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CATESOL Book Reviews: Serving the Academic, Social, and Emotional Needs of Multicultural Newcomers by Brenda Custodio & Judith B. O’Loughlin
09/29/2025
Michelle Skowbo
By Hazem Osman
Introduction
This book introduction starts by introducing the definition of newcomers in K-12 and the need to focus on newcomers. It includes types of support that newcomers need: academic, social, and emotional support. The authors briefly present the terms students with interrupted formal education (SIFE) or students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE). Then, it briefly gives an overview of each chapter and what it focuses on. There is a list of five best practices for meeting newcomers’ needs that are presented in detail in the following five chapters.
Chapter One: Newcomers Program Designs and Variations
The chapter addresses best practice number one: collaborate with school/district professionals to create a program to meet the unique needs of your new arrivals. It mentions the history of the newcomer programs going back to Hedy Chang’s (1990) study for California Tomorrow program, and studies conducted by the Center of Applied Linguistics in the 1990s and early 2000s. Some of the recommendations made based on these studies are: identifying grades to be served (elementary, middle, and/or high); offering courses like ESL, bilingual or heritage language and content courses in English or home language; length of new comer programming, expanding learning opportunities (ELO), offering summer school, Saturday, or after school, and identifying the amount of time a student needs before exiting, and others. The chapter presents common program models of newcomers at the secondary level, ranging from class model to a whole school model. The chapter also touches on the landmark Dear Colleague letter for English learners issued by US Department of Education and Department of Justice in 2015 to guide how newcomer students should be given age-appropriate instruction and the school’s responsibility in filling the gaps in education for those students.
The chapter provides an overview of what to consider when establishing a newcomer program, different types of newcomers’ programs, and expectations to make these programs effective with practical examples and concrete tips on how to make these programs efficiently successful.
Chapter Two: Academic Supports for Newcomers
This chapter focuses on a second best practice: how to provide intensive literacy, numeracy, and content area support, especially for students with interrupted schooling. The chapter introduces literary skills necessary for school and the importance of directly transferring home language skills to learning to read and write in a new language (August & Hakuta, 1997). The chapter lists critical components required with concrete examples for literacy programs such as phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, phonics, concepts of print, etc. The focus on how to develop written literacy connections for middle and high school students is touched on in this chapter. This is recommended by creating connections between topics in the content and students’ world experience, and through discussion with a partner or their teacher to craft their own texts. This way, the program avoids “tedious drills” and transforms literacy skills to be more organic and relevant.
The Reading Rope infographic adapted from Hollis Scarborough (2001) is presented in this chapter to raise the awareness of how to develop reading with its vital components: language comprehension (background, structure, vocabulary, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge) and the word recognition (phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition). The chapter also presents numeracy development for newcomers and promotes integrating math vocabulary through accessible input and tips on facilitating the comprehension of word problems. These tips provide practical ideas that teachers can implement in their classrooms. Life skills examples are also included in this section, shifting focus to elements of real life that students will deal with after they graduate, such as money, time measurements, with practical examples for application.
Chapter Three: Instructional Strategies and Classroom Activities for Newcomers
Best practice number three focuses on how to develop classroom supports necessary for students to achieve academic success. The chapter focuses on ways to make newcomers feel welcome and how to develop their survival English skills to understand language of instruction (e.g., greetings, phone numbers, food, basic survival questions etc.) and provides a checklist for welcoming students to include activities needed to welcome newcomers (e.g., having clearly marked entrances, security measures, having bilingual staff etc.)
The chapter also introduces the concept of “hidden curriculum”, which is defined as any part of the curriculum that is assumed to be understood. Examples of hidden curriculum are interpreting and understanding teacher directions, questioning, working in groups. These are a few mentioned for teacher to consider breaking down when presenting these activities to newcomers.
