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Updated Edition of Bestseller

Asset-Based Language and Literacy

The Flip-To Guide to Multilingual Learner Excellence in the Core
Second Edition

Tonya Ward Singer equips educators to center ML assets and deepen collaborative inquiry to ensure MLs belong and thrive in every classroom, every day.

Full description

Product Details
  • Grade Level: PreK-12
  • ISBN: 9781071955314
  • Published By: Corwin
  • Year: 2025
  • Page Count: 400
  • Publication date: June 17, 2025
Price: $39.95

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Review copies may be requested by individuals planning to purchase 10 or more copies for a team or considering a book for adoption in a higher ed course. Request review copy

Description

Ensure multilingual learners thrive in every classroom, every day.

Asset-Based Language and Literacy is the essential guide for K–12 teachers to ensure all students—including multilingual learners (MLs)—thrive with the rigorous content literacy and language demands of school. Building on the proven pedagogy and practical flip-to format of the best-selling first edition, Tonya Ward Singer offers essential updates that help educators center ML assets and deepen collaborative inquiry to ensure MLs belong and thrive in every classroom, every day.

The user-friendly flip-to format and color-coded resources help busy teachers find exactly what they need when they need it. Popular features include:
  • Practical strategies for scaffolding language, concepts, and academic literacy in your daily lessons
  • Differentiation guides for personalizing instruction to students’ assets and learning priorities
  • Effective teaching routines to strengthen student conversations, close reading, and rigorous writing.
  • The Six Essentials framework to help teachers, co-teachers, and teams deepen their impact with MLs and all students.

Asset-Based Language and Literacy equips educators with confidence and tools to create high-challenge, high-support learning environments to ensure all students thrive. With a focus on practical research-based strategies, this is your go-to guide for building collective efficacy for every teacher to be an ML teacher!

Author(s)

Tonya Ward Singer photo

Tonya Ward Singer

Tonya Ward Singer is the founder of Courageous Literacy LLC, an organization that helps K-12 educators advance literacy and language learning in culturally and linguistically rich schools. Teachers and administrators describe Tonya’s work as groundbreaking, dynamic, practical, relevant, and impactful.

Tonya is the author of bestsellers EL Excellence Every Day and Opening Doors to Equity. She co-authored Breaking Down the Wall and literacy curricula for international publishers. Tonya has taught across multiple grade levels and excels as an international consultant helping schools build collective efficacy of all teachers through job-embedded, impactful professional learning.

Beyond her work in schools, Tonya co-facilitates dialogues in non-profit organizations committed to truth seeking and transforming legacies of racial oppression.

Contact Tonya at: @TonyaWardSinger

www.tonyasinger.com

Table of Contents

SECTION I: ESSENTIALS FOR MULTILINGUAL EXCELLENCE


1. INTRODUCTION

Equal Access to Academic Excellence

Every Teacher an ML Teacher

Six Essentials for Equitable Impact

Teaching and Leading Beyond the Labels

Practical Ways to Use This Book

2. ESSENTIAL MINDSETS

Mindsets Matter

Value Multilingual Learners’ Assets

Expect Excellence From Every Learner

Reflect in Inquiry About Your Impact

SECTION II: ENGAGE EVERY LEARNER


3. ENGAGE EVERY LEARNER

Defining Engagement and Active Participation

Structure Peer Conversations in Every Lesson

Practical Planning for Peer Conversations

Integrating Active Participation Strategies

3.1 Whole-Class Conversation Structures

3.2 Partner Conversation Structures

3.3 Small-Group Conversation Structures

3.4 Up and Moving Conversation Structures

3.5 Fishbowl Structure and Socratic Seminar

3.6 Observe and Listen to Conversations as Formative Data

3.7 Inquiry for Impact to Strengthen Student Conversations

3.8 Total Physical Response Strategies

3.9 Shared Reading and Annotation Strategies

3.10 Collaborate to Write (and Represent) Strategies

SECTION III: SUPPORT ACCESS TO EXCELLENCE EVERY DAY


4. SCAFFOLDING TO STUDENT ASSETS

Scaffolding through the Six Essentials

Supporting Content and the Language of Instruction

Adapting Supports to Students

Resources to Help You Plan and Adapt Supports

5. BUILD BACKGROUND AND SUPPORT ACCESS

5.1 Connect to Students’ Prior Knowledge and Experiences

5.2 Build Background in Essential Concepts and Vocabulary

5.3 Value Students' Linguistic Assets in Action

5.4 Supporting Access and Active Participation of Emerging MLs

5.5 Teach Vocabulary with Direct Instruction or the Frayer Model

5.6 Use Cognates to Teach Vocabulary and Support Comprehension

5.7 Model Through Teacher Action

5.8 Model Expectations with an Exemplar

5.9 Collaborate to Contrast Exemplars

5.10 Collaborate to Evaluate an Exemplar With a Rubric

5.11 Choose Texts that Value and Mirror Students' Assets

6. SCAFFOLD LANGUAGE DURING A TASK

Anticipating the Linguistic Scaffolds Before a Lesson

Engage-Observe-Support to Adapt Linguistic Scaffolds

Differentiate Linguistic Scaffolds Along a Continuum

Tips to Be Strategic

6.1 Linguistic Frames

6.2 Word Banks

6.3 Word Bank Table

6.4 Sentence Chart

6.5 Graphic Organizers

7. TEACH LANGUAGE BEYOND A TASK

Prioritizing Language Objectives to Teach

7.1 Teach Language From Life Experience

7.2 Teach Language From a Text

7.3 Syntax (or Paragraph) Surgery

7.4 Teach Word Relationships

SECTION IV: APPLY THE ESSENTIALS TO ACADEMIC LITERACY GOALS


8. DEEPEN ACCESS TO ACADEMIC LITERACIES

Why These Priorities?

Introducing the Four-Step Routine

Inquiry for Impact Tools for Teachers, Co-Teachers and Teams

9. ANTICIPATE

What and Why?

9.1 Make Predictions

9.2 Ask Questions Before Reading

10. READ TO UNDERSTAND

What and Why?

10.1 Identify Main Ideas

10.2 Self-Monitor and Use Context Clues

10.3 Use Affixes and Roots to Figure Out Unknown Words

11. READ TO ANALYZE AND INFER 234

What and Why?

11.1 Make Claims About Texts

11.2 Justify Claims With Text Evidence and Reasoning

9.2 Ask Questions Before Reading

10. READ TO UNDERSTAND

What and Why?

10.1 Identify Main Ideas

10.2 Self-Monitor and Use Context Clues

10.3 Use Affixes and Roots to Figure Out Unknown Words

11. READ TO ANALYZE AND INFER 234

What and Why?

11.1 Make Claims About Texts

11.2 Justify Claims With Text Evidence and Reasoning

9.2 Ask Questions Before Reading

10. READ TO UNDERSTAND

What and Why?

10.1 Identify Main Ideas

10.2 Self-Monitor and Use Context Clues

10.3 Use Affixes and Roots to Figure Out Unknown Words

11. READ TO ANALYZE AND INFER 234

What and Why?

11.1 Make Claims About Texts

11.2 Justify Claims With Text Evidence and Reasoning

11.3 Make Inferences About Characters

11.4 Make and Justify Claims About Theme and Author’s Message

11.5 Compare and Contrast

Price: $39.95

Review Copies

Review copies may be requested by individuals planning to purchase 10 or more copies for a team or considering a book for adoption in a higher ed course. Request review copy

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