Progress Monitoring Multilingual Learners

Welcome to my blog! In this post, I will share ideas and resources on how I progress monitor my multilingual learners through the year. If you missed my Podcast episode on the beginning of the year progress monitoring, you can listen to it here. 

    I progress monitor my students three times a year; at the beginning, middle, and end of the year in speaking and writing. This lets me know how they are progressing in their language goal throughout the year. To see the resources I use to progress monitor my students, click here. 

    At the beginning of the year, I progress monitor my students with the main goal of learning a little bit about them, their families, and their background knowledge on content and some language skills. I start with a short interview to learn about their likes, dislikes, hobbies, siblings, favorite subjects, and their goals for the year. Usually, at the beginning of the interview, most students answer using one-word answers, but as they get more comfortable some students start adding more details and language. This lets me know how they use social vocabulary, sentence structure, and discourse. After the interview, we move to using the sequencing cards from the set of Spark Cards (check them out here). I use only 3 cards for lower elementary grades and all 6 cards for upper elementary. Students look at the cards and have to share a story about the pictures. As they are sharing their stories, I look for transition and sequencing words, the type of vocabulary used, and the quality and quantity of details given. and the overall organization of ideas. After the sequencing activity, I ask them about their goals for the year. Another option instead of sequencing is to assess any of the other language functions. For example compare and contrast, analyzing or synthesizing. I would use these later in the year at elementary levels but could be used for assessing middle or high school students who have English proficiency level scores of 3 or higher. This whole process takes about 10 minutes or less depending on how much the students talk. This is for the speaking part of the assessment. Although I take notes on my rubric, I usually record them using Voice Recorder on my laptop in case I need to go back and listen to what the students said. 

    For the middle and end of the year assessments, I skip the interview part unless I have a new student at the time I am progress monitoring them. I might use the same set of Spark cards to compare or choose a different set. However, I like to add a content question related to science or social studies to see how students use academic language in content. I provide some pictures of a topic they have recently learned about in their grade levels and ask them to compare and contrast, describe, infer, or analyze the pictures. I also make sure to ask them to share anything else they might know about the topic. This part is the most important because it gives me more information on how they are progressing through their language goals I set at the beginning of the year with them. I will share how I choose the language goals later on. 

    So, we talked about assessing speaking, now let's talk about assessing writing. At the beginning of the year, i give the students a writing prompt about the same Spark cards set I used for speaking. It is helpful for them to talk about the topic first and then write about it since they already thought of some ideas. The prompt says something like: "Take some time to look at the pictures and then write a story about what is happening in the picture. Think of the setting, the characters, what happens at the beginning , middle and end of the story. You may use the word bank." For the middle and end of the year, if I usually use the content question from the speaking part of the assessment. For my newcomers, I use the sequencing writing prompt with shorter directions. I scan the cards, so I can add them to the top of their paper or show the pictures on a separate sheet so they can refer back. 

    One important detail I want to add is that, I use the data from the beginning of the year assessment to create my ELD (English Language Development) groups. So, even though I progress monitor all my multilingual students at the beginning of the year, at the middle and end of the year I only progress monitor students who I see in my ELD groups or who I work directly during push-in times. Some students, who are not in an ELD group, get my consult services while I co-teach during whole group instruction or small group instruction. These are usually students with ELP levels of high 3s and 4s or 6a, 6b, 6c and 6d's. However, since I have a big load of students, I only progress monitor the ones I work more consistently and directly with. 

    I do the speaking assessment one-on-one, which might take a few days since I usually have between 60 to 80 multilingual learners in my grade level. For writing, I pull them in small groups of 5 or 6 and as one finishes their writing, they go back to their class to call on the next student (I do this if they are in 3rd grade and up, if they are in lower grades, I wait until everyone is done and go to get the next group of students). 

    Let's go back to setting language goals. I teach in a state that follows WIDA, so I usually use the WIDA rubrics for speaking and writing for the grade level I'm working with. Sometimes, I make my own rubric based on the WIDA ones. This past year, I used the PLD's (Proficiency Level Descriptors) and with these tools, I decide a goal to focus for word, sentence, or discourse levels for speaking and writing. 

    This is how I progress monitor my multilingual learners! Share your thoughts  in the comments