Instructional Materials

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Curriculum & Supplements for Newcomers

Many school districts report difficulty finding high-quality instructional materials for English learners at varying levels of proficiency. This is an especially serious issue for newcomers, whose instructional needs are not always met by mainstream ELD curricula.

Many districts, schools, and teachers create their own instructional materials to supplement or replace curriculum from publishers. On this page, we highlight materials created by three California districts who are generous enough to share their work. We also provide an open instructional resource bank which anyone can contribute to.

Logo for The SIFE Equity Project, featuring the name in blue letters beside a circular sunburst design in green.

Curriculum for SIFE Equity

The Curriculum for SIFE Equity is designed for an ELD 1 class of secondary newcomer learners who are below a fourth grade reading level in their home language. This pilot project includes a 13 week introductory unit with lesson plans, texts, teacher slides, and student materials; a year-long scope and sequence; and a suite of reusable differentiated activities for content classes.

Logo of San Diego Unified School District featuring a colorful, abstract star design in orange, green, purple, blue, and yellow.

Elementary Survival Basics

San Diego’s Refugee School Impact Curriculum is designed for elementary newcomers in grades 2-5. It contains twenty-two slide decks, each one with a lesson built for three days of instruction. The curriculum and its lessons focus on basic literacy and numeracy, functional “survival” English phrases, and basic vocabulary along a variety of themes.

Secondary Content Unit Bank

These standards-aligned content units were developed by teachers and ELD professionals for use with secondary newcomers. They cover Algebra, Geometry, Physics, English Language Arts, and Ethnic Studies. Units address grade-level academic material with additional focus on language development and support for intermediate English learners.

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Community Instructional Resource Bank

As we relaunch the CANN website, we are excited to experiment with a community instructional resource bank. We invite anyone and everyone to share their favorite lessons, references, units, and other newcomer classroom materials with the broader community. Please only submit non-commercial materials that you know are free to share.

All materials entered into the Submission Form will immediately go into the Community Instructional Resource Bank Google Sheet. We will draw on community submissions in the future when updating the website.