realize the thin line we often draw between mistaking one's learned behavior from their culture and our own expectations of behaviors which quickly leads to misunderstanding of our culturally diverse students often times overrepresenting them under the label of special education when this is often not the case at all. 

Rationale: This video is absolutely crucial and vital to my toolkit, because it helps me to understand just how easily and quickly I could mistake one's culturally learned behavior with them having a disability or a language behavior as a learning disability. This video emphasized the importance of being careful, understanding the student as a whole (culture and background) and being sure and accurate when analyzing my culturally and lingustically diverse students. 

Citation: “Consider Culture Before Referral of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students for Special Education Services.” Colorín Colorado, 19 Dec. 2019, www.colorincolorado.org/article/consider-culture-referral-culturally-and-linguistically-diverse-students-special-education. 

4. WIDA- Identifying ELL's with Specific Learning Disabilities: Facts, Advice and Resources for School Teams. 

Summary: This website provides immense knowledge, resources and even facts that talk about how to identify special needs/disabilties amongst our ELL's who come into our classroom. This website provides facts and research about ELL's and the variation of their needs and even steps necessary to analyze this and come to this conclusion while being mindful of their culture and even need for language development. 

Rationale:  This website full of helpful guidelines and advice that would allow me to not only recognize the difference between my ELL's student served in the general education classroom but most important my ELL students with disabilties. To know this difference is critcal for the success and advancement of lingustically diverse students like these. This website provides so much knowledge on how to best serve them. 

Citation: “Identifying ELL's with Specific Learning Disabilities: Facts, Advice and Resources for School Teams.” Edited by Rebecca Holmes, WIDA, WCER- University of Wisconsin Madison, wida.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/resource/FocusOn-Identifying-ELLs-with-Specific-Learning-Disabilities.pdf.