Inclusive Practices in Special Education: Language and Literacies

With a growing population of emergent bilingual learners in the United States, we are seeing more emergent bilinguals qualifying for special education services. Special education teachers must be prepared to meet the linguistic needs of their students in addition to disability related needs. One way of doing so involves adopting Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy to sustain students’ varied linguistic practices in the classroom. The present article outlines five considerations that may help special educators, including monolingual educators, invite students to draw upon their full linguistic repertoires. Considerations include: providing opportunities for students to use their multiple languages in the classroom, making explicit connections across languages, thinking expansively about literacy, modeling the use of multiple languages and literacies, and being critical of texts used in practice.