The Center for DREAMers empowers DACAmented students to achieve their higher education goals in Wisconsin through access to culturally responsive legal representation, social services, and educational and career services. For more information, visit their website: https://dreamers.law.wisc.edu
Field test materials start arriving at sites as early as February 7, 2023. For more information about the Alternate ACCESS field test, click on the following link: https://wida.wisc.edu/about/news/alt-field-test
We have confirmed March 8th as the rescheduled date for the Multicultural College and Career Day. Presenters, sessions, and times will remain the same. Click on the following link to register:
Multicultural College and Career Day Registration
District Assessment Coordinator (DAC) Confidentiality Agreements
DACs from districts administering the ACCESS for ELLs who have not already completed the 2022-23 DAC Confidentiality Agreement should do so now and submit to OEA as soon as possible. The form may be completed electronically and signed electronically using Acrobat Reader. If your district is not administering the ACCESS for ELLs for 2022-23 be sure to submit your form by March 1.
Student Transfers
If your district receives a new EL during the test window, please fill out the transfer form. We will verify student enrollment in your district and transfer any records in the WIDA AMS.
Students Unable to Participate in a Domain
If a student has a disability which completely prevents them from participating in a domain, they may be eligible to have it waived. The need for this accommodation must be identified in their IEP.
We are making the Multicultural College and Career Day an annual event, and this year's event will be on October 19th! Here is a little highlight reel from last year's event:
Read the article in English y en español.
The purpose of WIDA’s Spanish language arts framework, Marco de referencia de las artes del lenguaje del español (Marco ALE), is to provide the key elements for the development of standards and the teaching of Spanish language arts. Therefore, the Marco ALE is presented in two documents:
These documents provide guidelines for the implementation of Marco ALE, while highlighting the linguistic and academic opportunities for bi/multilingual students learning Spanish.
Learn more about Marco ALE here: https://wida.wisc.edu/teach/spanish/marco-ale
What's changing
Live translated captions help video call participants communicate better by translating a spoken language to captions in another language. Live translated captions will initially be available in beta and will support English meetings translated to Spanish, French, Portuguese and German. It’s available in meetings organized by Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Teaching & Learning Upgrade users.
Learn more about how to set up live translation in Meet here: Try Translated Captions in Google Meet
Provide feedback to Google on this new Beta feature here: Test Application: Live Translated Captions for Meet Beta Program
Reading Recovery Council of North America’s Descubriendo La Lectura
Spanish-speaking English learners may benefit from Spanish literacy instruction as it allows them to maintain their home language and cultural identity and leverage their Spanish literacy skills to support their English literacy development. Borman and colleagues (2019) examined the impact of Descubriendo La Lectura, a one-on-one Spanish language tutoring program that aims to support first grade English learners’ literacy skills. The intervention is intended to be used with students who are experiencing difficulties learning to read and write. Descubriendo La Lectura is implemented in Spanish by trained teachers and includes structured reading and phonics activities.
Study design: Borman and colleagues (2019) randomly assigned students in 22 schools to either receive Descubriendo La Lectura immediately (78 students) or to receive typical classroom instruction and receive Descubriendo La Lectura later in the school year after the study was complete (74 students). All students were Spanish-speaking English learners and experienced difficulties with reading. Almost all students were Hispanic (99 percent).
Study findings: Students who were offered Descubriendo La Lectura had higher Spanish literacy, reading fluency, and alphabetics (letter identification, sounds in words, print concepts) scores based on the Instrumento de Observación and higher literacy scores based on the Logramos compared with students who had not received the tutoring. However, the intervention had no discernible effects on English language outcomes based on composite or subtest scores of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.
WWC study rating: This study meets WWC standards without reservations. Access the full study review here, in the WWC’s review of individual studies database.
Effectiveness tier: The study meets Department of Education standards for Promising Evidence (Tier 3) because the study has favorable, statistically significant findings and meets WWC standards. See the video titled Using the WWC to Identify ESSA Evidence Ratings to learn more about these criteria.
Review more interventions for ELs here: WWC Interventions for English Learners
We want to share these few updates regarding ACCESS information and data uploads since some of these updates will occur yet this month.
DPI plans to upload ACCESS results to WISEdash in September and calculate on-track information at that point in time.
For questions regarding screening/rescreening in the fall, making up for missing or incomplete ACCESS tests from last school year, etc., please see our COVID Impacts on EL Assessment document, offered as a supplement to our EL Policy Handbook. This page also includes supplemental guidance for using the new WIDA Screener for Kindergarten.
New schools and DACs will be added to the WIDA AMS on September 27. If you need to screen students prior to this date and do not have an account in the WIDA AMS, please contact Jesse Roberts.
Log in to the WIDA Secure Portal to access the training course, the Test Administrator Manual, and to download and print all test materials. All test administrators MUST complete the online course prior to administering the new K Screener.
