by Sarah Welch and Mark Cotham

The season of reflection and renewal is upon us! This new year, we’re looking back at some of our most-read posts of all time. We’re pleased to see that some of our oldest posts are still valuable to educators.

Active vs. Passive Vocabulary: What Is It?

Ever had a student who was able to comprehend far more language than they could express? Dr. Natalia Heckman guides us through the dichotomy between the two types of vocabulary and how to help students make the transfer from passive to active language development.

QSSSA: The Secret Ingredient to Language-Rich, Interactive Classrooms

If you haven’t heard of QSSSA yet, what are you doing?! This classroom strategy is an absolute must for engaging all students in every class. Click here for a quick review or primer from Dr. Stephen Fleenor!

Building Better Sentences: Rigorous Syntax for English Learners

Teachers who aren’t linguists may not be aware of the myriad of ways in which syntax—the rules for positioning words within a sentence—influences the extent to which students successfully use language. Here Dr. Natalia Heckman breaks it down and gives practical tips for incorporating syntax into your language instruction.

Scaffolding for Success:  Sentence Stems That Prompt Thinking

This was our top post written in 2025! Here Dr. Marcy Voss highlights a crucial tool for helping differentiate instruction for multilingual learners, with examples from a variety of levels and content areas. This is a great post for those who are looking for sentence stem ideas!

Who Are Gifted Multilingual Learners and How Do We Support Them?

If you’re curious about Dr. Marcy Voss’s book, Teaching Gifted Multilingual Learners with Depth and Complexity, read this for a quick introduction! So many resources exist to help our gifted students or our multilingual learners separately, but Dr. Voss breaks ground by considering the intersection of these two populations.

We have a stellar lineup of posts planned for 2026, but we want to hear from you, too: What do you want to see on the Seidlitz blog this year? Share your ideas in the comments below!