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ReadTheory | Reading Comprehension Exercises

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Reading comprehension exercises — online, free, & adaptive. Fits K-12, ESL and adult students. Easily track progress for the entire class.

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Synthesis of current research into effective multilingual schools

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Synthesis of current research into effective multilingual schools

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Rewordify.com | Understand what you read

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Rewordify.com helps you read more, understand better, learn new words, and teach more effectively.

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Free resources for multilingual learners 

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Free resources for multilingual learners 

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Learning resources Archives - The Bell Foundation

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This KS3 EAL resource supports learners in Maths to develop their vocabulary around using money in daily life including the topics of banking, taxes, employment, shopping, commerce and travel. It will also be useful for new arrivals to the UK to introduce them to English currency and conventions around payment and banking.

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For primary phonics - sound resource and games at your fingertips. Yearly subscription is £12.

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For primary phonics - sound resource and games at your fingertips. Yearly subscription is £12.

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Strategies from the Quality First Framework

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Strategies from the Quality First Framework

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Gather a room of teachers together and they will give you as many teaching strategies as there are topics in the primary curriculum.
This article introduces the 13 most important teaching strategies you should be using - the ones that have been proven to work in schools like yours and the ones that we use every week with the 7000 pupils we teach in our one-to-one interventions.
We also include the 6 learning strategies that your pupils should also know about to enable them to move their own learning forwards.
Teaching and learning strategies taken from the best of UK education research

One of the great advances that has been made in the last 5 years in the education sector in the UK is the increasing influence of large scale research and evidence informing what we know about how children learn, and consequently how we can better teach them.

Whether that's a greater awareness of the EEF Toolkit and their randomised controlled trials, the growing ResearchEd movement, or even just the vibrant #edutwitter community, many more teachers now are taking their professional development into their own hands.

More teachers than ever are aware of John Hattie's 'Index of Teaching and Learning Strategies', and wary of implementing new instructional strategies unthinkingly; no-one wants to be stung by another 'learning styles' waste of effort.

But even when you know there may be better and more efficient ways to develop your students' understanding, choosing which of these teaching strategies to start with can be a challenge. This article aims to guide you through this.

What are teaching strategies?

Teaching strategies are methods and techniques that a teacher will use to support their pupils or students through the learning process; a teacher will chose the teaching strategy most suitable to the topic being studied, the level of expertise of the learner, and the stage in their learning journey.

In one lesson a teacher may use many different teaching strategies with different end goals. The most effective teaching strategies are those proven to work over large scale trials. There is no requirement for a teaching strategy to be innovative although of course some of them are.

List of teaching strategies for primary school

These are the 13 most important teaching strategies that you and all the teachers in your school should at least have in your teaching toolkit.

No-one is suggesting you will use them in every lesson, but an awareness of what they are and the results you can expect is essential to move your practice on.

And of course if you're a school leader, or responsible for CPD in your school, knowing what's current and evidence-backed is key so that you can make an informed choice the next time somebody suggests implementing a new or innovative teaching technique. One way to stay up-to-date is by reading educational blogs and listening to the best educational podcasts.

1. Know Your Pupils and Develop Their Respect

This may sound basic, but the basis of all good teaching is an understanding of your pupils and their learning needs. Allied to this is the respect you are held in by your pupils. The relationship between teacher and student is a vital element of the learning experience. Take time to get to know a new class from the first day, understand what motivates them their barriers to learning. This is an often overlooked teaching strategy.

All our one-to-one tutors are made aware before working with a pupil if they have any special educational needs, and take the time to get to know each pupil throughout the 1-to-1 lessons by asking about their hobbies and interests or the kinds of things they've been learning in school.

Read more: How to Support a Child with Autism in the Classroom

In this way, whenever possible a tutor can personalise a lesson or a teaching technique as appropriate to the child with a real world example.

2. Appropriate use of Summative and Formative Assessments

The first stage here is making sure you know the difference between formative and summative assessment. It may sound obvious but you'd be surprised how many teachers don't use each appropriately.

To cover them quickly:

Summative assessment refers to an assessment that takes place after a block of work has been completed, whether this is a term or a year. They are best thought of as assessments of learning.

Formative assessments are those that take place day-to-day and are used to gauge pupils' understanding of a topic - they are assessments for learning. Formative assessment is often used in a diagnostic capacity, to help us identify whether pupils are struggling with a topic in the moment. This then guides and adapts our instruction during the lesson, to better meet children's needs.

Diagnosis of children's gaps using formative assessments

We advocate the use of these kinds of diagnostic assessment to identifies a child's misconceptions. Usually this is best achieved through a set of multiple choice questions.

