Jessica Zappala

Patty Hicks
EDUC 901A
May 1, 2015
Mandated Assessment Tool Analysis
Assessment: ACCESS Testing for English Language Learners
Context: Henry J. McLaughlin Middle School, Manchester, N.H.
Demographics:
This class has 12 English Learner (EL) refugee and immigrant students. All students are
in the 8th grade, but the amount of time they have been in the United States is varied. Three out
of twelve students have IEPs. These students speak a total of 6 different languages and various
dialects of these languages including: Spanish, French, Langala, Nepali, and Swahili.
Description:
ACCESS for ELLs (Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-toState for English Language Learners) is a test given to students in grades Kindergarten through
twelfth grade, that have been designated as English Language Learners (ELLs) to assess
proficiency in social and academic language. Social and instructional language questions are
based in a school context, and academic language derives from the content areas of Language
Arts, Science and Social Studies across the language domains of listening, speaking, reading, and
writing. Tests are divided into five grade-level clusters: Kindergarten, Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5,
Grades 6-8, and Grades 9-12 (WIDA 2014). Within each cluster, except Kindergarten, there are
three forms of the test: Tier A (beginning), Tier B (Intermediate), and Tier C (advanced). The
test was developed by professionals from the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) who worked
with ELL teachers from the consortium member states (WIDA). The test is distributed by World-

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Class Instructional Design Assessments (WIDA), which was established in 2002 after the
Educational Assessment Grant (EAG) provided funding under Title III for English Language
Learners. WIDAs mission statement is to, advance academic language development and
academic achievement for linguistically diverse students through high quality standards,
assessments, research, and professional development for educators (WIDA). The assessment is
only given to students that have been designated as English Learners in states that are part of the
WIDA consortium. The consortium currently involves 33 states, including all of the states in
New England except Vermont (WIDA). During the 2013-2014 testing window, ACCESS for
ELLs was administered to 1,372,611 students (WIDA).
Purpose:
This purpose of this test is to assess English language proficiency of both social and
academic language as required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2011. The data
provides school districts with feedback on the effectiveness of their English Learner programs, as
well as the opportunity to adjust instruction for ELLs. The data can be used to determine when a
student is able to participate in mainstream courses without support and take other state
mandated tests without accommodations.
Alignment of Test with Course Competencies:
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) developed in 2009 and adopted by 48 states
guide the objectives in of the mainstream classrooms at the Henry J. McLaughlin Middle School.
A research study was done in 2011 by the University of Oklahoma to determine the alignment of
the WIDA English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards, on which the ACCESS test is based,
with the CCSS. Federal guidelines mandate that ELP standards must be linked to state academic
content standards. The study found that a strong link exists between the area of Language Arts

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and Mathematics from the WIDA standards to the CCSS, and specifically, In terms of
alignment, the committee members ratings indicate that there is substantial linking between the
WIDA ELP standards and the CCSS in English Language and Mathematics, as well as the
WIDA ELP standards and the CCSS in Speaking and Listening (Chi, Garcia and Surber, et al
2011).
Since my classroom is an EL pull-out classroom, my students report to me one period per
day, and for the rest of the day rotate throughout mainstream content area courses. Therefore, my
lessons for my classroom use both content objectives and ELP objectives. These ELP objectives
are based on the WIDA consortium and are the same objectives tested by the ACCESS tests. The
mainstream competencies are reading, writing, technology, speaking/listening/viewing and
research, while the language competencies are speaking, reading, listening and writing.
Administration:
ACCESS for ELLs is administered each January with scores available in July. The
listening, reading, and writing sections of the test are given in a group setting. The speaking
section must be given one-on-one and in a 15 minute session. The listening and reading sections
are scheduled together and last 75 minutes. The writing section is scheduled by itself in one 75
minute section.

Scoring:
Scores reported for the English proficiency domains include listening, speaking, reading,
and writing. There are composite scores for oral language made up of 50% speaking and 50%
listening, literacy composite scores made up of 50% writing and 50% reading, and
comprehension composite scores made up of 70% reading and 30% listening. There is also an

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overall composite score derived from a formula of 15% listening, 15% speaking, 35%reading,
and 35% writing.
Application of this tool:
The ACCESS tests have many uses for instructors and district professionals. The scores
from these tests are initially used as a diagnostic tool to place students in the appropriate
language programs and to test the skills that students already have. Tests are given in January
and determine the students placement for the following year. In Manchester, there are three
placement options for EL students. Magnet (self-contained EL services), Pull-Out (once a day
services), or Monitor (No daily services, only a check in by an EL teacher around report card
times). All ELL students who are receiving language learning services take the ACCESS test and
must score at least a 5.0 composite score and a 4.0 or above in each of the four domains
(speaking, listening, reading, and writing) in order to exit out of pullout services and be put on
monitor status.

