10E) Assessment to inform grouping and instruction
Assess children in their home language. If you don’t speak the home language, try to find interpreters to help conduct assessments.
Video: Assessment of Dual Language Learners
This video helps educators answer the question: "What do I need to consider when assessing Multilingual Learners?" The goal of assessment is to understand what the child knows; for ML children, educators need to consider all of the languages that the child speaks to fully assess their development and learning.Read More
Planning Template: El Dictado
The Dictado is a routine in which the teacher dictates a series of phrases or sentences, and the teacher and students collaboratively correct them. The Dictado serves to teach and reinforce basic writing skills within each language, and to highlight cross-language transfer. This template helps teachers analyze their Dictados.Read More
Video: El Dictado
In this video, the teacher dictates a series of phrases or sentences, and the teacher and students collaboratively correct them. The Dictado serves to teach and reinforce basic writing skills within each language, and to highlight cross-language transfer and reinforce the teaching points presented over the three days of implementation.Read More
Blog: Should Multimodalities be Incorporated into Testing and Assessment?
This blog introduces research that challenges the idea of written text as the mode of communication for comprehending written language and assessing Multilingual Learners. Suggestions for alternative assessment, attending to all domains of English, are offered.Read More
Video: Model Curriculum for English Learners – Family Stories (1st grade)
This video captures a lesson for Multilingual Learners co-taught by a first-grade teacher and an ELD teacher. The teachers share how they intentionally plan to both teach and assess the English language within the content lesson.Read More
Blog: More Meaningful Assessment for DLLs
This blog offers a quick overview of why assessment is so critical for instruction with Multilingual Learners, including assessment in the home language(s) and understanding of language development. This resource is full of other relevant links.Read More
Guide: Assessing Children Who Are Dual Language Learners
This guide explains how educators can assess Multilingual Learners using the Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP). The guide includes information about code-switching, a typical feature of dual language development, and how assessors can ensure they are collecting the most comprehensive information to accurately assess children.Read More
Website: Assessing when a Child’s Language is Not Spoken in the Classroom
This resource provides guidance on assessing Multilingual Learners’ language abilities when teachers do not speak the child’s home language. Recommendations include partnering with families to co-create goals and finding interpreters to help conduct assessments.Read More
Webinar: Measuring What All Children Can Do in All Languages
In this webinar, presenters discuss the trajectory of bilingual development and important considerations for assessing Multilingual Learners. The webinar provides guidance around using a variety of formative assessment tools, using summative assessment, and assessing children in their home language.Read More
Website Article: Young Dual Language Learners-Screening and Assessment
The objective of this article and accompanying video is to focus on Multilingual Learners and "understand some of the unique considerations that educators must keep in mind when screening and assessing."Read More