As well as the correct answer, we can include multiple distractors - answers that are incorrect based on a misconception a child may have e.g. around multiplying. If a child chooses an incorrect answer therefore, we can easily identify exactly where their thinking has gone wrong.

You can download our sample diagnostic quizzes (all including distractors and explanations of them) for free.

For pupils on our one-to-one maths interventions, we use a diagnostic quiz a the start of the intervention which is responsive based on answers to an earlier question. This helps us more clearly identify not just misconceptions and weaknesses, but also where a child's strengths lie and what therefore needs less time spent on.

3. Teach the Vocabulary

With the new focus in the curriculum on knowledge organisers, there's no excuse for children being without the relevant topic vocabulary. They need the words to be able to create the thoughts and the sentences to confidently speak about a given topic.

This is why our tutors will always talk through any specialist maths words at the start of a lesson with their pupils, explaining any new terms and checking for understanding of previously covered ones.

We recommended co-creating your maths vocabulary lists with your pupils. This Maths Vocabulary List is a great start.

4. Explicit Instruction

Also known as direct instruction, this teaching strategy is highly teacher-led, and focuses on frequent questioning and guided practice to help pupils learn a topic.

The backbone of explicit instruction is the use of the worked example in an Example-Problem Pair. This involves demonstrating a worked example in its entirety in silence alongside a problem that pupils will then attempt.

Silence is important in order to ensure pupils' attention is not split between the example and the spoken explanation, making it more likely that both will be more fully absorbed and retained.

A pupil on a Third Space Learning's online maths intervention programme will necessarily have all other distractions eliminated so they can focus entirely on the information on their screen and what the tutor is asking them to do; tutors can present a worked example in real time in a learning environment without any visual or auditory disruptions.

5. Effective Questioning Techniques

While we are all aware of the importance of questioning as a tool to gauge pupils' understanding of a topic, there are definite techniques to improve the efficacy of your questioning in the classroom.

Questions such as "Are you sure?" and "How do you know?" encourage pupils to engage in some basic critical thinking to establish how confident they are in an answer and why, while others such as "Is there another way?" help to highlight where multiple methods to derive a solution may exist.

Our tutors encourage pupils to verbalise their reasoning and ask questions to ensure pupils have really got to grips with the topic at-hand: "How do you know that answer is right?", "Can you tell me how else you could work it out?" or "What do you need to do first to answer this question?" are all questions that come up frequently during our lessons!

Goal free problems are another questioning strategy worth considering using in your classes.

6. Deliberate Practice

One of the most effective ways of introducing new concepts to a class, Deliberate Practice involves breaking learning down into a series of sub skills, each of which is deliberately practiced in turn.

The 5 steps involved in deliberate practice are:

You can find a full explanation of each of these stages in our blog post on deliberate practice in education.

But as an example, when teaching long multiplication method at KS2 we might use deliberate practice thus:

Identify (isolate) each specific sub skill involved in the long multiplication method;

Practise (develop) each of these one by one;

assess pupils' use of these skills before moving on;

have pupils put them all together for a final performance - in this case a full long multiplication problem;

return to this topic in later weeks and months to check pupils still retain those skills.

At the beginning of every Third Space Learning intervention session pupils are given a warm-up question related to a previously covered topic; this enables tutors to check that they have retained the relevant skills (and where they have not, to return to the topic).

7. Differentiation

Far more than simply "splitting the whole class into small groups based on attainment", positive and effective differentiation at the primary school level can be difficult to achieve - poor differentiation strategies risk actually widening the attainment gap we're attempting to close.

But there are plenty of impactful differentiation strategies; techniques such as interleaving and phased learning, as well as the use of maths manipulatives and formative assessment, are among those proven to have a beneficial impact on pupils when properly employed.

As we've already discussed, formative assessment is a significant aspect of how Third Space's tutors gauge pupil progress. But we also make use of several other differentiation strategies during lessons, such as spaced practice, interleaving and a mixture of direct instruction and inquiry-based learning.

8. Reinforcing Effort/Providing Recognition

Helping pupils make a link between putting effort into a task and receiving recognition is an important step in developing a classroom environment that fosters active learning.

Encouraging pupils to put more effort into activities only goes so far without something to provide them with the motivation to do so. Praise and recognition are motivators that pupils are already familiar with; shifting them from being correct to giving full effort can be highly effective.

Third Space Learning's tutors establish an effort-focused environment right from the first session, encouraging pupils to talk through their answers and celebrate their mistakes as learning opportunities, ensuring they approach each intervention as another chance to try.

Since we began our intervention programmes, our tutors have celebrated and rewarded pupil effort by awarding over 32 MILLION Effort Points!

Literally 'thinking about thinking', metacognition has been recognised by the EEF as one of the most effective, lowest cost teaching strategies there is, with pupil making an average of seven months' additional progress.