The chapter includes a chart of concrete examples of accommodations vs. modifications to address newcomers’ challenges. The concept of translanguaging based on Freeman, Freeman, Soto and Ebe’s (2016) definition is also introduced and how bilinguals think simultaneously in both native and English languages. This can help teachers understand how learning is processed in the bilinguals’ mind.
The chapter also presents tips on implementing co-teaching effectively (e.g., establishing trust, having a united front in presenting beliefs and classroom policies, planning together, thinking and choosing a co-teaching model to use, etc.). Finally, the chapter concludes with a focus on assessment to showcase students’ growth. Using Yzquierdo’s (2017) classification of what the teacher creates and uses and what the newcomer creates and uses, examples of authentic assessment are shared. The examples are based on actual learning, and traditional assessment to include pen/pencil and paper assessments are included. This chapter provides various activities and techniques that newcomers’ teachers can utilize in their classroom to provide effective academic instruction while keeping in mind integrating assessment to measure students’ growth along the way.
Chapter Four: Physical, Emotional, and Educational Supports for Newcomers
Best practice four is presented in this chapter on how to provide supports that address physical, social, emotional and education challenges. The chapter highlights the need to appreciate the difficulties that many newcomer students go through: being separated from their families, poor self-esteem and feeling out of place, fueled by their peers’ critical comments.
The chapter provides Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), which utilizes the Response to Intervention (RTI) process. Both MTSS and RTI share some underlying philosophies but are considered two different processes in practice. MTSS utilizes the RTI process to determine academic needs. However, MTSS goes further by identifying behavioral, social ,and emotional concerns. The RTI places newcomers in one of three tiers: Tier 1 is for all learners with a focus on assessing English language growth, Tier 2 is for students with a significant gap of knowledge that require small group instruction, and Tier 3 is when both Tier 1 and Tier 2 are unable to meet students learning challenges and require specific targeted strategies to address the individual needs of a newcomer.
Once a student is identified as needing additional services, the next step is to choose whether accommodations or modifications are deemed appropriate to address these special needs. Students’ physical, social, and emotional needs that go beyond academic and extracurricular activities are presented, and the importance of establishing a school where families can receive services like food, clothing. medical help, and mental health support are some suggestions that the chapter recommends. The Coalition for Community Schools, a national organization for community schools, can assist in transforming schools as community centers and community assets to provide services to newcomers.
The chapter moves on to address staffing needed for newcomer programs. Caring and trained teachers, capable and competent administrators who are aware of newcomer challenges, bilingual office staff that possess multicultural skills are some examples mentioned. The chapter concludes with various examples of support that schools can provide to students beyond academic needs and the standards required to fill the roles of school teaching faculty and staff to be able to effectively address newcomers’ needs.
Chapter Five: Family and Community Support
This chapter presents best practices on working with families and communities to support students outside of the school environment. The chapter explains how to develop partnership among the student, the school and the world beyond. The chapter includes some examples of barriers that face newcomer families and how the school can work with parents to overcome them. Some of the proposed activities mentioned to alleviate these challenges are having “meet the teacher” nights to share information on supporting services available, bring community into school with international nights and culture share days, create a family center in the school and offer childcare for parent events.
The chapter also includes how to establish connection with community organizations that the school can partner with, whether arts, health, religious, refugee organizations, or post-secondary education institutes. Examples of how these community organizations can support newcomers include tutoring, mentoring school age students, homework help, expanded learning opportunities (ELO) (academic assistance on weekends or sponsored activities), and after school sports, crafts, and cultural activities and events.
The chapter concludes with the need to connect to community organizations through involving refugee agencies in quarterly community meetings, which involves health care providers, landlords, municipal leaders, food banks, etc. These opportunities for cooperation with community services expand the range of services that schools can provide to newcomer families and enable them to successfully integrate in these communities.
Conclusion
This text is a great resource for those that are new to working with multicultural newcomers, either in the classroom or in leadership positions. It also can serve a vital resource for new insights for educators experienced in working with newcomers.
