Research & pedagogy
Home-language scaffolding builds a bridge, not a wall.
Decades of research on multilingual instruction point in the same direction. Students who access content in their home language while developing English do at least as well in English, and better in the long run, than students in English-only instruction. Multilinguals is built on that work.
What the research says
- 01
Content access and language learning are not in tension
Students who receive home-language content support outperform on both subject-matter tests and English-language-proficiency measures, compared to English-only instruction (Thomas & Collier; August & Shanahan).
- 02
Vocabulary is the single largest lever
Academic vocabulary, not grammar or pronunciation, is one of the strongest predictors of content comprehension for ELLs. Research on lexical coverage finds comprehension drops off sharply once readers know fewer than about 95 to 98 percent of the words in a text, which can mean just a few unknown words per paragraph.
- 03
Teacher-led beats student-led for K-8
Research on young learners consistently favors explicit, teacher-led instruction. We built for that: the teacher activates support, not the student.
- 04
In-lesson beats pull-out
Support inside the grade-level lesson keeps students in grade-level content instead of pulling them away from it. That’s our whole design.
What we want to study
Seeking K-8 partner schools for the 2026-27 school year.
Three to eight teachers, four to six weeks, no cost to participate. We handle setup. You get usability and classroom-experience findings you can show your team. We share aggregate findings with your school and never identify individual teachers or students.