Metacognition in primary schools often incorporates some of the other effective teaching strategies, such as questioning in the classroom - "How do you know?" not only asks pupils to justify their solutions, but has them thinking about their own thought processes for deriving that solution.

Teaching pupils how to learn maths, plan, monitor and self-evaluate their learning also improves pupil motivation and encourages them to work harder in lessons. Metacognition is also one of the most effective intervention strategies for schools.

All our tutors are trained to use a variety of metacognitive strategies as standard during sessions, and we provide pupils with numerous moments for self-reflection both during and after sessions.

10. Personalised Learning

It might sound obvious, but pupils are more likely to engage with learning when is more targeted to them and appeals to their interests! This may be difficult to achieve early on - especially with a full class of 30 pupils - but as familiarity and rapport builds throughout the year it should become easier to make activities and even questions more personalised to individual children.

At Third Space, we've built our online interventions on personalisation; all our pupils undertake an Initial Diagnostic Assessment when they begin their programmes, which identifies their strengths and weaknesses in maths and allows us to design a lesson plan that helps them make progress where they need it.

Our tutors then build on this by adding a personal touch to those lessons, incorporating pupils' interests into lessons with ease thanks to our online platform.

11. Collaborative Learning

Also referred to as 'cooperative learning', the idea of having pupils work in groups for certain classroom activities won't be new to most teachers.

But the EEF notes that the impact of group work can vary widely, and that to make it most effective teachers should focus on well-structured tasks that promote talk and interaction between pupils.

The concept of 'competitive' collaborative learning (where groups of students compete against one another) has been shown to have some impact, but caution is advised in case pupils focus more on the competition rather than the learning.

12. Explicitly Teach Thinking Skills & Problem Solving Techniques

Mathenatical problem solving techniques don't always come naturally to pupils; while metacognitive strategies such as those mentioned above make it more likely that pupils will be able to apply critical thinking to a problem, there is no set way to ensure that this will happen.

Research into the topic suggests that context-agnostic deployment of problem solving techniques only occurs once pupils have secure domain knowledge, and the opportunity to practise.

Without these, pupils often fall into the trap of attributing importance to the so-called 'surface features' of a problem, which we naturally discount as irrelevant to the actual maths involved.

That said, explicit teaching of thinking skills is still of considerable importance; once domain knowledge has been (relatively) secured, teaching pupils how to recognise and focus on the 'deep structure' of problems enables them to apply their knowledge more effectively.

Try using several 'Same Surface Different Deep' SSDD problems in lessons - where the surface features of the questions are the same, but the deep structure varies (e.g. division, multiplication, addition etc.).

These questions eliminate any confusion regarding surface features and thus allow pupils to focus on differentiating the deep structures.

In the run-up to the SATs, your Year 6 pupils may unintentionally revert to focusing on the 'surface features' of questions when encountering the reasoning papers.

To help combat this, make sure you and they are aware of the different types of maths reasoning questions in year 6 to help them identify not just the maths problem solving techniques they need to know, but the types of questions that are likely to require certain techniques.

13. Modelling and Scaffolding

You may already be familiar with the "I do, We do, You do" method of scaffolding, but it's worth taking some time to dive into why it's as effective as it is.

Modelling is one of the most important factors in ensuring student learning of a particular topic, but it is most impactful when it can introduce new concepts without increasing pupils' cognitive load - hence the 'I, We You' approach.

By building from teacher-led, to joint construction, to independent working, we create a structure that presents learning as less of a step-change and more of an actual process. It also allows us greater flexibility; more time can be spent on one stage e.g. joint construction is it becomes necessary.

Gradual scaffolding with support slides

All Third Space Learning intervention lessons make use of this kind of gradual scaffolding method, and our online platform lends even more flexibility to the scaffolding structure - tutors can pull from a bank of 'support slides' if spending more time on a concept or process is necessary.

Other Teaching Strategies To Consider

The teaching strategies above form the basis of our one-to-one lessons, but some other teaching practices you'll need to consider in your own classroom include : Use of education technology
Knowing when and where to bring technology into the classroom is a delicate balancing act. While children tend to react well to technology-based lessons, there's always the risk that they focus on the tech over the learning.
Read more: How To Do An Education Technology Audit In Your School

Behaviour management
Effective classroom management is its own topic, but there's no doubt that a well-behaved class (not necessarily a perfectly-behaved one) is far more likely to engage with lessons.

Inquiry-based learning
While triggering the curiosity of your pupils for a topic is the necessary first step in inquiry-based learning, presenting them with the opportunity to research and report on the topic is where learning really occurs.