Michelle Skowbo
Serving the Academic, Social, and Emotional Needs of Multicultural Newcomers by Brenda Custodio & Judith B. O’Loughlin
By Hazem Osman
Introduction
This book introduction starts by introducing the definition of newcomers in K-12 and the need to focus on newcomers. It includes types of support that newcomers need: academic, social, and emotional support. The authors briefly present the terms students with interrupted formal education (SIFE) or students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE). Then, it briefly gives an overview of each chapter and what it focuses on. There is a list of five best practices for meeting newcomers’ needs that are presented in detail in the following five chapters.
Chapter One: Newcomers Program Designs and Variations
The chapter addresses best practice number one: collaborate with school/district professionals to create a program to meet the unique needs of your new arrivals. It mentions the history of the newcomer programs going back to Hedy Chang’s (1990) study for California Tomorrow program, and studies conducted by the Center of Applied Linguistics in the 1990s and early 2000s. Some of the recommendations made based on these studies are: identifying grades to be served (elementary, middle, and/or high); offering courses like ESL, bilingual or heritage language and content courses in English or home language; length of new comer programming, expanding learning opportunities (ELO), offering summer school, Saturday, or after school, and identifying the amount of time a student needs before exiting, and others. The chapter presents common program models of newcomers at the secondary level, ranging from class model to a whole school model. The chapter also touches on the landmark Dear Colleague letter for English learners issued by US Department of Education and Department of Justice in 2015 to guide how newcomer students should be given age-appropriate instruction and the school’s responsibility in filling the gaps in education for those students.
The chapter provides an overview of what to consider when establishing a newcomer program, different types of newcomers’ programs, and expectations to make these programs effective with practical examples and concrete tips on how to make these programs efficiently successful.
Chapter Two: Academic Supports for Newcomers
This chapter focuses on a second best practice: how to provide intensive literacy, numeracy, and content area support, especially for students with interrupted schooling. The chapter introduces literary skills necessary for school and the importance of directly transferring home language skills to learning to read and write in a new language (August & Hakuta, 1997). The chapter lists critical components required with concrete examples for literacy programs such as phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, phonics, concepts of print, etc. The focus on how to develop written literacy connections for middle and high school students is touched on in this chapter. This is recommended by creating connections between topics in the content and students’ world experience, and through discussion with a partner or their teacher to craft their own texts. This way, the program avoids “tedious drills” and transforms literacy skills to be more organic and relevant.
The Reading Rope infographic adapted from Hollis Scarborough (2001) is presented in this chapter to raise the awareness of how to develop reading with its vital components: language comprehension (background, structure, vocabulary, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge) and the word recognition (phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition). The chapter also presents numeracy development for newcomers and promotes integrating math vocabulary through accessible input and tips on facilitating the comprehension of word problems. These tips provide practical ideas that teachers can implement in their classrooms. Life skills examples are also included in this section, shifting focus to elements of real life that students will deal with after they graduate, such as money, time measurements, with practical examples for application.
Chapter Three: Instructional Strategies and Classroom Activities for Newcomers
Best practice number three focuses on how to develop classroom supports necessary for students to achieve academic success. The chapter focuses on ways to make newcomers feel welcome and how to develop their survival English skills to understand language of instruction (e.g., greetings, phone numbers, food, basic survival questions etc.) and provides a checklist for welcoming students to include activities needed to welcome newcomers (e.g., having clearly marked entrances, security measures, having bilingual staff etc.)
The chapter also introduces the concept of “hidden curriculum”, which is defined as any part of the curriculum that is assumed to be understood. Examples of hidden curriculum are interpreting and understanding teacher directions, questioning, working in groups. These are a few mentioned for teacher to consider breaking down when presenting these activities to newcomers.
