When teachers intentionally celebrate and nurture multilingual students’ language skills, they “send a powerful message that children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds contribute to the vibrancy of our early childhood programs,” write Michele Coulombe and Kate Lafferty Márquez, who both work at the nonprofit Children’s Literacy Initiative. ⁣ ⁣ They suggest five strategies for recognizing and building students’ linguistic expertise.⁣ ⁣ 1. Incorporate home languages: Try to give multilingual students opportunities to think and express themselves in their home language. During partner work, for example, consider sometimes pairing kids who speak the same language, allowing them to solidify learning by thinking and sharing in their home language. And when teaching new vocabulary words, invite multilingual kids to share the words in their home language. ⁣ ⁣ 2. Teach anchor words: To build confidence and reduce anxiety and self-doubt, offer a preview of foundational concepts yo...