Research Publications

This WIDA Focus Bulletin outlines ways in which educators can provide English Language Learners with disabilities access to complex language via classroom activities and engagement opportunities.

Published March 2017 
Authors: Lynn Shafer Willner, Cynthia Lundgren, Mira Monroe, Julia Cortada

This WIDA Focus Bulletin provides examples of specific macro-scaffolding and micro-scaffolding practices in action in a math classroom and includes guidance for developing these scaffolding practices over time.​

Published June 2018
Authors: Jen Daniels, Ruslana Westerlund

This WIDA Focus Bulletin explores ways to strengthen reasoning and language in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education.

Published January 2017 
Author: Rita MacDonald

This WIDA Focus Bulletin focuses on the needs of students who have limited or interrupted formal education. Because the vast majority of students in this group are enrolled in grades 6 through 12, we will focus on those grade levels. However, many of the tips and suggestions can be applied in lower grade levels as well. Throughout the bulletin we will explore academic and social-emotional factors that may affect this group of students, examine the benefits of building community partnerships, address how to assess student readiness levels, and offer a checklist of considerations for instructional planning.

Published May 2015 
Authors: Lauren Keppler, Lucia Morales, Julia Cortada, Maria Austin

​This Focus Bulletin illustrates how teachers and students can use language development portfolios to interpret and document language growth. The bulletin follows the story of how a grade-level team introduced portfolios to their practice, posing several questions the team asked as they refined their usage. It closes by offering two sample tools that teachers can use and adapt to capture multilingual learners’ language growth using modified Proficiency Level Descriptors (PLDs) from the WIDA English Language Development Framework, 2020 Edition.

Published: December 2022 
Authors: Fernanda Marinho Kray, Margo Gottlieb, Lynn Shafer Willner

This Focus Bulletin illustrates how educators in featured International Baccalaureate schools are integrating WIDA resources as they design lessons for multilingual learners.

Published June 2019 
Authors: Jon Nordmeyer, Ruslana Westerlund, Elizabeth Cranley, Anne Katz

This working paper provides insights into how all teachers can provide linguistically and culturally responsive and equitable education for all students by orchestrating instruction to meet their varying socioemotional, cultural, linguistic and academic needs. Grounded in social justice, the Cultural, Linguistic, Equity, and Responsiveness (CLEAR) paradigm presented in this paper describes a guiding framework for educators who wish to integrate sociocultural and sociolinguistic responsiveness and critical pedagogical practices to achieve quality, equitable education for their students.

This WIDA Focus Bulletin addresses how English Language Learners engage with technology within the classroom.

Published October 2014 
Authors: Meagan Rothschild, Julia Cortada

The Framework for Equitable Instruction (FEI) is an instruction-focused resource designed to promote the equitable engagement in disciplinary learning and language development of multilingual learners. The FEI complements the WIDA ELD Standards Framework, 2020 Edition. This working paper can inform teachers’ practice, support teacher collaboration within and across disciplines, and serve as a foundation for the design of professional learning opportunities and resources.

This report addresses three primary questions:
1. How do you determine a meaningful English language performance standard?
2. How do you establish a realistic, empirically anchored time frame for attaining a given ELP performance standard?
3. How can states take into account English learners’ English language performance level when setting academic progress and proficiency expectations?

Published May 2013