Writing Advice for the WIDA ACCESS test

If you do not have that much time to actually prepare for writing, then you will need to model good test taking skills for the writing portion. Writing units themselves take a long time. I have products in my TpT store that help with this, Growing Bundle- Writing for ESL Sentence Frames and Starters. However, if you have to test within the next week or so, you may want to just walk through a sample prompt or two and model how you, a fluent writer, would tackle the prompt. I would maybe do a whole group write, where you figure out what to write together. Then you all should use the WIDA writing rubric to score it, as that is how the real ones are scored.

You can find samples on the WIDA site, although that is limited.

I have plans to add products like these to my store in the future.

You could try https://www.quill.org/ for writing. It’s free, however it is extremely picky as to what is typed to be scored as correct answers. Students find that part difficult. If I were you, I would test it out as a student to see what I mean.

Just encourage them to do their absolute best and to follow the directions, If the prompt says to write a letter, be sure to have a greeting  (Dear Principal) and closing (Sincerely, Kim). Also, if it says 5-8 sentences, then write 5 to 8 sentences. If it doesn’t say how many, then count the questions being asked and add extra sentences to add details. Those questions are actually really important to model.

The image above comes from the sample item linked higher up in this post. Students will be expected to answer all of these questions in order to receive the highest score possible. You need to model for your MLs how to find the academic language within the questions. For example, these questions are a clear example of using the language function “compare and contrast”. This means your MLs will need to be able to use  the language forms: but, same, different, however, alike, on the other hand, etc. The last question asks students to summarize, so students need the language forms: in summary, in conclusion, the reason I chose this was… Provide your students with sentence frames to help them answer questions like these.

Finally, you need to instruct your students how to use the planning space. The image below comes directly from the WIDA sample question.

I encourage my MLs to use this space to answer the questions. Since this is a compare/contrast essay, I would model the use of a T-chart or Venn Diagram. It does not need to be in-depth, but it will definitely help your students be better writers.

If you want scaffolded resources for the different genres of writing, check these out by clicking on the image!

I wish you and your MLs luck. Remember to give yourself and your MLs grace. Writing fluency can take up to 10 years. Effective writing instruction is challenging and time consuming. Accomplish what you can, and celebrate all progress!

Yours in learning,

Kim Noble Beiderman