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.
To advocate for newly arrived immigrants with developing literacy by providing curriculum, resources, and training to educators.
For all immigrant youth with developing literacy to thrive in school and to participate meaningfully in society.
Bridges serves a population of immigrant students who have recently entered public high schools, are new to English, and who may have had interrupted and/or inconsistent schooling in their home country. These include:
• All Newcomer multilingual learners: English learners who have been in the U.S. three years or less;
• Students with Interrupted or Inconsistent Formal Education (SIFE), or students with literacy or math skills two years below grade level;
• SIFE with Developing Literacy (SDL), SIFE who are new to print or have a reading level below the third grade in their home language.
Our offerings include:
• A sheltered curriculum in ELA-ENL targeted to students with home language literacy levels below grade 3;
• A home language arts curriculum in Spanish aligned to our ENL-ELA curriculum serving students with home language literacy levels below grade 6;
• A math curriculum serving students with home language literacy levels below grade 6;
• Multimedia resources to serve all Newcomer learners at various home language literacy levels and in multiple classroom settings, including social studies and science content areas;
• Free ENL-ELA and HLA teacher training for New York State teachers;
• An online course on Developing Responsive Classroom Communities for SIFE and Newcomer ELs for districts nationwide.
Our team is comprised of specialists in the fields of linguistics, urban education, literacy education, arts education, administrative leadership, educational psychology, and public health, the majority of whom have also had teaching careers in New York classrooms. In addition to our core staff, we also partner with lead teachers across NY state, who have a significant role in providing feedback on the design and implementation of our curricula. The Bridges Leadership Advisory of school and district administrators provides professional insight on current issues that informs our work. As a project of the Graduate Center, CUNY, we are also affiliated with the Center for Advanced Study in Education (CASE) and the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society (RISLUS).
