Posted on November 6th, 2025

Districts have made significant investments in high-quality instructional materials over the past several years. These materials are designed to be rigorous, standards-aligned, and engaging—exactly what all students need access to.

But here's the challenge: When teachers aren't sure how to make grade-level HQIM accessible to multilingual learners, one of two things tends to happen. Either students struggle because the linguistic demands are too high without appropriate support, or teachers start simplifying—pulling back on the complexity, lowering expectations, or relegating ML students to "easier" alternatives while their peers work with the actual curriculum.

Neither option serves students well.

The real question isn't whether multilingual learners can handle high-quality instructional materials. It's whether we're equipping teachers with the capacity to use those materials in ways that maintain rigor while making content genuinely accessible.

That's what this is really about—amplifying learning, not simplifying it.

The "Amplify vs. Simplify" Challenge

When multilingual learners encounter grade-level content that's linguistically complex, the instinct is often to make it "easier." Simplify the text. Use lower-level materials. Focus on basic skills before moving to complex thinking.

This comes from good intentions. Teachers don't want students to struggle. They want to set them up for success.

But here's what happens when we over-simplify: Students never get access to the grade-level concepts and skills they need. The gap between what they're learning and what their peers are learning grows wider. And because they're not engaging with complex, academic language in meaningful contexts, their language development actually slows down.

The alternative is to amplify—to strategically scaffold access to grade-level content while maintaining the cognitive demand. Students work with the same HQIM as their peers, but with supports that lower the linguistic barriers without dumbing down the thinking.

This is harder work. It requires teachers to make nuanced decisions about what supports to provide, when to adjust them, and when to remove them. But it's the only approach that actually moves students forward.

The ACCESS-PROCESS-SHOWCASE Framework for Using HQIM

At MPM Essentials, our professional learning is built around the Responsive Instruction Framework—a structure that helps teachers make strategic decisions at three key stages of learning. This framework is particularly useful when thinking about how to use HQIM with multilingual learners.

ACCESS: Making Content Comprehensible

The first question teachers need to ask when using HQIM with multilingual learners is: Can my students access this content?

This isn't about whether the content is too hard. It's about whether students can comprehend what they're encountering—the text, the task, the language of instruction.

Strategic moves in the ACCESS phase include:

Building background knowledge strategically - HQIM often assumes certain prior knowledge or cultural references. Before diving in, activate what students already know and build connections to the new content. This might mean previewing key concepts, using visuals to establish context, or making connections to students' lived experiences.

Pre-teaching essential vocabulary - Not every word needs to be pre-taught, but some are essential for understanding the core content. Identify 3-5 terms that are crucial to the learning target and introduce them in student-friendly ways with visual supports and opportunities for students to interact with the words before encountering them in text.

Making text comprehensible - This doesn't mean rewriting the HQIM text. It means providing supports that help students access it: read-alouds with think-alouds, chunking longer passages, using graphic organizers to show relationships between ideas, or providing bilingual glossaries for complex terms.

Framing the learning clearly - Share the learning target in student-friendly language. Give students the lesson's "itinerary" so they know where they're headed. This reduces cognitive load by helping students understand the purpose and structure of what they're about to learn.

The goal in the ACCESS phase isn't to make things easier—it's to remove the linguistic barriers that might prevent students from engaging with grade-level thinking.

PROCESS: Supporting Deep Engagement

Once students can access the content, the next question is: Are my students thinking deeply and strategically about this material?

HQIM is designed to push students into complex thinking—analysis, synthesis, evaluation. But multilingual learners need support to engage in that kind of thinking while they're still developing academic language.

Strategic moves in the PROCESS phase include:

Providing sentence frames and stems strategically - When students are asked to compare and contrast, explain cause and effect, or make claims with evidence, they need the language structures to do that thinking. Sentence frames give students the linguistic scaffolding to express complex ideas without lowering the cognitive demand.

Creating protected time for discussion - HQIM often includes rich discussion prompts, but multilingual learners need structured opportunities to process their thinking. Use protocols like think-pair-share, provide wait time, and create expectations that everyone contributes. This isn't "extra"—it's essential for language development.

Teaching language functions explicitly - When students need to compare and contrast, they need to understand not just the concept but the language patterns associated with it (signal words like "similarly," "however," "on the other hand"). Teaching these patterns explicitly helps students both comprehend and produce academic discourse.

Incorporating multiple modes of processing - Let students sketch their thinking, create labeled diagrams, use graphic organizers, or explain concepts with concrete examples before moving to abstract written responses. These modes scaffold the thinking while still requiring engagement with the core content.

