Helping children feel seen, heard, and understood: preservice teachers’ strategies to support diverse learners in math lessons

ABSTRACT All children can develop high levels of math proficiency when they are given rigorous instructional tasks with appropriate teacher support. Preservice teachers (PSTs) must develop various instructional strategies tailored to the diverse learners in their classroom, including multilingual students. More research is needed on how PSTs can support students of different math abilities with strategies for multilingual learners in early childhood classrooms. This qualitative research study explored instructional strategies found in 20 PSTs’ math lesson plans and lesson plan reflections to understand how they taught equitably to diverse learners across their kindergarten-3rd grade field placement settings. Strategies emerging from the codes were analyzed to determine how different instructional strategies supported multilingual learners, offered differentiation, or were culturally responsive. Most strategies supported multilingual students and students who may need additional support in math; examples include gesturing and pointing, allowing students to respond non-verbally, and modeling the activity. Some areas of the framework were not addressed in the lesson plans, and potential reasons and solutions for this are also addressed.