Today’s classrooms are increasingly diverse, with many students bringing multilingual backgrounds and a wide range of learning needs. HMH’s AI tools are designed to give teachers the support they need to meet the needs of every student and help them stay on the path to success. Effective literacy instruction for Multilingual Language Learners includes explicit vocabulary teaching and building background knowledge, as well as intentional support for academic language development. To support access and engagement, teachers should provide culturally responsive tasks, and accessible texts and content for English language development. Teachers can also use scaffolding strategies to develop language skills. When used thoughtfully, these tools can provide educators with effective teaching strategies that are especially helpful for Multilingual learners.

The Lesson Plan Generator allows teachers to develop and edit comprehensive lesson plans on any subject. This resource can also give teachers instructional strategies to use to support students’ language development and build background knowledge. When prompting the AI to create the lesson, specify the specific instructional strategies to use as well as any English Language Development standards alignment requested. In this example, the lesson plan includes strategies for building background knowledge, explicit instruction of vocabulary, academic discussion with response frames, and aligns to WIDA ELD standards. Teachers can also use HMH Assist once the lesson is generated to request additional resources and modify the instruction.

Building background knowledge is a critical instructional strategy for English Language Learners because it helps bridge gaps in prior experiences, making new content more accessible and meaningful. By activating and building on background knowledge, students are more likely to engage with, comprehend and make connections to new material. AI Tools can support this instructional strategy in a variety of ways. Use the “Reading Generator” to build background knowledge on any topic.

Explicit vocabulary instruction is essential for English Language Learners because vocabulary knowledge is directly linked to reading comprehension, academic success, and overall language development. AI Tools can support explicit instruction of vocabulary by providing clear definitions or academic vocabulary, meaningful use in context, and assessment of understanding. Have the Lesson Plan Generator provide explicit instruction routines and examples of vocabulary from any text. Use the Vocabulary Scaffolder with a specific text or topic to create vocabulary lists, provide examples of usage and generate language comprehension questions.

The Reading Generator can be used for a variety of purposes and text types. Use the Reading Generator to develop a Multilingual Glossary of vocabulary words with English and second language translations.

Use the Presentation Generator to create slides to explicitly teach vocabulary. Content provides students with definitions, examples, word learning strategies and usage in context.

Translated texts when used strategically, can help English language learners access content, comprehend topics, and strengthen new vocabulary. Use the Reading Generator to generate summaries of complex text, then translate to students' home languages. The Text Translator can be used to translate any text file, or text pasted into the tool. Provide side by side translations to support comprehension for students struggling with the English text. HMH Assist can also be used to request translations of content in any AI Tools, allowing educators to provide translations of quizzes, writing prompts, vocabulary, and even email communications with parents.

Ongoing assessment and feedback are critical for English learners, to monitor progress and adjust instruction, and help facilitate individual skill development. AI Tools can provide customized and regular assessment on reading, writing and language objectives with the quiz generator.

Feedback for students should be simple, direct, actionable and aligned to learning objectives. AI Tools can assist with the time intensive task of providing quality feedback to all students. Use the 5 Minute Conferencing Outline to generate an action plan for revision on student writing. The conferencing outline tool provides student strengths alongside a specific skill focus area, and sample dialogue to use as teachers conference with students. This ensures conferences help to clarify assignment expectations, and support students with next steps to guide improvement.