How you manage class discussions e.g. 'Think, pair, share'
Somewhat related to behaviour management, class or group discussions are most beneficial when they have a clear, well-established structure to them. Students should not only feel they have the opportunity to share their thoughts, but understand that others' thoughts also have value.

Feedback process and understanding
The single most impactful teaching strategy when used correctly, feedback (whether from the teacher or another source e.g. peer marking) needs to be specific, encouraging and actionable - pupils need to be able to understand where they could improve, and how.
Read more: Why My School Banned Marking

Growth Mindset
Separate from praise and rewarding effort, developing growth mindset can be a very valuable tool in developing pupils' resilience and fostering a more positive attitude towards both maths specifically and learning in general.
Read more: How To Get Growth Mindset Right In Primary Schools

Read more

List of Learning Strategies

Last, but not least, central to any good teaching practice is explicitly teaching learners of all ages about learning strategies. These are the 6learning strategies we think every student should be familiar with by the end of Year 6.

1. Spaced Practice

Ensuring that learned material is revisited at regular intervals instead of all at once much later on, when more of it is likely to be forgotten. For older students, study calendars can be of immense help in the run-up to major milestones such as the KS2 SATs.

2. Retrieval Practice

Retrieval is the process of recalling information purely from memory, without the aid of learning materials. Effective retrieval practice helps embed information more thoroughly in our minds, since we no longer need context to recall it.

3. Elaboration

Tied into questioning in the classroom, elaboration puts the onus on pupils to do more than 'just' recalling information. The use of open ended questions such as "How did I get that answer" help pupils to make connections between the things they've learnt rather than seeing them as several unrelated facts.

4. Interleaving

A wealth of research is now available that suggests the benefits of interleaving - mixing practice of different skills with one another - in helping pupils better identify the necessary strategies to solve different problems. Interleaving with connected topics (e.g. division and multiplication) amplifies this effect. Our Year 6 maths revision programme is built on this.

5. Concrete Examples

As maths educators the Concrete Pictorial Abstract Approach is embedded into the way we teach. Within our online tuition, we have many different ways of explaining a topic and as an extension we may ask pupils to come up with their own concrete examples for concepts, based on the examples we've used in explaining the concept to them.

6. Dual Coding

Combining words and visuals in teaching materials. This isn't referring to speech (as we established earlier), but having pupils create some kind of visual aid (e.g. a sketch, a diagram) to accompany written text can help them reinforce the concept in their brain in two different ways, making it easier to recall. Anyone who's created slides for their pupils will be familiar with the challenge of imparting information through words + pictures.

References

Do you have pupils who need extra support in maths?
Every week Third Space Learning's maths specialist tutors support thousands of pupils across hundreds of schools with weekly online 1-to-1 lessons and maths interventions designed to plug gaps and boost progress.

Since 2013 we've helped over 150,000 primary and secondary school pupils become more confident, able mathematicians. Learn more or request a personalised quote for your school to speak to us about your school's needs and how we can help.

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The 13 Teaching Strategies Proven To Work In Primary Schools

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Find out which evidence based teaching strategies are the most effective in schools; and which are the top learning strategies for your pupils to know.

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We hope you enjoy using our free WoLLoW lesson resources. You can use our resources in the following ways:

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Multilingualism main trends in 2024 | Digital Watch Observaotry

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Multilingualism can facilitate diversity online, and plays an important part in narrowing the digital divide. Learn more about the trends in 2023

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Learning Village - Lots of teaching resources and lesson games for students

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Learning Village - Lots of teaching resources and lesson games for students

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Online English language lessons for new-to-English learning across the curriculum

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We have developed a number of helpful EAL resources for teaching staff and schools, available to buy or download for free.

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The Framework is a cross-curricular tool which helps practitioners to observe, document and accelerate the ways bilingual pupils start to use English as a tool for learning in school, then continue to develop their use of English through all their subject areas.

It describes the development of communicative behaviour in class and language for learning through listening, speaking, reading and writing. It also includes some aspects of personal development likely to be significant for bilingual learners, such as readiness to speak to others in the classroom.

It is important to note that the framework is not a tool to be used to assess other languages the pupil may speak. NASSEA supports the continuing use and development of pupils' other languages, and reference is made to using skills in these languages, but this tool is only for assessing English as an Additional Language.

The Framework has been developed to help practitioners to become more aware of the progress of their EAL learners through formative assessment.

The NASSEA EAL Assessment Framework has been made to support practitioners and their pupils. This highly popular and effective tool is easy to use for mainstream teachers and specialist EAL staff alike.

Even if you have no previous EAL experience, our Framework will help you track pupil progress, set appropriate targets and accelerate learning.

You can purchase the framework from our online shop.
Buy now

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What are Widgit symbols?

