Resources/Recursos

WIDA Video Contest Winner

Mindy Lewis-Hitch develops a grade-level, standards-based unit and provides her ninth graders with clear modeling and guided practice using game-type activities for Romeo and Juliet. Mindy also demonstrates working with colleagues to help raise awareness of scaffolding lessons so all learners can be engaged.

Este resumen informativo está basado en el ABC (por sus siglas en inglés) de la participación familiar de WIDA y puede usarlo para iniciar la reflexión y la conversación sobre los esfuerzos locales para el enlace con las familias de niños multilingües.

Los estándares del desarrollo del lenguaje español de WIDA, desde Kínder hasta el Grado 12°, edición 2013, constituyen un recurso para la planificación, la instrucción y la evaluación del lenguaje de bilingües emergentes que están aprendiendo el contenido académico en español.

View and download in English.

Regardless of the growth model, aggregate test-score-based models of student growth require large and longitudinally connected samples of student data. When sample sizes are small it becomes impossible to reliably estimate and disentangle district, school and teacher effects from student growth data.

Published June 2015 
Author: Narek Sahakyan

This report shares findings from the Standards Implementation Study (Sep 2022-Feb 2024). The report explores the current status of the implementation of the WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework, 2020 Edition across layers of the educational system, primarily through the perceptions of teachers, administrators, and policy makers. It identifies key educator and systems-level practices that support or hinder successful implementation; and identifies potentials and needs areas for additional resource development and continued research.

Published: May 2024
Author: Hannah Park

This research report provides a description of a study examining school districts in the WIDA Consortium whose English language learners (ELLs) exhibit consistently high growth on the ACCESS for ELLs (ACCESS) assessment.

Published August 2014 
Authors: Narek Sahakyan, H. Gary Cook

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

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

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

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

The goal of the analyses presented here is to identify a procedure for creating alternate composite scores on English language proficiency assessments without using all four domain test scores (i.e., listening, speaking, reading and writing).

Published April 2013 
Author: H. Gary Cook

This report examines how Alternate ACCESS for ELLs serves as a tool that identifies English proficiency attainment for English learners with significant cognitive disabilities.

Published December 2014 
Author: H. Gary Cook

This report describes a study that examined to what extent scores on WIDA Screener predict scores on ACCESS for ELLs. Researchers found that Screener scores are strongly predictive of ACCESS scores, even when a variety of individual factors are accounted for.

Published February 2020 
Authors: David MacGregor, Narek Sarakyan

Many literacy programs were not designed to effectively use multilingual students’ knowledge, skills, and strengths. This Snapshot is the third in a five-part series that provides insights from relevant research and suggests ways to engage the significant strengths that multilingual learners bring to their literacy development. 

Across the country, educators are working to improve students' reading, but many of the programs and approaches in use were not designed to take into account the unique needs and assets of multilingual learners. This Focus Bulletin shares classroom-ready resources, as well as examples and video from classrooms where educators are working to expand reading instruction to make it more inclusive and more effective for multilingual students.

Use este folleto en los centros de ingreso o durante las conferencias con padres para explicar el proceso de evaluación de estudiantes e identificación como ELL (por sus siglas en inglés). Este folleto explica en español cómo se identifican a los estudiantes ELL y qué significa esa clasificación para ellos. Úselo para ayudar a los padres a comprender el propósito de evaluar el nivel lingüístico.

This research report summarizes findings from a recent WIDA study exploring the potential long-term English learner (LTEL) population across 15 geographically-representative WIDA member states during the period 2009-10 through 2014-15. The findings highlight a continuing need for research that rejects an overly simplistic understanding of the LTEL designation. Additionally, future research should more carefully examine how educational systems, practices, and policies structure the experiences and diverse trajectories of students identified as LTELs.

Published October 2018 
Authors: Narek Sarakyan and Sarah Ryan

This flyer provides educators with information on how home languages play an important role in maintaining communication and relationships with family.​

This Arabic-language flyer provides educators with information on how home languages play an important role in maintaining communication and relationships with family.​

This flyer provides educators with information on how home languages play an important role in maintaining communication and relationships with family.​