Integrating Identification and Instructional Practices to Serve at‐risk English Learners: A Commentary on the Special Issue

Despite the fact that English Learners (ELs) represent one of the fastest growing student populations in the United States, efforts to better understand and serve this vulnerable population educationally have long suffered from a fragmented and inconsistent approach. Approximately 4.9 million children—nearly 10% of all public school students—have been identified as ELs in recent years; of these, over 75% speak Spanish as their primary home language (McFarland et al., 2019). Achievement data suggest lower literacy rates, on average, for this population compared to their English-only peers; about 14% of the total EL student population in the United States have been formally identified as students with disabilities (McFarland et al., 2019) and dropout rates among these students are significantly higher than the national average (for a review, see Rumberger, 2011).