About Us

Bridges to Academic Success is a curriculum development, teacher training project targeted at school improvement for multilingual learners. The project is an extensive collaboration among CUNY researchers and content developers, language and literacy teachers, and school administrators in secondary schools throughout New York State. All of our materials are designed to meet the language, literacy, academic, social-emotional needs of newcomer students with special literacy needs.

Who We Serve

Bridges serves a population of immigrant students who have recently entered public high schools, are new to English, and who have had interrupted and/or inconsistent schooling in their home country. Bridges students have a wide range of home language literacy levels, from new to print, to two years below grade level. 

3_Bridges_SFD_population

We serve a subset of multilingual learners who are known as Students with Interrupted or Inconsistent Formal Education (SIFE), or students with literacy or math skills two years below grade level. The students who need the most support are those new to print or have a reading level below the third grade in their home language, SIFE with Developing Literacy (SDL).

What We Do

We offer innovative curriculum and professional training for teachers and district leaders that targets a deeper understanding of curricular and instructional practices to ensure access to learning for SIFE. 

Our work is grounded in the belief that SIFE bring valuable resources, such as life experiences, home language, and cultural knowledge that enrich our schools and communities.

 We believe that when educators are trained to understand the characteristics of SIFE and implement instructional strategies that accelerate learning, students are able to graduate and experience improved college and career readiness.

Our offerings include:
A sheltered curriculum in ELA-ENL, math, science and social studies targeted to students with home language literacy levels below grade 3;
A home language arts curricular unit in Spanish aligned to our ENL-ELA curriculum;
Resources to serve all SIFE learners at various home language literacy levels and in multiple classroom settings, including content areas;
Free ENL-ELA teacher training for New York State teachers.

Mission

To advocate for newly arrived immigrants with developing literacy by providing curriculum, resources, and training to educators.

Vision

For all immigrant youth with developing literacy to thrive in school and to participate meaningfully in society.

Affiliation

Bridges is associated with two research entities at the CUNY Graduate Center:
The Center for Advanced Study of Education (CASE) and the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society (RISLUS). We have received funding from the New York City Department of Education, the New York Community Trust, and, primarily, from New York State Education Department.