Classrooms with multilingual students are rich spaces for enacting linguistically sustaining practices that encourage students to use all their language resources. When teachers have some knowledge of their students' home languages, they can facilitate making connections across languages which strengthens students' language development. In this article, we provide a description of key ideas and practices that teachers of multilingual students need to know, so they can draw on the linguistic resources of their students. While there are many factors that contribute to the literacy development of multilingual students, we focus on the linguistic features (phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics) of students' home languages and English. We share examples in multiple languages of how teachers can create linguistically sustaining practices in their classroom.