Symbols are used everywhere - on road signs, on our phones and computers, and in public spaces to highlight everything from cafes to toilets. They help communicate ideas quickly and simply, helping us visualise and remember what we have seen. This principle has led to the development of comprehensive symbol languages. These are designed primary to give people with learning difficulties a simple alternative to text, but in reality, they prove useful to a wider range of people, such as people with low literacy or who don't use English as a first language.

Widgit is a symbol-based language used predominantly for people with learning disabilities. It uses pictorial symbols, either as an alternative to text, or to accompany it.

Widgit symbols have developed over the past 20 years and are used in many countries worldwide in 15 languages (overseas symbol users can recognise the Widgit symbols used in the UK). There are over 7000 images in both colour and black and white covering a vocabulary of over 20,000 words. This vocabulary is continually being extended and gives access to a wide range of topics and curricular areas.

The symbols are clear, concise and suitable for all ages. They have been carefully designed to illustrate a single concept without adding unnecessary information such as gender. They all share a common structure allowing users to develop their own vocabulary.

Who benefits from symbol supported information?

There is a growing number of people with learning difficulties using symbols. Symbols have been used extensively in special schools since the recommendations by the National Curriculum Council Guidance (Now QCA) in the late 1990s. There is also a growing trend for symbols being used in primary schools to help children needing support with literacy.

As students with learning difficulties leave school they increasingly expect and need to see symbols in their daily lives. There are many organisations, such as the Home farm Trust, who use symbols in their centres and expect symbols to be a normal part of the environment. There are different symbol languages. We have chosen to work with Widgit because of its international application and the breadth of subjects developed in symbols. It is important to bear in mind that there may be situations when it is more appropriate to use an alternative, for example if you are working with a local group and need to use what they are familiar with.

Using symbols in signage and interpretation makes a welcoming and engaging environment
for people with learning disabilities, their friends and families as well as for people
with low literacy and overseas visitors. More widely, it also shares a simple and positive message about diversity, highlighting the reality that we rely on different ways of interpreting the world around us. Feedback from venues like the Eden Project has shown how excited
visitors were to find the same symbols as the ones they used in their centre or school. Some people have chosen to visit after hearing that Widgits were being used.

Widgit symbols in practice

We have worked with Widgit Software over the last ten years, using symbols in signage, interpretation and information to build richer connections between people with learning difficulties and the natural world. At times this has involved the design of new symbols - for example to communicate issues like biodiversity.

One of our earliest projects was the introduction of symbols into the interpretation at the Eden Project. We wanted to avoid separate messaging and so we integrated Widgits into the general interpretation and signage, as well as in the exhibit interpretation, for example using symbols to show all the steps involved between planting a coffee bean and drinking a cup of coffee. We also ran training sessions with Eden design staff to help the Eden team develop their own resources for exhibits, signs and education.

Widgits are also useful when carrying out consultation work. By using Widgits in our work we
enable people with learning difficulties to communicate their experiences and feelings directly without having to rely on a carer or family member to speak on their behalf.

Our Food Tastes Better Outdoors project uses symbols to encourage healthier eating and greater use of the outdoors. We worked with people with learning disabilities to create recipes and developed a series of symbol-based factsheets and recipes.

Widgit Software has built an extensive network of people with learning disabilities and their families and their feedback has confirmed the value of introducing Widgits into interpretation and visitor information. People have been excited to see symbols in places like the Eden Project, indicating not only that information is accessible to them, but that the venue expects them to be there - something that we've realised is an important benefit of using different languages.

Development of symbols and software tools

Widgit applications by Widgit Software include Communicate: In Print, a symbol desktop publishing program for creating supported materials, in addition there is an online platform with a subscription service. It can also automatically add symbols to most English language sites. This is important because it frees the users from 'gate-keepers' and reliance on information providers, enabling the user to choose what websites they visit.

In reality, the language used in many web sites will still be too complex and the idea is for organisations to create simplified text areas of their site for people with learning difficulties. Widgit are creating tools for web designers to dynamically add symbols to their web sites so that users do not need to have specific software or the special web browser.

How to create symbol supported content

Symbols can give support to many different people. It is important to state that people who need visual support will use many different platforms and at times a combination. If you would like to implement visual support at your facility, a good place to start is to find out if your local authority uses a particular platform across all local schools. This is because those using visual support will have often been introduced to them during their education. It is not always straightforward choosing a method this way, and as we mentioned previously, we have worked with Widgit over a number of years as they are internationally recognised and have a vast vocabulary available.

When creating a symbol-supported resource, it is important to be consistent. If you want to support using photographs, try not to incorporate illustrations as well; it can be confusing. Another important aspect to remember is not to overload the text with visuals; this can also be confusing. See the examples below, the first has every word represented with a symbol, the second is more effective in supporting someone.

