It’s a morning I’ll never forget. I gathered my fourth grade class on the carpet to start our math lesson for the day. The task before them seemed pretty straightforward: I showed them four numbers on the board and asked them to identify the whole numbers. 

One of my most confident and vocal students said “8” was a whole number. When I asked how he knew, he explained, “Well, you can see the holes in them, right on the screen.” 

As with every math lesson when I was in the classroom, I anticipated potential misconceptions. But at the time, before I’d had specialized multilingual learner (MLL) training, I didn’t expect one rooted in language. My fourth grader confused the word “hole” with “whole.” For young multilingual learners, seemingly simple language can create unexpected barriers to accessing grade-level math. Previewing English words that sound the same and clarifying the mathematical meaning of terms are just two examples of supports that can help MLLs make meaningful connections between language and content.

My experience in the classroom that day reinforced an important distinction: understanding math and being able to access mathematical tasks aren’t always the same thing. 

Introducing EdReports Updated K-5 Math MLL Review Criteria

That kind of distinction helped shape our recent refinement to EdReports’ review criteria for MLL supports in early math—and I’m excited to share that our v2.1 K-5 MLL criteria are now publicly available that and we’ve begun using them in our reviews. We separated K-8 and high school in our initial math MLL review tools. With this update, we’ve created distinct K-5 and 6-8 tools, refining our K-5 criteria to more tightly align with research on how young multilingual learners access grade-level mathematics. We expect to publish the first reports using the updated K-5 tools in early 2027, along with a revised evidence guide. 

While much of the existing criteria remained strong, we took a deeper look at what it means for instructional materials to support young MLLs’ full and complete participation in grade-level math. We clearly identified research-based language supports that can help young MLLs engage with content and ultimately achieve deeper mathematical understanding while simultaneously developing English.

By sharpening our review criteria, we can produce clearer, more useful reports that help educators and leaders understand how well early math materials support the needs of multilingual learners. 

As part of EdReports’ commitment to clearly communicating when and how our tools evolve, I’m proud to share more about the updates we’ve made, how we got there, and what we learned along the way.

Three Key Refinements to Our Updated K-5 Math MLL Tools

1. More specific research-based language supports 

Our original tool already evaluated instructional materials for some language supports. Now, we’ve more clearly defined what full and complete grade-level participation means for multilingual learners, outlining specific research-based supports that must be present within key math content areas. 

Imagine early elementary students gathering on the rug to solve a math problem in their heads, and the teacher prompts them to think about the answer and how they solved it, which they will discuss out loud. A young multilingual learner might understand the task and how to solve it but still struggle to explain their reasoning. Without appropriate language supports, that can limit their ability to fully participate in the discussion. 

An example of supports in this lesson would be the teacher modeling what to do using relevant math terms, having the students practice out loud, or making connections to language and knowledge students already have. This enables young multilingual learners to apply the language that they need and ultimately make meaning. High-quality materials need to provide opportunities to amplify English language rather than making it simple (for example: “yes” or “no” answers), an attribute that is backed by research. 

It is not a matter of whether language supports are present—we’re asking if they align with research that helps MLLs reach the grade-level content in front of them. Naming these kinds of key instructional design features makes the tool more sensitive to how materials create pathways into using and developing mathematical language. 

2. Different ways for students to access math

Young learners don’t interact with math through numbers and words alone. Visuals, demonstrations, prompts, gestures, games, and other modes of communication can help students build mathematical meaning and connect language to concepts.

In mathematics instruction, the term “multimodal” means providing a range of visuals connected to written and spoken language, and it now sits in its own indicator under the updated tool and therefore impacts scoring. Multimodal instruction was not a factor in the previous version. 

Strong instructional materials must provide multiple ways for MLLs to make sense of what they are learning and to communicate their mathematical knowledge. Think back to my student, who heard the word “whole” and connected it to something he could see: the “holes” in the numbers. Before we started the math talk, we could have shown a picture of a hole in the ground and a picture of a whole pie respectively labeled with the words “hole” and “whole.” I could have even had the students gesture a circle with their arms, prompting them to tell the student next to them the difference between the two words.

In order to support young MLLs, early-grade mathematical vocabulary instruction in particular should use a variety of modes that connect to written and spoken language, which is something all students benefit from. The changes to our early math MLL tools are a natural way for us to take a closer look and identify multimodal activity in instructional materials. 

3. A stronger focus on playful learning 

We also recognized a need for a stronger emphasis on playful learning, the research-aligned approach that uses play as a context for learning. It is now a standalone measure in the updated tool, because it helps young children acquire vocabulary and comprehensive language skills. How playful learning shows up in early math materials will impact scoring in the reports, and the decision to add it to the MLL tool was influenced by a core theme we saw in our inaugural pre-K reviews.

Opportunities to use language through activities that bring students joy, social interaction, and mathematical meaning-making are particularly important for young multilingual learners. This way, it creates authentic moments for students to interact, communicate, and experiment with language. If two first graders are working together on finding math combinations through a card game with various representations of the numbers, this creates a playful learning environment that gives MLLs an authentic reason to use and experience language. 

By naming playful learning in the tool, we can better discern whether instructional materials create these kinds of learning conditions rather than treating playful learning as an incidental feature of instruction. 

Applying Our Learnings For Impact

Our team is currently conducting reviews with the updated K-5 mathematics MLL tools. Early testing gives us confidence that the criteria are capturing the distinctions we set out to identify, and we’ll continue to make minor refinements as needed.

As we put the refined tools into practice, we’ll keep learning from what we see in instructional materials and from educators and experts who use and engage with this work. Together, these insights will help ensure our tools and reports remain responsive to what young MLLs need to meaningfully participate in grade-level mathematics.