Taking Action
The information and resources on Teaching Literacy to K-5 English Learners are designed to support improvements in policy and practice for districts, schools and classrooms. You can explore Doing What Works to understand the recommendations from the research and decide on changes in your own practice. Or, as a technical assistance provider or improvement team member, you may be in a position to help others examine their practice and make changes.
If you are looking to use Doing What Works resources as part of an improvement initiative, the tools in this “Do What Works” section may be especially helpful because they show how to use the resources in the “Learn What” and “See How” sections to develop a vision of desired practice, conduct a needs assessment and develop local action plans. (Some of these tools link to materials on other parts of the website; here all the tools related to Screening and Monitoring Progress are collected for easy reference.)
Whatever your role, there’s probably something here for you. Some suggestions targeted to specific role groups are provided under the heading “Uses by Role.”
Practice Tools
These tools help you use the materials in the “Learn What” and “See How” sections, as you tackle the hard work of school improvement. Each tool is a downloadable Word document that you can edit and adapt to serve your needs.
Learning Together About Screening and Monitoring Progress
Convene a school team to review the Learn What Works resources for Screening and Monitoring Progress, using these discussion questions.
Download Tool | WORD | 113 KB
——————————————————————————–
Organizing Progress Monitoring Data
Study how one school displays data and consider if something similar would be useful in your school.
Download Tool | WORD | 1 MB
——————————————————————————–
Conducting a Self-Assessment of Screening and Monitoring Progress
Use this self-assessment checklist to take stock and identify next steps for your school.
Download Tool | WORD | 125 KB
Planning Templates
Screening and Monitoring Progress is also included in each of three comprehensive planning templates that include all five practices for Teaching Literacy to K-5 English Learners. An overview describes how these planning templates can be used by a technical assistance provider or other support provider working with schools on comprehensive needs assessment and planning.
Overview of Planning Templates
Download Overview | WORD | 107 KB
——————————————————————————–
Planning Template #1: Working with State Education Agencies
Download Template | WORD | 135 KB
——————————————————————————–
Planning Template #2: Working with Districts
Download Template | WORD | 131 KB
——————————————————————————–
Planning Template #3: Working with Schools
Download Template | WORD | 134 KB
Uses by Role
Educators at all levels of the system can use the information and tools on this site to create approaches to using assessments to: a) identify which English learners need additional support, and b) monitor the ongoing progress of English learners in reading and language development.
Assessment Coordinator:
In assessment training, remind classroom teachers why it is important to include English learners in formative assessments.
Monitoring the Reading Progress of English Learners
Planning Template #3: Working with Schools
——————————————————————————–
Assessment Coordinator:
Help teachers use progress monitoring data to create instructional groups by designing a spreadsheet to profile skill mastery of students in each classroom. A useful profile shows at a glance when students have been assessed and who has mastered particular skills. Use this version of a spreadsheet or create your own.
Classroom and Student Data Profiles
——————————————————————————–
Curriculum Coordinator:
To familiarize principals and K-3 teachers with the types of reading assessments that are appropriate to use with English learners, convene a short professional development session and show them the short interview with Scott Baker on Using Formative Assessments with English Learners (5 minutes) and the animated presentation on Monitoring Reading Progress of English Learners (12 minutes). As a follow-up reading assignment, provide copies of the recommendation about screening and monitoring progress in the Practice Guide.
Introduction to Formative Assessment in Reading
Monitoring the Reading Progress of English Learners
——————————————————————————–
ESL/ELD Teacher:
Assist classroom teachers to administer English language assessments to English learners. Ensure that children understand the directions for the assessment tasks.
Monitoring the Reading Progress of English Learners
——————————————————————————–
K-3 Teacher:
Assess English learners with the same reading progress measures you use with English-speaking students for phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and word reading.
An Assessment System that Works for Teachers
——————————————————————————–
Kindergarten/First Grade Teacher:
Keep monthly samples of student writing to gauge the type of progress that English learners are making throughout the year. Write or record notes about specific skills demonstrated in each sample to create a portfolio record. See an example from kindergarten.
Working with English Learners in Kindergarten
——————————————————————————–
Principal:
Convene monthly grade-level team meetings to review progress data for individual English learners. Ask teachers to provide data about which students are and are not making progress and facilitate discussion of targeted plans for those students who are not progressing.
——————————————————————————–
Reading Coach:
Ensure that assessments are administered on a timely schedule to inform instruction by developing a schoolwide calendar that lists the schedule of all expected reading assessments throughout the year by grade. Include screening, progress monitoring, unit tests as well as state and district assessments.
Assessment Schedule and Reading Calendar
——————————————————————————–
School Leadership Team:
Be sure that teachers are receiving support for getting the most instructional value from ongoing assessments. Use this checklist to conduct a review of your school’s assessment system for ideas about supporting teachers to use data.
Conducting a Self-Assessment of Screening and Monitoring Progress
Getting the Most From This Area of the Website
For the most powerful effect on achievement, state, district and school leaders should work in concert to implement all five of the practices in Teaching Literacy to K-5 English Learners. The five research-based practices are inter-related parts of a schoolwide core literacy program. As all teachers use data to monitor the progress of all students, they can provide differentiation and extra support for English learners as needed.
The three Planning Templates are wide-ranging tools designed to support application of these ideas at the state, district, and school levels. Each encompasses all five practices for teaching literacy to English learners. These templates can provide a guiding framework whether you are initiating an improvement effort or want to review and strengthen an existing one.
Become familiar with the Learning Cycle structure that underlies this website (Learn to understand the research-based practice; See some ways the practice has been implemented; Do take action to align your practice with research.) A media presentation explains the Learning Cycle structure. Consider using this structure to guide your group’s extended investigation of the Doing What Works content.
Caution: Doing What Works provides suggestions, not prescriptions! You are the best judge of what will work in your particular setting.
Return to “SCREEN and MONITOR” Page
Return to “RECOMMENDED PRACTICE” Page
Return to Main Teaching Literacy Page