News

How do you connect with families to help students grow? We asked educators this question at the 2025 WIDA Annual Conference, and their responses centered around prioritizing inclusivity, holding events to welcome the community and supporting family success alongside student success. 

WIDA is pleased to announce that Nichole Austion has been named the organization’s new Chief Communications and Marketing Officer. She joins WIDA from the National Math and Science Initiative where she was Vice President of Marketing Communications.

Science classrooms offer rich opportunities for multilingual learners to explore, communicate and make sense of the world through hands-on, language-rich experiences. By integrating phenomena-based learning, discourse strategies, and collaborative sensemaking, educators can foster curiosity, critical thinking, and language development in every student.

Indigenous communities are designing educational programs and assessments that reflect their own linguistic, cultural and pedagogical practices. WIDA’s role in this work is collaborative, helping document validity, co-develop tools and connect partners while keeping Indigenous leadership and ownership at the forefront. 

Beginning in 2021, WIDA launched a multi-year effort to thoughtfully redesign Kindergarten ACCESS for ELLs. The result is the new WIDA ACCESS for Kindergarten that became available in the 2025-2026 school year.

TESOL International Association and WIDA are collaborating to create a webinar series designed to support educators, researchers and leaders who serve multilingual learners. The three-part webinar series titled “Assessment in Action: Supporting Multilingual Learners Through Data and Practice” will explore how research-backed assessment practices can generate meaningful insights that strengthen instruction and improve outcomes from multilingual learners.

Long-term English learners (LTELs) are multilingual students who have received English support for over five years without reaching proficiency. Educators can better support them by understanding individual stories, integrating language and content learning, and fostering collaboration to promote equitable academic opportunities. 

We have four new free WIDA Webinars scheduled for 2026. These are free professional learning opportunities that span a wide range of topics related to multilingual learners. You can register to attend in real time or to get notified once the recording is posted.

This article offers four strategies to help multilingual learners build reading comprehension across content areas: explore text purpose and structure, connect to students’ home literacy experiences, engage in text-based discussions and teach strategic reading practices through modeling and reflection.

Are you new to WIDA ACCESS? Have you administered an ACCESS test before but can’t remember where to find things like training, test prep and test materials? Look no further than this brief reference to all things ACCESS!