News
7-3-08
Special Announcement
The ACCESS for ELLs® Test Administrator Training course is now located on this website, www.wida.us. Even if you had an account in the UW Oshkosh Desire2Learn system for this purpose, you must reenroll in this new course. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please visit your state's page in the green menu at the lower left of this page to learn about enrollment procedures in your state. If you have already received an enrollment email, you may login by clicking the Login button in the upper right hand corner of this page.
6-10-08
WIDA welcomes our 18th state, North Carolina!
We look forward to assisting North Carolina's educators and further extending our mission of promoting educational equity for English language learners! Please see an article about N.C.'s decision to join on the Education Week website.
4-30-08
2008 Interpretive Guide for Score Reports Now Available
A PDF file of this report can be downloaded from the ACCESS for ELLs® page of this site.
4-10-08
Position opening: WIDA Professional Development Trainer/Specialist
WIDA is housed at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research within the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For details on how to apply, please see our listing on the UW-Madison job site.
4-9-08
New Kindergarten brochure available: New Assessments
Please visit the ACCESS for ELLs® section of our website to download a new brochure highlighting the features of our new Kindergarten ACCESS and W-APT™ tests. These tests will be released in the next academic year (2008-09).
4-8-08
New Recommended Literature
Please visit the PD Resources page to read a new write-up under Recommended Literature about the Pieces of Peace Curriculum. This curriculum is aligned to the academic content standards of our newest member state, South Dakota, and is an excellent resource for diverse classrooms.
4-1-08
Professional Development Summer Academies
WIDA is pleased to announce that it will be hosting two summer academies for teachers and trainers of teachers of ELLs. We hope to adapt our professional development opportunities every summer to meet the needs of the consortium. Based on the results of a survey of members of the consortium this spring, we are offering two academies (workshops) this summer: Providing Access to Academic Achievement through Language Development and Collaborating to Meet the Needs of English Language Learners (ELLs). The academies will take place June 30-July 3 and July 14-18, 2008 in Madison, WI. Please visit the WIDA Summer Academies main page to learn more!
3-19-08
Purchase your Standards books online!
The WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards and Resource Guide, 2007 Edition are now available online and in print. The price for the print edition is currently $15 with a $5 discount for teachers and administrators who work for schools in our Consortium member states. To place an order (payable by check or credit card), please visit our online store. Purchase orders can be faxed to 608-263-3733 or emailed to help@wida.us.
3-18-08
WIDA welcomes our 17th state, South Dakota!
Please see the article in Education Week to learn more. We look forward to assisting South Dakota's educators and further extending our mission of promoting educational equity for English language learners!
2-5-08
ELP Standards and Resource Guide, 2007 Edition available in print
The print edition of
WIDA ELP Standards and Resource Guide, 2007 Edition has arrived in our office. To place an order, please contact help@wida.us with your name, shipping address, phone number, and desired quantity of booklets. The price is currently $15 per copy with a $5 discount for teachers and administrators who work for schools in our Consortium member states.
12-14-07
Resource Guide now available online
Understanding the WIDA English Language Proficiency Standards: A Resource Guide is now available online! The print edition of this guidebook accompanied by the WIDA ELP Standards will be available very soon.
12-05-07
W-APT™ Data
CAL is currently seeking W-APT data for analysis to complete the technical report that was requested during the June board meeting. Please consider sharing any state or district level W-APT™ data you may have. For more information about this project, please contact Willow Ryu at willow@cal.org.
12-04-07
Innovative Practice
Are you aware of outstanding examples of best practice implementation in your state? Has your district adapted a WIDA resource to make it more relevant and useful at the local level? WIDA would love to know about such efforts, particularly if the results of this work would be helpful for other districts or states in our consortium, such as translation of our CAN DO Descriptors into languages other than English and Spanish. We would also consider posting an article about the project on our website or mentioning it in a newsletter. We would appreciate if you would invite others to contact us in the spirit of sharing across our consortium. Please contact help@wida.us or call toll free 1-866-276-7735 and ask for Andrea.
12-03-07
WIDA welcomes our 16th state, Virginia!
We are pleased to announce that the Virginia Department of Education has joined our consortium. ACCESS testing will begin this year in a small number of districts, with mandatory participation from all districts in 2008-09. We look forward to serving Virginia's 78,000 ELL students and collaborating with their educators!
