WIDA ACCESS Practice Tips and Tricks

WIDA ACCESS season is around the corner, so let me share some tips and tricks I use with my students to prepare them for the WIDA ACCESS testing season. 

What is the WIDA ACCESS assessment? (Skip to tips)

If you live in a state that does not use the WIDA ACCESS assessment, you might be wondering what WIDA is. WIDA is a consortium of 42 states that work together to serve multilingual learners by engaging in research practice, providing resources for educators to assess students, and more. To learn more about WIDA, visit their website by clicking here. 

Every year, multilingual learners are assessed for their English language proficiency using the WIDA ACCESS assessment to measure their progress and growth in the four language domains: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Student performance is measured by the WIDA Proficiency Level Descriptors or PLD's.

The states that use WIDA to assess their students also test new students who might be English learners when they register for school using the WIDA Screener. This assessment is different from the WIDA ACCESS because its purpose is to identify if the new student is an English learner and determine if they should receive ESOL services. If the new student arrives before the WIDA ACCESS testing window opens, the new student will take this assessment as well, to measure their English proficiency progress. 

Scores from the WIDA ACCESS assessment are usually sent to the schools right before school ends in June, or at the beginning of the new school year. Teachers can compare their students' scores to measure growth from one year to the other. 

Now, let’s talk about some tips to get students ready for this assessment. 

Tips and Tricks for Practicing for the WIDA ACCESS

1. Start practicing earlier rather than later. 

Look at your calendar, and take into account any holidays and special events that your school might be hosting during December and January since these are the months to start practicing for the WIDA ACCESS assessment. Talk to your team and principals to set a date for when testing will begin at your school. After you have gathered all of this information, look at your planner to see how much time you actually have to practice, and then start plugging in days for when you will practice each domain with your students. If you teach in elementary school and have small ELD groups, you must plan for all the pull-out groups you have so that all of them get the same practice. One way to do it is to practice a domain per week. For example, practice writing the first week and speaking the following week. If there is a time crunch, practicing writing and reading in the same lesson could be a good idea depending on how much time you meet your ELD groups for. 

2. Use the WIDA practice items and sample questions 

Don’t make more work for yourself by trying to create practice materials. Go to the WIDA website and select the practice items and sample questions for the grade level you teach. 

There are also practice items on Teacher’s Pay Teachers, click here to access the WIDA Writing Practice for all levels and grades by All About ELD.

If you have more time, you could make your own practice items, by giving similar type questions to your students. 

3. Do Practice Speaking

If you don’t have enough time to practice all language domains, make sure you have your students practice for the speaking part of the assessment. Each year, I notice that many students could have exited the ESOL program if it wasn’t for the speaking scores. Students can feel self-conscious when having to speak into the microphone and are in a room with other people. Speaking can be challenging for shy students, or students who might not have experience taking the test on the computer. 

Some ways to get your students ready for the speaking part of the assessment are the following: 

A. Show them, as a small or whole group, how the speaking part of the test looks like by using one of the speaking practice items from the WIDA website. Emphasize the importance of thinking about what they want to say before clicking on the record button. Using the practice items from the WIDA website, show them how the time runs out once they click the record button and make sure they know that once time runs out, they can’t record anymore. In addition, let them know that if they make a mistake while recording their answer, they need to keep going. If they stop the recording, they won’t be able to record again. These are very important things to stress to your students about the speaking part of the test because it can make a big difference in their speaking scores. 

B. Practice speaking as a group, if you do small groups, to model answers together, but also have them practice individually. One way to do this is by using technology. Some programs to use are Canva, Schoology, Wixie, and Flipgrid. You could upload pictures or prompts and have students record their answers as if they were taking the test. Use a timer. Make sure they listen to their answers and think of how they can make them better. 

C. If you have really shy students, who you know might benefit from taking the testing one-on-one or in a smaller group setting and you can provide that for them, make a plan, a schedule, and a list of smaller testing groups or one-on-one testing. If you have an ESOL team, you could decide who will test which group of students or one-on-one students to make testing easier for everyone. 

4. Use any resources that could help students practice. A great resource for practicing anything of the language domains is the Spark sequencing cards. Another good resource to practice is to make an optional practice packet for students to take home. 

5. If your students are older, you could have them give peer feedback for the writing or speaking practice items. This will also allow them to practice by thinking of how their partner could make improvements to their writing or speaking recordings. 

6. If you have students going to middle or high school the following year, make sure they understand the importance of trying their best on this assessment and that they know the reason why they are taking the test. Sometimes, students who have taken the WIDA ACCESS assessment for several years don’t even try because they don’t really know why they keep taking the test or what they could gain from exiting the program. Explain how the different parts of the test have different scores and that these are combined to give them their overall score.

7. Motivate your students when practicing, if your students are competitive you could make a game out of answering comprehension questions when you practice for the reading domain for example. You could use answer buzzers and have a small price. Motivate your students on the days of the assessments as well, send them short encouraging notes or bring them some chocolate. 

I hope these tips and tricks are helpful!

Listen to the podcast episode on WIDA ACCESS tips