Using a programme such as Widgit can be easy to use and very useful as you can change the symbol to support the message you would like to convey. This can be done in the program by choosing a particular symbol to support the word, for example, grow is depicted in a number of different ways. The program allows you to select the symbol that means the most in its context.

You can also change the symbol in a number of different ways, for example, the colour of the object, the skin colour of the person and even the picture itself to something that conveys the message in the specific way you need - the more accurately you can portray the word, the easier it will be understood.

The main message with using symbols as a means of visual support is to be concise and consistent.

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Using Widgit and symbol languages - Sensory Trust

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How to use Widgit and other symbol-based languages used predominantly for people with learning disabilities

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Slides from recent ECIS Multilingualism Conference Feb 16th-18th

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Slides from recent ECIS Multilingualism Conference Feb 16th-18th

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Focus on multilingual students' multiliteracies & their assessment

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Focus on multilingual students' multiliteracies & their assessment

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"The notion of 'multiliteracies' describes the suite of essential skills students should possess in this globalized and digital age."

Significance of Multiliteracies
Today's K-12 classrooms are brimming with the use of technology. Students use computers and websites to access digital materials, work on projects and produce presentation materials, and take assessments, to cite a few examples. Alongside this widespread technological adoption, the growing linguistic and cultural diversity in classrooms has broadened the essential literacy skills required for students. Literacy skills extend beyond reading and writing printed texts and increasingly involve navigating varied communication styles in diverse contexts.

The notion of "multiliteracies" more aptly describes the suite of essential skills students should possess in this globalized and digital age. Multiliteracies emphasize two main facets of language use: The first relates to various meaning-making patterns in different social and cultural contexts. The second has to do with multimodality-with the advancement of technology, where the written mode of meaning interfaces with various modes of meaning including audio, gestural, oral, spatial, tactile, and visual (Cope and Kalantzis, 2015).

In fact, multiliteracies have already been integrated into current academic standards designed to prepare all students for college and careers. Let's take a sixth-grade reading standard for informational text as an example: "Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue" (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010, p. 39). This standard explicitly calls for students to demonstrate understanding and to integrate meanings from multiple formats and channels.

The concept of multiliteracies also resonates in writing standards. For instance, a seventh-grade writing standard states: "Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and link to and cite sources as well as to interact and collaborate with others, including linking to and citing sources" (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010, p. 43).

Aside from technological literacy, the anticipation of interacting and collaborating with others in writing underscores the students' ability to navigate different patterns of communication in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.

Using an Assessment Strategy to Support Multilingual Learners
Clearly, the language and literacy skills expected of today's students are rigorous and sophisticated. These multiliteracies are important for college and career preparedness as well as 21st-century readiness. So, how can we ensure that multilingual learners (also known as English learners) meet these standards that require multiliteracies? Since multilingual learners already possess a repertoire of diverse communication codes, how can we enhance their multilingual assets while aiding their development of multiliteracies? Before delving into these questions, it is worth clarifying the term multilingual learners, which we use in place of English learners. The latter term is defined by federal statute as students whose language at home is not English and whose English proficiency is still developing, hindering meaningful participation in English-speaking classrooms.

While not all multilingual learners require the language support mandated by law, a subset of this student population is specifically referred to as English learners. Our choice of multilingual learners adopts an asset-based perspective that values their rich linguistic diversity and funds of knowledge.

In effective teaching and learning, assessment plays a pivotal role in identifying students' strengths and weaknesses relative to learning goals. However, existing assessments, especially standardized ones in content areas, frequently face criticism regarding their validity and utility for multilingual learners. Teachers report that some of their multilingual students disengage during assessments due to language barriers. They also express concerns about how assessment results often provide little useful information beyond simply indicating that students have not achieved proficiency.

In our R&D project, our goal was to develop a research-based assessment tool specifically designed to meet multilingual students' needs. We envisioned that this assessment tool would be used for formative purposes, as a classroom-based assessment and instructional resource to help students improve multiliteracy skills.

Moreover, our aim was to design a tool that would foster greater student engagement in assessments, all while maintaining the rigor of grade-level academic standards and the targeted skills to be measured. Our efforts were also focused on creating an assessment that serves as a valuable learning activity, allowing students to learn as they engage with the assessment process (i.e., assessment as learning).

Socioculturally Responsive Assessment to Facilitate Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
To design our assessment tool in alignment with the aforementioned goals, we adopted the principles of socioculturally responsive assessment and culturally sustaining pedagogy as our guiding frameworks. Paris (2012) introduced the term culturally sustaining pedagogy to emphasize the importance of schooling that nurtures and bolsters multilingualism and multiculturalism in a pluralistic society.

