Resources/Recursos

This report provides information about the student’s scores on the ACCESS for ELLs English language proficiency test. This test is based on the WIDA English Language Development Standards and is used to measure students’ progress in learning English. Scores are reported as Language Proficiency Levels and as Scale Scores.

Released February 2025

Student Roster Reports show individual students' domain, composite and overall scores. There are separate reports for each grade.

Released February 2025

School frequency reports show the number of students who've tested at each proficiency level for all domains. There are separate reports for each grade.

Released February 2025

State Frequency Reports show the number and percentage of tested students who scored at each proficiency level. There are separate reports for each grade.

Released February 2025

District Frequency Reports show the number and percentage of tested students who scored at each proficiency level. There are separate reports for each grade.

Released January 2025

Released October 2024

In this webinar recording, WIDA experts explain the decision-making process for choosing whether a multilingual learner should take ACCESS for ELLs or WIDA Alternate ACCESS. The webinar provides newfound insights and strategies.

Released August 2024

This webinar examines ways in which large-scale assessment data can be used to extract important, practical and useful insights on average patterns and high-level trends in English learners’ education and academic outcomes.

Released May 2024

This Technical Report describes a validation study of the newly developed WIDA ACCESS writing scoring scale by examining its feasibility in differentiating student ability and practical scoring use. TR-2024-1.

Published: April 2024
Author: Ping-Lin Chuang
Additional authors: Mark Chapman, Kyoungwon Bishop, Ahyoung Alicia Kim

Released April 2024

This report examines English learners’ testing, proficiency, and growth during the six most recent academic years (2018-2023) to shed light on the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on English learners’ educational outcomes. It provides descriptive evidence on disparities in outcomes within WIDA's English learner population, with substantial average differences in outcomes between English learners identified as Hispanic compared to non-Hispanic ELs. Findings show that these disparities are persistent and have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Published April 2024
Authors: Glenn Poole, Narek Sahakyan

Released April 2024

This accessibility manual was developed to guide the selection and administration of Test Administration Considerations, Universal Tools, and Accommodations for individual English Language Learners (ELLs) in order to produce valid assessment results.

Released August 2023

A checklist for tracking the accommodations a student receives on ACCESS for ELLs Online.

Released June 2023

ACCESS for ELLs Online technical reports provide evidence for validity and reliability of ACCESS for ELLs Online and support intended uses, interpretations, and decision made with the test. This is the redacted report for the 2022-2023 administration of ACCESS for ELLs Online without item information.

Released June 2023

This report ​examines English learner testing, proficiency, and growth in the years surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. This research builds on an October 2021 report on the impact of the pandemic, and includes data from the 2021-22 ACCESS for ELLs test administration. Findings indicate that in some grades and language domains EL's average proficiency and growth have returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, for most grades and language domains the evidence points to a continuing impact of COVID-19 on English learners’ English language development.

Published April 2023
Author: Narek Sahakyan, Glenn Poole

Released April 2023

This report describes how different student ability restrictions may affect item characteristics in the ACCESS multistage adaptive testing, and presents options for item administration in field testing.

Released April 2023

This comprehensive document explains the types of scores reported by ACCESS for ELLs for students in kindergarten through grade 12.

Released February 2023

This flyer provides a breakdown of the role school/district-level educators, state-level administrators and WIDA play in using or developing ACCESS Online and Paper test scores, interpreting scores and making decisions based on scores to best serve English learners. Plus, there’s a checklist outlining the positive and intended outcomes of using ACCESS Online and Paper scores, so you’ll always know what it takes to ensure your students have the supports they need.

Released July 2022

Motivated by findings of a 2018 WIDA report pointing to large overlap between ELs with Individualized Education Program (IEP) designations and those ELs who could be identified as LTELs, this study further focuses on these dual-identified students. Grouping ELs by ever-IEP (i.e., being assigned an IEP at any point in the longitudinal record) and never-IEP status, we compare these two subgroups’ English language growth trajectories across time. Our findings show consistent trends of differential growth and reclassification rates for these two subgroups.

Published November 2021 
Authors: Narek Sahakyan, Glenn Poole

Released November 2021

This report examines English learners’ (EL) testing, proficiency and growth in the academic years of 2018–19, 2019–20 and 2020–21, using population-level data from ACCESS for ELLs Online, administered across the WIDA Consortium to students identified as ELs. The objective of the report is to shed light on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ELs’ educational outcomes.

October 2021 
Authors: Narek Sahakyan, H. Gary Cook

Released October 2021

This letter, available in many languages, contains general information about ACCESS for ELLs and is meant to accompany ACCESS for ELLs score reports as an explanation for parents and guardians. It is provided in an editable format to allow districts and schools to include additional information regarding test administration dates and state policy.

Released December 2020