In addition to a diagnostic tool, the ACCESS test is also a helpful tool in designing
curriculum. Since there is no mandated curriculum for EL students, the ACCESS tests gives
teachers the necessary information about their students needs so they can adjust their instruction
to promote proficiency of the course competencies. It also gives teachers the chance to compare
student work with the results of the test.
Alignment with pedagogy:
Although the ACCESS test is a mandated assessment tool, there are aspects of the tests
that align with my pedagogy. One of the tenets of my pedagogy lies in the belief that teachers
need to hold high expectations for their students once they have identified and met the needs of

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their learners. My students ACCESS test scores gave me the chance to identify the needs of my
students before they even entered my classroom. I was able to anticipate the strengths and
weaknesses of my students and the extra work that would be needed to get my students from
where they were to where they needed to be after my class. I also believe that successful teaching
uses fair and balanced assessments that cater to a variety of different learning styles. The
ACCESS test assesses multiple domains of language learning which I believe is essential in
understanding the skill set and knowledge of the whole child. The test is given in a variety of
settings, both individual and group, and answers are given both orally and written. I believe this
variety of methods is a fair and essential way to assess students. Going forward, I intend to
employ diagnostic tools in my EL or English classroom to make my lessons most useful for each
of my students. By knowing their needs and where they need to be, I can adjust my instruction to
promote proficiency of the course competencies. In addition, these diagnostic tools can be used
throughout my units to ensure students are gaining skills and knowledge throughout each unit as
we move throughout the year.
Assessing Results:
Since this tool is typically used to place students in the correct language acquisition
program in the Manchester School District, the students in my ELL pull out classroom all had a
composite score between 3 and 6. This is the composite score required to be placed in an ELL
pull out classroom. The mean composite score was a 3.9 out of 6, the mean reading score was a
3.9 out of 6, and the mean writing score was a 3.1 out of 6, the lowest of all domains. This is
consistent with Stephen Krashens (1981) language acquisition theory, which identifies writing
as the last stage of language acquisition. This was also consistent with the formative and
summative assessments I did for my students. My students struggled most with writing

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sentences, specifically writing with the correct audience in mind. Often, student writing was very
informal and incomplete. Since the composite score is a percentage of each of the domains, it
can be interpreted as an overall average of English proficiency. Since the mean of the composite
score was a 3.9 and students must earn a 5 composite score and at least 4 in the other domains to
test out, the analysis of these ACCESS scores show that students need interventions in every
linguistic domain in order to meet the criteria needed to exit EL services. Overall, most of the
ACCESS scores reflected the skills and knowledge of my students appropriately, though there
were some discrepancies between the skills I noticed my students had and the skills that the
ACCESS test said they achieved. For example, three of my students scored a 3.9 (classified as
borderline expanding skills) or less in the speaking domain. Therefore, I went into the school
year assuming that I would have to build in chances for these students to practice their English
speaking skills. Though their scores were at least 2 points lower than most of the rest of the class,
I quickly noticed their speaking skills were not accurately portrayed on the ACCESS test. These
students were able to speak coherent sentences that were easily understood. Since any available
certified teacher administers the ACCESS test, I attribute this discrepancy to the testing
environment. I believe being out of their comfort zone and speaking to a stranger or someone
they do not usually speak with may have caused these students to perform at less than their full
potential. These three students are introverted and anxious about speaking in front of strangers,
and I assume that this was a factor and the reason they scored so low on their speaking domain.
I feel this tool is appropriate in assessing proficiency in the course competencies and in
English proficiency because it intertwines all of the linguistic domains. In my experience
working with ELs, I have learned that linguistic ability is a combination of skills and knowledge
about the language. Therefore, I believe the formula the ACCESS test uses to calculate the