He asserts that "our pedagogies should be more than responsive of, or relevant to, the cultural experiences and practices of young people-it requires that they support young people in sustaining the cultural and linguistic competencies of their communities while simultaneously offering access to dominant cultural competence" (Paris, 2012, p. 95).

This concept offers a useful framework for teachers to discuss and plan instruction for multilingual learners. To effectively practice this pedagogy, a new assessment design is necessary. In reckoning with the criticism of standardized assessments that often neglect the diverse backgrounds of students in assessment design, Bennett (2023) proposed five design principles to make assessments more socioculturally responsive (see Table 1).

Table 1. Bennett's (2023) Design Principles of Socioculturally Responsive Assessment

These principles are particularly beneficial for assessing multilingual learners. These students may be better able to demonstrate their knowledge and skills when presented with contexts related to their cultures or when assessment content is tailored to accommodate their English proficiency levels.
Figure 1. Diverse sources included in the assessments of multiliteracies

Main Assessment Features
What features might enable multilingual learners to engage fully with the assessment content and thereby to be able to better demonstrate their reading and multiliteracy skills? To answer this question using socioculturally responsive assessment principles, we embarked on a co-design effort, designing new assessment features collaboratively with educators of multilingual learners. We started with an existing online interactive assessment developed by ETS in which students build and share knowledge about informational texts related to hydropower.

The existing assessment contained multimodal information for students to learn from and to communicate about, with a focus on assessing multiliteracies. As displayed in Figure 1, the assessment consisted of a pie chart, a video, and an article on the topic of hydropower as a renewable energy source. A set of questions was included for each source of information.
Figure 2. Example of Form 1 task, guided notes

Our discussions with teachers led to the inclusion of the following additional design features, based on socioculturally responsive assessment principles: (1) leveled texts, (2) linguistic and multilingual supports, and (3) scaffolding for comprehension.

Leveled Texts
"Let's meet multilingual learners where they are"-in other words, adapting the assessment to multilingual learners' characteristics-was a mantra of the project team. Multilingual learners have varying levels of English proficiency. To access academic texts in English, they require individualized support. Furthermore, classrooms increasingly comprise multilingual learners at different English proficiency levels.

One way to help ensure students in mixed-level classes engage in learning about the same grade-level topic is to provide leveled texts that match students' English-language proficiencies. With this premise, we created three separate forms of the assessment-for multilingual learners at advanced (form three), at intermediate to advanced (form two), and at high-emerging to low-intermediate (form one) English proficiency levels-to ensure multilingual learners within a single class could engage in the same topic and be measured on the same English language arts and English-language proficiency standards. Whereas form one featured cognitively rigorous but linguistically modified texts, form two featured "amplified" texts (Walqui and Bunch, 2019); that is, the multimodal texts were enhanced or enriched instead of simplified. (Examples of those enhancements are described in the next sections.) Texts in forms two and three were otherwise the same.

Linguistic and Multilingual Supports
Providing appropriate language supports in the moment can allow multilingual learners greater access to academic content in English and may ultimately help them to better demonstrate their reading and multiliteracy skills. In the assessment, these supports include, for example, closed captioning for videos, glossaries, supportive visuals that clearly illustrate key points in the texts, choice of language for directions (e.g., English or Spanish), and choice of audio or written format for directions. We provided multilingual directions in both audio and written formats following an asset-based approach, as a means of enabling multilingual learners to leverage their full range of language skills for learning and assessment. And we offered students choices in language and format to provide flexibility and in consideration of students' needs and preferences. With the inclusion of these supports, we hoped that students would use their multilingual assets to learn more deeply about the topic of hydropower and thereby be better equipped to show what they had learned.

Embedded Scaffolding
A final example of adapting the assessment to multilingual learners' characteristics is the scaffolding embedded within the assessment activities. To illustrate one example, the video content was chunked into three parts.

We also embedded guided notes for each part (Figure 2) to alleviate the language demand while providing a note-taking strategy to help comprehension. Multilingual learners taking form two filled in guided notes with sentence frames, and those taking form one selected from multiple-choice options to complete sentences. This kind of scaffolding offers multilingual learners written support (i.e., the guided notes) for a multimodal text (i.e., the video) at a linguistic complexity appropriate to their English proficiency level. Our goal in embedding scaffolding within the assessment activities was to provide in-the-moment support to multilingual learners at a range of English-language levels so they would be able to access and engage in learning about the rigorous informational content in the assessment.

What Did Teachers Say about Our Approach?
We conducted a small-scale usability study with four English learner teachers and their students. The teachers shared their experiences and perceptions of our assessment approach after trying it out with their multilingual students. We share a few notable findings along with teachers' feedback and comments.

