and we're back!

Ah.

The last days of summer no one acknowledges. The days are still relatively long. Indian summer is very much here (for some of us), balmy evenings and ice cream is still a welcome treat.

But we are all too busy in the classroom and in our schools and even in the district office to notice all of this.

And why not? Our focus is in the classroom, and rightly so...after all bright new faces will accompany us for three more seasons

Assessments: What our (new crop of) ELLs brings and already knows

We all know our students are not blank slates. We know that they bring knowledge from the previous year's dedicated instruction. And since we know that in order to figure out what they did master we have to assess, our instruction must begin with assessment. After all, assessment IS instruction.

Unfortunately, you may not know, or you may not have useful assessments for ELLs. Hopefully you know who your ELLs are. Hopefully, your district has a way to identify them and get that information to you.

At the very least, your ELLs are the ones who have to take the CELDT- and unless they are kindergartners- that means they took the CELDT last year. And the scores from that exam are useful information! Look it up. Check the cum or ELL folder if one exists.

And supplement this test with the power of observation- make sure you listen to the level of English of your students, see the correlation between students with an overall level of 1 (Beginning) and those with a 3 (intermediate). Start to get to know your students linguistically!