11-27-07
Follow-up Forms Review held in Madison, WI
On November 26, 2007 WIDA staff along with five consortium educators conducted a follow-up forms review of the ACCESS for ELLs® assessment to further guarantee its quality for this academic year.
11-19-07
2008 ACCESS Item Writing course
WIDA is now accepting applications for ACCESS for ELLs® Item Writing course, due December 7th.
This is an online, graduate level course through which teachers delve more deeply into the WIDA Standards, learn about the construction of large scale language assessments, learn to craft test folders and items, and contribute real classroom-based items for ACCESS. For this work, teachers receive 2 graduate credits from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, transferable to any institution.
For more information about the course or to download an application, please see Item Writing.
10-25-07
2007 Edition of the WIDA ELP Standards
The final version of the ELP Standards, 2007 Edition is now available on this website! The Resource Guide will be posted later this year, and the print edition will be available in early 2008.
10-23-07
Alternate ACCESS for ELLs®
A small percentage of ELL students are not able to meaningfully participate in the ACCESS assessment because of a significant disability (e.g., cognitive disabilities, autism). For this reason, WIDA has been developing the Alternate ACCESS for ELLs® assessment for approximately the past two years. It will be available to Consortium states during the 2008-09 academic year. To learn more, please visit Alternate ACCESS.
10-9-07
Tech Report Released
The ACCESS for ELLs® Annual Technical Report No. 2, Series 101, 2005-2006 Administration is now available. Please email help@wida.us to request a copy. Report No. 3 (2006-07 Administration) will be available later this winter. These documents address the validity and reliability of the ACCESS test to accurately assign students their proficiency level scores.
10-02-07
The W-APT™ Score Calculator
The W-APT™ section of the website now offers a tool to save test administrators the time and trouble of manually converting raw scores and calculating the composite proficiency level (CPL) scores. With the click of a button, it calculates Speaking, Reading, Writing and Listening proficiency scores, along with the CPL score and a grade-adjusted CPL score. Unfortunately, it can not be applied to Kindergarten scores at this time, but will be updated in Spring of 2008 to include Kindergarten in addition to grades 1-12.
09-17-07
New Article Published about English Language Acquisition and WIDA
Check out a new article published this week featuring Tim Boals and Mariana Castro of the WIDA Consortium. You will need to click on "Fall 2007" at the following link: "WIDA builds foundation to address complex language challenges: 'Learning English' is not Enough'" by Kerry Hill [University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education Campus Connections (Fall 2007), 2-5].
09-13-07
2007 Professional Development Summer Institute
WIDA held its first Train of Trainers Institute August 20-23 in Madison, WI. Photos and a description of the presentation topics and discussions are now available.
08-31-07
Version 2.3 (2007) of the W-APT™ has been released on this site
Please login to this site to view and/or download the latest version of the assessment. Version 2.2 (2006) will remain valid as there are no significant changes to the test itself. If all test booklets have already been printed and are in use, it is not necessary to reprint each booklet. However, it is advised that 2006 score sheets be replaced with the latest version so that students' grade-specific proficiency level scores may be calculated (see bottom section of new score sheets).
Modifications to the 2007 version include:
- Revised Test Administration Manuals
- Grade level specific scores instead of grade level cluster specific scores
- Procedures for group administration (individual administration still advised) (group score sheets to be posted by September 7, 2007) If your school or district intends to group administer the W-APT™ assessment prior to that date, please email help@wida.us. The group scoring documents can be emailed to you directly.
- Modest enhancements to the graphics and test items
08-27-07
Higher Education Package for Instructors of Pre-Service ESL Teachers
For $5.00, WIDA currently offers a CD-ROM of WIDA-related materials for use in higher education classrooms. To read more about the CD-ROM and how to order it, please see the Resources page.
Coming soon! WIDA is currently in the process of developing a more comprehensive set of materials for use in higher education. This will include sample “modules” or lessons on how WIDA's curriculum, instruction and assessment goals can be introduced to students at this level. It will also include an annotated bibliography of recommended readings which could be completely customized or supplemented by the instructor, along with the ELP Standards, sample test items, and suggested assignments.
Events Archive
Train of Trainers Professional Development Institute, August 20-23, 2007
Annual Board Meeting, Madison, WI, June 25-27, 2007
Content and Bias Review, Philadelphia, May 21-23, 2007
Background