Teachers used the assessment and design features strategically to engage multilingual learners and facilitate their participation in classroom assessment tasks. As with any educational material, the teachers reported adapting the use of the assessment based on the specific characteristics or needs of their students. For instance, one teacher commented that a majority of her class was reading below grade level and needed additional support to engage with the assessment content. She began her lesson with a warm-up activity to activate students' background knowledge about the topic and introduced new vocabulary before having students work on the assessment. Then, the teacher assigned different forms of the assessment to students based on their English proficiency levels. Notably, all four teachers utilized two to three different assessment forms to accommodate their students' varying levels and assess their literacy skills.

How Teachers Saw Multilingual Learners Use the Embedded Supports
Overall, the teachers were in favor of the embedded supports, stating that they catered to the types of assistance multilingual learners need, and considered that these supports facilitated student engagement with the assessment content. One teacher highlighted that the translation and visual images helped multilingual learners understand that they could leverage all their meaning-making resources. Furthermore, these supports reinforced the idea that using languages other than English is an acceptable way to develop their literacy skills. The multilingual directions were also instrumental in helping students comprehend the instructions and decipher unknown words. All the teachers conveyed a wish to have the translation feature in several languages, not just Spanish, to accommodate students' diverse home languages.

Additionally, the read-aloud feature was found to be beneficial in aiding students in pronouncing difficult words, as well as assisting those who struggled to read the articles independently in understanding the content. Another teacher pointed out that the video captions were particularly useful for her emerging-level students, as they facilitated a better grasp of the video content.

Teachers commented that having multiple levels (or forms) of the assessment allowed all their students to work on the same set of skills using the same topic in the assessment. They uniformly praised this feature, noting that it provided an opportunity for all students to engage with the same rigorous content. One teacher remarked, "The three levels did an excellent job of identifying my students' strengths and areas for improvement. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't be captured by one of those three levels." Teachers also appreciated the various forms of representation (i.e., graphs, videos, and articles) along with the multiple embedded supports. As one teacher put it, "This approach allowed me to discern which students could perform which skills in which contexts." These teachers' perceptions and comments resonate well with the principles of socioculturally responsive assessment, wherein assessment information should be interpreted based on the interaction between students' characteristics and the context of the assessment.

Concluding Thoughts
Through our work, we explored the potential of assessing multilingual students' reading and multiliteracy skills by leveraging the principles of socioculturally responsive assessment.

We illustrated a concrete example of our assessment design and shared feedback from teachers regarding our approach. To support culturally sustaining pedagogy that recognizes and embraces the diverse characteristics of all students, new thinking and approaches to assessment design are necessary. The principles of socioculturally responsive assessment herald a paradigm shift from rigid standardization in assessments toward flexibility and adaptability, thereby empowering both individual learners and educators. We hope that these efforts will spur further innovative ideas for more effectively assessing multilingual learners and supporting their development of critical literacy skills.

References
Bennett, R. E. (2023). "Toward a Theory of Socioculturally Responsive Assessment." Educational Assessment, 28, 2, 83-104.

Common Core State Standards Initiative (2010). Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/ Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects.

Cope, W., and Kalantzis, M. (2015). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Learning by Design. Palgrave.

Paris, D. (2012). "Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice." Educational Researcher, 41, 3, 93-97.

Walqui, A., and Bunch, G. C. (Eds.). (2019). Amplifying the Curriculum: Designing Quality Learning Opportunities for English Learners. Teachers College Press.

Lorraine Sova is an assessment specialist at ETS focused on developing English language assessments for young learners as well as teaching and learning content for English language educators and students. Dr. Sova has particular interests in second language learning and literacy in diverse young learner classrooms.

Mikyung Kim Wolf is a principal research scientist at ETS. She has over 20 years of experience in developing and researching language assessments for multilingual learners. She has edited two books on language assessments: Assessing English Language Proficiency In U.S. K-12 Schools (2020, Routledge) and English Language Proficiency Assessment for Young Learners (2017, Routledge).

Alexis A. López is a Senior Research Scientist at ETS. He earned a Ph.D. in Education and an M.A. in TESL from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on assessing the language proficiency and content knowledge of K-12 multilingual learners.

The authors would like to acknowledge their project team, including Ellen Gluck, Reginald Gooch, Gerriet Janssen, Jeremy Lee, and Emilie Pooler, for their valuable contributions to the project. They also extend gratitude to the teachers and students for their active participation in and collaboration on the project.

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Assessing Multilingual Learners' Multiliteracies - Language Magazine

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"The notion of 'multiliteracies' describes the suite of essential skills students should possess in this globalized and digital age." Significance of Multiliteracies Today's K-12 classrooms are brimming with the use of technology. Students use computers and websites to access digital materials, work on projects and produce presentation materials, and take assessments, to cite a few [...]