Megan Horton, Branson High School, Branson, MO Intro Given the community's ties to the tourism industry, Branson High School serves a student population with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This project advocates for multiliteracy through the creation of welcome banners and custom lanyard badges. By creating welcome banners for the school building and incorporating “welcome” in various languages, families will feel a connection immediately by seeing their n

Kayla Haynes, Monett Early Childhood Center, Monett, MO Intro In our community we recently had an increase in students who speak Burmese or Karen. As an Early Childhood Special Education teacher watching the referrals come through, I began to notice that home language literacy needed to be strengthened to develop age-appropriate communication skills. Many of our 3–4-year-old students did not have the language skills to say a complete sentence in their home language.

Brenda Stolle, LEAD Innovation Studio, Kansas City, MO LEADing Internationally emphasizes a strengths-based approach which values learning in any language (Regional Educational Laboratory Program, 2015). This project seeks to provide materials in students’ home languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, Somali & Spanish) for student project work, required coursework, and for pleasure reading. LEADing Internationally also supports our goal to showcase multilingual/multicultural