“More strategies!,” educators often request when we talk about teaching and leading for multilingual learner (ML) excellence.

This impulse is understandable: strategies and scaffolds are shiny and inviting. They are easy-to-visualize solutions, often written into checklists and mandates to implement at scale. And, yes, strategies are important tools.

However, tools alone do not build a house.

Strategies without high expectations lead to over-scaffolding at scale.
Strategies without data-driven reflection lead to, “I taught and they didn’t learn.”
Strategies without asset-based pedagogy leads to MLs feeling devalued at school.
More important than our strategies are how we engage in asset-based inquiry to choose, lose, and adapt our instruction to ensure all students thrive with our rigorous learning goals.

This is more complex work. It requires us to leverage the research on asset-based pedagogy, job-embedded inquiry, and effective professional learning design.

It is the work I love to lead in collaboration with administrators, core teachers and specialists committed to ML excellence every day.

It is the work that drives the Six Essentials Framework and flip to resources in my book Asset-Based Language and Literacy: The Flip-to Guide to Multilingual Learner Excellence in the Core.