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composite scores (15% listening, 15% speaking, 35%reading, and 35% writing) gives an
accurate portrayal of English proficiency. I also feel the listening, writing and reading sections
are fair, because they assess both academic and social language.
Student A: High Achievement

Section

Description

Overall Composite =
Listening (15%) + Speaking
Overall Composite
(15%) + Reading (35%)+
Writing (35%) )
Listening
Listening Proficiency
Proficiency
Speaking
Speaking Proficiency
Proficiency
Reading
Reading Proficiency
Proficiency
Writing Proficiency Writing Proficiency

Max Original Performance

Score Score Level
6

4.5

Expanding

5.5

Bridging

Reaching

4.9

Expanding

3.5

Entering to Developing

Notes

This student represents high achievement on the ACCESS test. This student is Congolese
and speaks French. He arrived 6 years ago, and are in the 8th grade class that I analyzed for my
assessment analysis. His highest score was in speaking, and his lowest score was in writing. This
is typical of ELs. Usually, most learners pick up speaking first because it is a survival skill to
be able to speak the language when one moves to a new country.
On summative assessments, the student normally scored in the top third of the class,
which is consistent with this students overall performance on the ACCESS test. The listening
score is higher than what I have witnessed in my classroom. While doing activities that involved
active listening, such as watching a YouTube video and then discussing, or following teacher led
instruction, this student struggled. I believe the ACCESS test gave a higher score than this

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student typically would earn. This may be because the topic of the listening activity may have
been something that he already had prior knowledge about, while in my classroom, when I test
his listening skills it is usually while he is learning new material.
Although he scored well on speaking section, his writing score is concerning because it is
vastly different form the rest of his scores. It shows that he needs to continue with his writing
skills, which are falling behind. If I want this student to be at grade level, I need him to be able to
write more fluently. In class, I incorporate frequent writing activities in order to help my students
in their mainstream classes, but also prepare them for the next years ACCESS test. I plan on
continuing to challenge this student and pushing him to reach his full potential so that he can exit
out of EL services, ideally, next year.
Student B: Middle Achievement
Section

Description

Overall Composite =
Listening (15%) + Speaking
(15%) + Reading (35%)+
Overall Composite
Writing (35%)

Listening
Proficiency
Speaking
Proficiency
Reading
Proficiency
Writing Proficiency

Max Original Performance

Score Score Level

3.9

Entering to Developing

Listening Proficiency

4.3

Expanding

Speaking Proficiency

Reaching

Reading Proficiency

4.2

Expanding

Writing Proficiency

2.7

Entering to Developing

Notes

This student scored a 3.9 composite score, which was the average composite score of this
8th grade class. He is a refugee from Somalia and came to the United States 5 years ago. At the

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beginning of the year, I assumed this student would need much scaffolding and assistance with
his assignments, but I learned from my formative and summative assessments early on in the
year that his skills were more advanced than the ACCESS test indicated. For example, during my
short story writing unit, this student had one of the top scores in the class on his writing portion
of the assessment. I believe this could have been because the student was interested in fiction
writing and had a vast imagination. He enjoyed writing his story because he felt connected to it.
Since the questions and writing prompts on the ACCESS test do not take student choice into
account, I can conclude his lack of interest may have influenced his writing score. On other
assessments, I found that this student wrote clearly and effectively when motivated. This student
possesses the potential to do well, but is often apathetic. This could be another reason that the
ACCESS writing score is so low at 2.7.
This student scored a 6 on the speaking domain, which is the highest possible score and
the same score as student A. Speaking is the first stage of language acquisition (Krashen 1981)
and is therefore typically the highest score for all ELs. The next highest score was the reading
domain at 4.2. This score is consistent with his reading achievement in my ELL pull out class.
This student usually preformed in the middle achievement level on reading assessments in this
class, which is similar to how he scored on the ACCESS test. I found that challenging this
student with complex texts worked well in building his reading comprehension. Early on, this
student failed a formative assessment after reading a story with the class. After one-on-one
instruction and explicit mini lessons on decoding strategies, this student began to do better with
reading assessments.
Moving forward, I will continue providing opportunities for this student to build his
speaking, listening, and reading skills. I will also aim my lessons to develop his

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writing skills. By incorporating lessons that include various linguistic domains, I can help him
progress towards the course competencies more efficiently. This student, along with the rest of
the class, needs direct instruction in writing. Therefore, I will make a goal to push my students to
be more competent writers by the end of the year through explicit instruction.
Student C: Low Achievement