The chapter includes a chart of concrete examples of accommodations vs. modifications to address newcomers’ challenges. The concept of translanguaging based on Freeman, Freeman, Soto and Ebe’s (2016) definition is also introduced and how bilinguals think simultaneously in both native and English languages. This can help teachers understand how learning is processed in the bilinguals’ mind.
The chapter also presents tips on implementing co-teaching effectively (e.g., establishing trust, having a united front in presenting beliefs and classroom policies, planning together, thinking and choosing a co-teaching model to use, etc.). Finally, the chapter concludes with a focus on assessment to showcase students’ growth. Using Yzquierdo’s (2017) classification of what the teacher creates and uses and what the newcomer creates and uses, examples of authentic assessment are shared. The examples are based on actual learning, and traditional assessment to include pen/pencil and paper assessments are included. This chapter provides various activities and techniques that newcomers’ teachers can utilize in their classroom to provide effective academic instruction while keeping in mind integrating assessment to measure students’ growth along the way.
Chapter Four: Physical, Emotional, and Educational Supports for Newcomers
Best practice four is presented in this chapter on how to provide supports that address physical, social, emotional and education challenges. The chapter highlights the need to appreciate the difficulties that many newcomer students go through: being separated from their families, poor self-esteem and feeling out of place, fueled by their peers’ critical comments.
The chapter provides Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), which utilizes the Response to Intervention (RTI) process. Both MTSS and RTI share some underlying philosophies but are considered two different processes in practice. MTSS utilizes the RTI process to determine academic needs. However, MTSS goes further by identifying behavioral, social ,and emotional concerns. The RTI places newcomers in one of three tiers: Tier 1 is for all learners with a focus on assessing English language growth, Tier 2 is for students with a significant gap of knowledge that require small group instruction, and Tier 3 is when both Tier 1 and Tier 2 are unable to meet students learning challenges and require specific targeted strategies to address the individual needs of a newcomer.
Once a student is identified as needing additional services, the next step is to choose whether accommodations or modifications are deemed appropriate to address these special needs. Students’ physical, social, and emotional needs that go beyond academic and extracurricular activities are presented, and the importance of establishing a school where families can receive services like food, clothing. medical help, and mental health support are some suggestions that the chapter recommends. The Coalition for Community Schools, a national organization for community schools, can assist in transforming schools as community centers and community assets to provide services to newcomers.
The chapter moves on to address staffing needed for newcomer programs. Caring and trained teachers, capable and competent administrators who are aware of newcomer challenges, bilingual office staff that possess multicultural skills are some examples mentioned. The chapter concludes with various examples of support that schools can provide to students beyond academic needs and the standards required to fill the roles of school teaching faculty and staff to be able to effectively address newcomers’ needs.
Chapter Five: Family and Community Support
This chapter presents best practices on working with families and communities to support students outside of the school environment. The chapter explains how to develop partnership among the student, the school and the world beyond. The chapter includes some examples of barriers that face newcomer families and how the school can work with parents to overcome them. Some of the proposed activities mentioned to alleviate these challenges are having “meet the teacher” nights to share information on supporting services available, bring community into school with international nights and culture share days, create a family center in the school and offer childcare for parent events.
The chapter also includes how to establish connection with community organizations that the school can partner with, whether arts, health, religious, refugee organizations, or post-secondary education institutes. Examples of how these community organizations can support newcomers include tutoring, mentoring school age students, homework help, expanded learning opportunities (ELO) (academic assistance on weekends or sponsored activities), and after school sports, crafts, and cultural activities and events.
The chapter concludes with the need to connect to community organizations through involving refugee agencies in quarterly community meetings, which involves health care providers, landlords, municipal leaders, food banks, etc. These opportunities for cooperation with community services expand the range of services that schools can provide to newcomer families and enable them to successfully integrate in these communities.
Conclusion
This text is a great resource for those that are new to working with multicultural newcomers, either in the classroom or in leadership positions. It also can serve a vital resource for new insights for educators experienced in working with newcomers.