Featured Educators’ go-to resources and tools

Browse this list of Featured Educator-recommended apps, websites and strategies that help you build students’ language skills, have fun in the classroom, collaborate with colleagues and stay connected with other educators.

Building language skills

• Ryan Ariosa (April 2020 Featured Educator) recommends:
  • Reading Horizons for newcomers, which starts with phonics and helps develop sight words to sentence level to paragraph level
  • Read 180 for helping multilingual learners with their academic language progress — especially within the writing domain
  • Seesaw to help to track and gauge multilingual learners’ oral language development
• HeeGyoung Song (January 2021 Featured Educator) suggests:
  • Scholastic News and Science Spin for nonfiction texts
• Madison Leech (June 2020 Featured Educator) proposes:
  • Flipgrid for weekly questions and responses that help get students get talking and comfortable with asking and answering questions
  • Reading A-Z for sending leveled texts home, vocabulary resources and monitoring students’ fluency as they read and create recordings of books
• Maja Flom (July 2021 Featured Educator) likes:
  • WIDA MODEL to gather summative data in order to inform programmatic decision making
• Barbara Smith (May 2020 Featured Educator) uses:
  • HyperDocs for digital lesson plans
  • Reader’s Theater for building language skills – and the fun factor! 😉
• Gwendolyn Quadri (January 2020 Featured Educator) has found success using:
  • WIDA Speaking and Writing Rubrics to assess her students’ progress as they go through the stages of her blended learning centers, which includes using interactive notebooks
  • Kidblog [now, Fanschool] for writing practice
  • ELLLO for listening lessons
• Claudia Trillo (August 2020 Featured Educator) recommends:
  • Understanding Language Proficiency to Develop Language Goals, Grades K-5 for helping students create goals for themselves

Having fun (while teaching and learning, of course)!

• Nicole Maier Reitz (February 2021 Featured Educator) found success using virtual reality headsets as a way to get students to experience something new, like a first-ever roller coaster ride, and turning her office into a Spanish library
• Laura Barry (June 2021 Featured Educator) recommends using Canva to create your own, personalized graphics
• Claudia Trillo likes using Ticket Out the Door to make sure students understand a concept

Collaborating with colleagues, students and families

• In October 2021 Featured Educator: Jovita Gandolfo, Jovita gives advice on including students and families in Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) meetings
• Ryan Ariosa recommends using Common curriculum to share, edit and make modifications to lesson plans in real time
• In September 2021 Featured Educators: Jenn Henderson and Jill Kraft, find out what Jenn and Jill, instructional coaches, have to say about creating and delivering stellar professional learning (hint: know your audience)
• Kifah Soheil (August 2021 Featured Educator) suggests that you make sure your colleagues are familiar with the WIDA Can Do Descriptors
• Lisa Mendoza (April 2021 Featured Educator) proposes using the WIDA English Language Standards Framework when you collaborate with content teachers
• Madison Leech says that TalkingPoints is a great tool for sending text messages to families

Staying connected

• Join the WIDA Educator Exchange to chat with educators from around the world
• Remember that you are not alone! Peruse all the great advice from your colleagues in North Carolina in March 2021 Featured Educators: North Carolina EL Teacher Network Leadership Team

In case you missed out on reading a past issue of Featured Educator (it’s totally understandable), find past issues on the News page of the WIDA website.

Note: WIDA as an organization does not advocate for or endorse any of the non-WIDA technologies for instruction. Schools, districts and states are responsible for making choices about appropriate and applicable technologies and products.