News

For educators working with multilingual learners with disabilities, choosing the right accommodations on WIDA assessments can feel complicated. New research sheds light on how educators make these decisions, challenges they face and how best practices can support students in showing what they know and can do.

WIDA now offers WIDA Alternate Screener, a specialized English language proficiency assessment for K-12 students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.

A multifaceted approach to understanding and addressing the needs of multilingual learners with disabilities and their families can go a long way to help them achieve their fullest potential.

Engaging with families of multilingual learners (MLs) with disabilities is a vital step in creating a supportive classroom environment. Educator Brighid Finley often works with MLs with disabilities. She shares ways to be successful in this work.

The Accessible Pathways Project has been awarded $3.998 million over four years through the Competitive Grants for State Assessments competition. This project aims to better understand and support multilingual learners with low incidence disabilities, in this case, students who are blind/have low vision and those who are deaf/hard of hearing.

2023-24 WIDA Alternate ACCESS score reports start getting delivered to states in September. Read this article to get help finding updated score report resources. Plus, we give you things to consider as you review reports, and an update on standard setting.

In this news article, Candoo – the WIDA Alternate ACCESS dog – fetches answers to questions about the upcoming Alternate ACCESS Standard Setting Study event. WIDA standard setting experts are paws-itively thrilled to talk about things like what in the world is a standard setting event and how standard setting affects scores and reports.

Anne Page, a speech and language professional and expert in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), joined the Advancing ALTELLA team to demo some of her go-to tools and share creative ideas that help multilingual learners who use AAC. Read this interview between Anne and Shea Head, WIDA inclusion researcher, to get insights and tips for how to best support multilingual learners who use AAC.

In this edition of Conversations with Tim, Tim talks to Madison Leech and Erika Hall. Together, they discuss working with and how to best serve multilingual learners living with significant cognitive disabilities. 

Listening option: Listen to the audio here or click “Read more” to continue reading.