The key is that scaffolds are strategic and temporary. As students develop capacity, the supports adjust or come away entirely.

SHOWCASE: Gathering Evidence Without Penalizing Language

The final question is: Do I know what my students understand, and how can I help them demonstrate that understanding?

This is where things get tricky with multilingual learners and HQIM. The assessments embedded in HQIM are often heavily language-dependent. A student might deeply understand photosynthesis but struggle to write a coherent paragraph explaining it in English.

Strategic moves in the SHOWCASE phase include:

Offering multiple ways to demonstrate understanding - Not "easier" tasks, but different formats for showing the same learning. A student might create a labeled diagram with annotations, give an oral explanation, or write a paragraph—but all are demonstrating understanding of the same concept.

Providing clear success criteria - Let students know exactly what "success" looks like for this task. What are the essential elements? How will their work be evaluated? This helps students focus their energy on the learning target rather than guessing what's expected.

Giving feedback that separates content from language - When assessing student work, be clear about what you're evaluating. Did the student demonstrate understanding of the concept? That's content. Are there language errors that don't interfere with comprehension? That's language development and requires different feedback. Both matter, but they're not the same thing.

Creating opportunities for revision - Feedback is most powerful when students have the chance to act on it. Build in time for students to revise, refine, and improve their work based on specific, actionable feedback.

The goal isn't to lower expectations. It's to make sure we're gathering accurate evidence of what students actually understand, not just what they can express in academic English right now.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Here's an example of how this framework applies to using HQIM with multilingual learners:

The HQIM lesson: Fifth-grade students are reading an informational text about the water cycle and using text evidence to explain how water moves through different stages.

ACCESS moves:

Pre-teach essential vocabulary (evaporation, condensation, precipitation) with visuals and simple demonstrations
Provide a labeled diagram of the water cycle to establish the conceptual framework before reading
Chunk the text into manageable sections and use a think-aloud to model how to identify key information
Activate prior knowledge: "What happens when you leave a wet towel outside on a hot day?"

PROCESS moves:

Provide sentence frames for explaining processes: "First, _____ happens. This causes _____. As a result, _____."
Use a graphic organizer to map the stages and show relationships
Have students explain the water cycle to a partner using the diagram before writing
Teach signal words for sequence (first, next, then, finally)

SHOWCASE moves:

Offer choice: Students can write a paragraph, create an annotated diagram, or give an oral explanation with visual support
Provide success criteria: explanation must include all four stages, show the relationship between stages, and use text evidence
Give feedback on content understanding separately from language errors
Allow students to revise based on feedback

The result: Students engage with grade-level content about the water cycle. The cognitive demand stays high—they're still explaining a scientific process with evidence. But the linguistic scaffolds make it possible for them to demonstrate that understanding without being penalized for still-developing English proficiency.

Moving Beyond "Just Good Teaching"

Sometimes people say, "But isn't this just good teaching? Don't all students benefit from these strategies?"

Yes—and that's not the point.

All students benefit from clear learning targets, strategic vocabulary instruction, and opportunities for discussion. But multilingual learners need these things even more because they're doing double the work: learning content AND learning the language to access and express that content.

The difference isn't in the strategies themselves. It's in how intentional and responsive we need to be about using them.

When we say "just good teaching," we risk assuming that if we put these strategies out there for everyone, they'll somehow trickle down to multilingual learners. But that's not how it works. We need to design instruction with the most marginalized students in mind—starting with what they need and building from there.

That's what makes this work different from generic "best practices." It's responsive to the specific linguistic and cultural assets and needs that multilingual learners bring.

The Role of Teacher Capacity

The real challenge isn't the quality of instructional materials. Most HQIM on the market today is excellent—rigorous, engaging, well-designed.

The challenge is teacher capacity.

Teachers need to understand how language acquisition works. They need to recognize when scaffolds are strategic versus when they're over-supporting. They need to know the difference between lowering linguistic demand and lowering cognitive demand. They need practice making these decisions in real time.

This is where professional learning comes in—not as a one-time workshop about "strategies for ELLs," but as ongoing capacity-building that helps teachers develop the expertise to use HQIM effectively with all students, especially multilingual learners.

When districts invest in both high-quality materials AND high-quality professional learning about how to use them responsively, that's when we see real change.

At MPM Essentials, we work with districts to build teacher capacity for using HQIM with multilingual learners—through the Responsive Instruction Framework and research-based strategies that amplify learning rather than simplify it. If this approach resonates with your work, we'd welcome a conversation.

Contact:

Email: michael@mpmessentials.org

Phone: (508) 783-0156

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