Description of the Practice

Integrating the use of the testing formats and procedures of the E-PAL, the 4th grade ELA and English Regents examinations into literacy and content area lessons in both languages.

Elements of the Practice

The instructional strategy is based on this sequence:

1. Students listen to or read a selection.

2. Students organize the content of the selection on a graphic organizer or take notes.

3. Students participate in oral and written comprehension activities about the selection [The students' specific comprehension skill and strategy needs are identified from various assessment data].

4. Students generate a written response based on a prompt. The type of written response changes over a period of time to include reflective, persuasive, summary, chronological, process, biographical, and literary analysis writing.

Scaffolding strategies

Teachers use a variety of scaffolding strategies that match students' communicative competency levels:

(1) Written response spirals up from complete sentences, sets of logical-order sentences, paragraphs and multiple-paragraph writing.

(2) Visuals and descriptions (in both languages, whichever is appropriate) are provided to establish comprehension.

(3) Teachers model the protocols and use "think aloud" strategies to help students become familiar with testing protocols.

Performance Assessment Strategies

Teachers use such performance assessment strategies as primary trait scoring guides and performance rubrics to collect evidence of student growth. (The teachers use the same guides and rubrics to establish consistency of purpose across the grades and proficiency levels.)

In this instructional strategy students are working towards several primary literacy standards: Reading Habits, Getting the Meaning, Writing Purposes and Resulting Genres, Language Use and Conventions. They are also moving towards such ELA Standards as E1c, E2b, E2c, E2e, E2f; E4a and E4b; E5a. This strategy also promotes important language acquisition skills such as listening with intent and using metadiscourse strategies, as well as procedural knowledge

Evidence that the Practice Was Effective

Teachers have documented growth of individual students by saving the scoring guides used to evaluate the written response selections of each student in performance portfolios. Informal analysis shows growth. Although it is too early to see a direct relationship of the use of the strategy with student performance, teachers have begun to document growth around student use of such primary traits as:

(1) test-taking strategies,

(2) comprehending the main ideas of listen-to and reading selections,

(3) specific writing formats and genres,

(4) specific sentence elements, and

(5) conventions of punctuation and spelling in both languages. That is, there is documentation of individual student growth in specific comprehension, test-taking and writing competencies.

Learner and School Contexts