ESL WIDA Access

What is ACCESS?

ACCESS FOR ELLS 2.0®

ACCESS for ELLs® stands for Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners. This large-scale test addresses the academic English language proficiency (ELP) standards at the core of the WIDA Consortium’s approach to instructing and evaluating the progress of English learners. To alleviate any confusion, the WIDA Screener more aptly known as a screening tool, has a different purpose and format from the ACCESS test.

From the WIDA Consortium: This large-scale test first and foremost addresses the English language development standards that form the core of the WIDA Consortium’s approach to instructing and testing English language learners. These standards incorporate a set of model performance indicators(PIs) that describe the expectations educators have of ELL students at five different grade level clusters and in five different content areas.

The grade level clusters include K, 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8 and 9-12. There are five content areas of the standards. The first is called social and instructional language (SI), which incorporates proficiencies needed to deal with the general language of the classroom and the school. The others are English language arts (LA), math (MA), science (SC), and social studies (SS).

For each grade level, then, the standards specify one or more performance indicators for each content area within each of the four language domains: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing.

There are six different domain and levels included in the Wida framework.
Level 1 – Entering, Level 2- Emerging, Level 3- Developing, Level 4- Expanding, Level 5- Bridging, Level 6- Reaching.