Designing “STAR Reading Strategy” Lessons for Real Students: What My Classroom Has Taught Me About

As a Special Education and English Learner teacher at my Washington DC school, I have spent a career working with students who find the act of reading to be an exercise in endurance rather than exploration. In my Digital Literacy Academy, I am the lead teacher for students with significant cognitive disabilities, many of whom … Read more

Interactive Lesson Scaffold & Assessment Generator

A complete, interactive Lesson Scaffold & Assessment Generator web application. It combines automated lesson scaffolding (vocabulary, sentence frames, visuals, graphic organizers, small-group strategies, and extensions) with a built-in WIDA-aligned Rubric & Self-Reflection Generator.

Building an International Community of Practice Around the A.C.C.E.S.S. Literacy Framework™

A literacy framework sitting in one classroom helps a handful of kids. The same framework, adapted and tested across different countries and contexts by a community of teachers, has the potential to shift outcomes for multilingual and neurodivergent learners at scale. That’s the vision behind building this out as a global community of practice, not a one-off resource.

Summer Read: Leading for Refugees and Newcomers: Cases for K–12 Educators

A special friend of mine sent me this book last week, Leading for Refugees and Newcomers: Cases for K–12 Educators. The kind you put down after a chapter and just… sit with. I haven’t finished it yet. Well, I haven’t even got into the middle of the chapters. But I sat with the first two … Read more

Differentiating Between Language Acquisition and Learning Disabilities: A Teacher’s Checklist

I remember sitting in an initial evaluation meeting early in my career, looking at a young girl who had just moved to the country six months prior. The data showed she was struggling with reading and followed almost no verbal directions. The team was ready to label her with a “Specific Learning Disability.” But something … Read more

What Happens When You Teach “Analyzing Text Features” to Struggling Readers the Right Way

As a Special Education and English Learner teacher, I used this lesson with students who struggle with reading comprehension and written expression at my Washington DC school. In my role as the Digital Literacy Academy lead, I often see students who are essentially “information-blind” when they look at a complex page of text. For a … Read more

Reading Intervention Strategies That Work for ELL Students with Learning Disabilities (With Data)

I remember the first time I sat across from a new teacher who was nearly in tears. She had a classroom full of students who were both English Language Learners (ELLs) and had significant cognitive disabilities. She looked at me and said, “I have 50 minutes for English, and I’m spending 40 of them just … Read more

How My Special Education & ELL Students Used “Making Inferences” Lesson — And What Actually Worked

As a Special Education and English Learner teacher, I used this lesson with students who struggle with reading comprehension and written expression at my Washington DC school. For my students—many of whom navigate the world through Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for significant cognitive disabilities and the added layer of English language acquisition—abstract concepts like “inferencing” … Read more

How My Special Education & ELL Students Used This “Analyzing Text Features” Lesson— And What Actually Worked

I used this lesson with students who struggle with reading comprehension and written expression, and what I discovered was that for my students, a picture truly is worth a thousand words—especially when those words are embedded in a complex digital manual or a dense informational text. My name is Maria, and my classroom is a … Read more

They Marched to Mendiola Yesterday. I Was With Them in Spirit — and I Need You to Be Too.

The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) held a major protest in Mendiola, Manila, on April 24, 2026. Hundreds of public school teachers from the National Capital Region (NCR), CALABARZON, and Central Luzon marched from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to demand a ₱15,000 across-the-board salary increase. This rally marks the start of a series of actions planned by the group leading up to the opening of classes in June 2026.