Authors: Maria de Lourdes Serpa | Patricia Crain de Galarce

There is a long history of early childhood educators who have developed dynamic and inclusive learning environments where all young children belong, learn, and thrive regardless of variabilities like learning differences. We will draw on the work of Prof Sergio Niza, the principles of universal design, and culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy to answer the question: How do we teach young children who are learning English and have a disability?

To start, early childhood teachers need to connect with each and every emergent bilingual child, with and without disabilities, every day by name. Attention to pronouncing the names by listening to how the parents pronounce the name. Please do not anglicize any child’s name. A multilingual welcome sign on the door in all the home languages will invite students and connect with parents. Make the home language visible in the school context alongside English.

Culture is highly linked to learning. Cultural variability is also another factor and teachers find high value in learning about each child’s family home culture background as an asset in connecting and interacting with these families, often through an interpreter. Valuing the origin culture of each child’s identity is supporting their emotional well-being. The child excels when given the opportunity to bring in their whole selves, their language, beliefs, culture, likes, dislikes, and familial community.

ECE Programs often apply UDL and offer children multiple avenues for engaging in activities that are culturally and linguistically responsive, multiple ways to acquire information, and multiple means for demonstrating what they know.

Teachers can better connect with their students when they are familiar with the child’s background. To learn more about Portuguese, Brazilian, and Puerto Rican cultures see www.ldldproject.net

Students’ experiences vary greatly across and within different cultures. In the US majority culture tradition, families read lots of books to children and this is the way these children associate oral language with print. However, in many cultures students have never been read to, but they still can learn well. Oral storytelling is often used without print. Niza profoundly believes that each student is a fountain of knowledge. This source of knowledge is based on their lived experience that can bridge to new learning at school.

Niza has developed a system for inclusive early childhood education with multiage classrooms which include some very universal strategies to help students connect their experiences with print in very natural and functional ways that apply to all students. A sample of activities is presented here. It was taken from Dr. Lidia Resendes’ research for her doctoral dissertation at Boston University entitled Niza’s Pedagogical Model: A Real Life Experience Based approach to Literacy To understand the graphic representation of life experience symbolically, students explore visual literacy and graphic language. They collaboratively publish public and classroom reports and books.