Utilizing Home Languages to Support Reading Comprehension

Caitlin Doremus, M.Ed.

Working as an ESL educator in a school district that uses a high-intensity ESL program with push-in and pull-out models, I know that a common challenge our students face is reading comprehension. Multilingual learners often struggle to keep up with high-speed lessons and readings in classrooms. There are supports that an ESL educator can develop, such as visuals, text chunking, and annotations. Unfortunately, the hard truth is that MLs are often left behind, which strongly impacts their social-emotional learning. Witnessing this reality led me to implement a support system that leverages students’ home languages to strengthen their reading comprehension and English skills.

This support system utilizes ed-tech programs to translate audio readings of classroom texts into students’ home languages, providing scaffolding that directly supports reading comprehension. When teaching multilingual learners, utilizing their first language (L1) is a beneficial strategy. Prominent researchers in the study of language acquisition have conducted extensive research on leveraging a student’s home language. “ According to Cummins (2000) “Interdependence Hypothesis”, learners can be expected to transfer certain skills from their L1 to their L2 (or L3). For reading, this hypothesis has been supported by several studies. As cited in Kim et al. (2022), there is “a relationship between L1 reading comprehension and L2 reading comprehension” (Lázaro-Ibarrola et al., 2025). This research led me to implement a form of translanguaging. If research shows that students transfer skills from their L1, we should provide students access to readings in their home language first, in order to support reading comprehension in English. By doing this, students gain the background knowledge needed for proper comprehension. “As a pedagogical approach in literacy classrooms, translanguaging involves supporting students to bring all of their linguistic resources to understanding and creating text” (García, 2020). Coupling this approach along with other research-based strategies, including, but not limited to, visuals and front-loading vocabulary, has brought my students success.

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The practice of implementing text-to-speech in multiple languages involved the use of ed-tech platforms such as Canva and the use of Google Translate for images. (Canva, n.d.)(Google, n.d.). Utilizing the snipping tool on my computer, I took screenshots of the stories from the reading program and pasted them, one at a time, into Google Translate Images. The platform took the original English image and translated it into the selected language. Using Canva’s AI Voice tool, I pasted the text from Google Translate into the text box on the tool and chose the appropriate language. The generated audio was then applied to the document. I then pasted the translated image into a new document on Canva. I did this for each page of the story from our reading program. When done, I downloaded the file as an MP4 video, uploaded it to Google Drive, and then shared it to Google Classroom.

Students listened to the story in their home language for morning work every day.
There have been many positive outcomes from this strategy. The most noticeable were student engagement and confidence. During the lessons conducted with the whole class in English, students’ smiles were beaming, and there were comments such as, “I listened to this in Spanish!” Increased participation during lessons was noted, as students felt more confident in group discussions about the story. Their comprehension of the text increased due to a direct transfer of skills from L1 to L2. The text became more accessible to them, making learning more equitable for all students. Equitable learning needs to be the goal of all educators. Students’ home languages should be viewed as an asset in our classrooms. As ESL educators, we need to leverage our students’ first languages in order to help develop their English language literacy completely.

References:

Canva. (n.d.). Text to speech: Convert text to voice online.
https://www.canva.com/features/text-to-speech/

García, O. (2020). Translanguaging and Latinx bilingual readers. The Reading Teacher, 73(5), 557–562. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1883

Google. (n.d.). Google Classroom. https://edu.google.com/products/classroom/

Google. (n.d.). Translate images. https://support.google.com/translate/answer/6142483

Lázaro-Ibarrola, A., Luquin, M., & Roothooft, H. (2025). The reading rainbow of young multilingual learners: Reading comprehension in the majority (Spanish), regional (Basque) and foreign (English) language. System, 131, N.PAG. https://doi-org.library.georgian.edu/10.1016/j.system.2025.103665

Biography:

Caitlin Doremus, M.Ed., is an ESL teacher in the Ocean Township School District in New Jersey. She holds certifications in elementary education, ESL, special education, and reading specialist. Her work centers on literacy development for multilingual learners, with a focus on translanguaging strategies to support reading comprehension. She is passionate about fostering inclusive classrooms that recognize and celebrate students’ linguistic and cultural assets.