Max Original Performance

Section

Description

Notes
Score Score Level

Overall Composite =
Listening (15%) +
Speaking (15%) +
Overall Composite Reading (35%)+ Writing
(35%)

Listening
Proficiency
Speaking
Proficiency
Reading
Proficiency
Writing
Proficiency

Entering to Developing

Listening Proficiency

2.9

Entering to Developing

Speaking Proficiency

5.6

Bridging

Reading Proficiency

2.6

Entering to Developing

Writing Proficiency

2.8

Entering to Developing

This students scores are representative of the bottom third of my class. This student
speaks Nepali and came from Nepal 4 years ago. In my class there is a pattern between the
number of years students have been here and their achievement on the ACCESS test. The
students who have been here the longest, clearly, have a higher achievement on this test. In the
beginning of the year, I anticipated that this student would need interventions and modifications
to understand, process, and produce grade level material. I found my prediction to be true while

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teaching him student throughout the semester. I found that he struggled not only in my pull out
classroom, but also his mainstream classroom.
This student scored the highest on the speaking section of the ACCESS test, which is
consistent with the rest of the class. His next highest score was in listening. I was not surprised
that these two domains of English proficiency were the highest achievement level for him.
During both academic and social language activities, he always participated and completed their
speaking and listening tasks efficiently.
In class, he certainly struggled the least with speaking and listening compared to reading
and writing. His reading score was a 2.8 out of 6, just two points higher than his writing score of
2.6 out of 6. Both of these domains received scores also referred to as entering which is the
lowest proficiency title. As I went into this school year, I anticipated that he would need extra
help and scaffolding, and I was correct in my hypothesis. He suffered from writers block and
testing anxiety, and would often shut down when asked to write. I adjusted my instruction in
class to incorporate graphic organizers to help my students organize their thoughts before they
had to put them on paper. This helped him progress towards proficiency in the writing
competency because he had a chance to work out his thoughts before he constructed them into
complete sentences. I believe if he had the ability to free write or brainstorm before he did wrote
his responses on the ACCESS test, he could have achieved a higher score.
Going forward, I will use this ACCESS test to continue to challenge all of his linguistic
domains. I will teach explicit lessons that simultaneously teach reading and writing, since these
are the two areas that he is struggling with. I will complete frequent check ins with his
mainstream teachers to make sure he is progressing towards the competencies in their classroom
as well.

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Reflecting on the results:

As I prepared my lessons for this class, I kept the needs of my learners in mind. I
familiarized myself with each students composite and domain ACCESS scores before the school
year began to make sure I knew where my students started, so that I could map out how I would
get them to where they needed to be. Once I had the students in class, I noticed discrepancies
between the ACCESS scores and the formative and summative assessment data I was getting
from my own assessments. I concluded that factors such as testing environment, topic, and
motivation are all factors that have to do with achievement levels.
After reflecting on the results on of the ACCESS tests for my 8th graders in the ELL pull
out classroom, I can draw larger conclusions that will help me to design curriculum and
assessments that will bring my students to proficiency. First, I will continue incorporating daily
writing into my lessons. I will focus on content, rather than grammar and mechanics, because
that is what the ACCESS test assesses, and because it is what I believe is most useful for
language learners. Next, I will continue to use a variety of assessment tools that cater to the
various needs in my classroom. I will use projects, research and presentations as a way for
students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Analyzing the results of the ACCESS test
has opened my eyes to the necessity of using a variety of assessment tools to get an accurate
depiction of skills and knowledge.
In order to help all of my students progress toward the course competencies, I must
continue incorporating lessons that allow students to practice all of the linguistic domains. I must
focus on writing, because it is the area that students, native speakers or not, struggle with the

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most. I must also ensure that I continue to build upon students reading, listening, and speaking
skills, so that students can soon be exited from EL status and continue on their way to becoming
successful and independent scholars.

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References
Mission and the WIDA Story. WIDA. 2014. Web. 21 Ap. 2015
Krashen, S. (1981), Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, Pergamon
Youngshin, C. et al. (2011), Alignment study between the common core state standards in
English Language Arts and Mathematics and the WIDA English language Proficiency
Standards. University of Oklahoma.