Looking Beyond Grades for Signs of Multilingual Students’ Progress

A few weeks after the school year started, I noticed that one of my multilingual students had difficulty progressing in class. He was exposed, like the other students, to every assessment, review, and quiz, but his grades were not showing any growth.

I knew I needed to take action. At that moment, I asked myself what I could do to support this student and provide exactly what he needed.

I didn’t wait for a test or other type of assessment to see if his score went up. Instead, I paid attention to other indicators that could help me observe him daily during instruction: his participation, oral-language expansion, academic risk-taking, and strategic independence. These were the key to adjusting my instruction plan in the class and moving forward.

Participation

The first thing I noticed from the student was when he began to participate more often during partner talk. This showed me that a conversation in a small group first was helping the student connect the lesson with his own experiences, and after sharing with a partner, he became more comfortable sharing with the whole class. This observation helped me to see that the student was ready to develop and share more ideas independently, even if test scores didn’t reflect that.

As the student began sharing his ideas, I realized that I was facilitating discussions by only using structured questions. Instead of using long sentence stems or long prompts such as, “I believe... because... then...,” I began to take away long sentence stems and structured questions and use open-ended prompts. These left the student time to talk with his partner before sharing his own ideas with the whole group.

On my clipboard, I record notes about what students say during partner talk and how they work independently. Additionally, I write brief comments, such as noting when students share ideas, use context clues, or share without prompting. Every Friday, I compare these notes to look for changes.

Oral-Language Expansion

Oral language can reveal a lot of changes in multilingual students even before they take a test. When I lead my activities in a small group, I stay very attentive to the answers to identify how they use their words, whether they give multiple responses in a full sentence, and who is adding details by using academic vocabulary. During small groups, I use a checklist with these notes to review who is capable of explaining their thoughts clearly.

I also notice that even if a student knows the answers, they often don’t know how to respond. I use small-group discussion by giving the students a short passage and having them talk with their partners. These small discussions help me to identify which students need more support expressing ideas. When they can express their own ideas, I add vocabulary or help them build an answer.

During small-group participation, I closely use observation notes in class. I always make sure to write the dates, behaviors, or any special skills the students have. With these notes, I do a follow-up at the end of each cycle and compare the dates to see if they need extra support or if a student shows some growth.

Academic Risk-Taking

I always look for any opportunity to encourage academic risk-taking. I engage the students in different activities that provide them with appropriate time to look for unfamiliar words. During this, they can use all the resources in class, such as anchor charts, to be able to identify context clues before I step in for help.

I remind them before answering to think about how they figure out that word or what part of the text supports their answer. During this process, I invite them to share an idea, but if they make any mistake, they can always go back and revise their thinking by trying the strategy again independently. As I listen, I identify when I can offer support or give more time to the students who need it to work through this process on their own.

I created a tracker that helps me record students’ answers and compare how long they can read without becoming distracted or what tool helps them not get distracted. I go back every two weeks to review if my instructions are still reflecting their needs or if I have to make some changes according to the students’ growth. Depending on what the tracker shows me, I will provide more challenging text or add vocabulary support.

Strategic Independence

I encourage my students to use all the materials that I have in class to create more independence. Over a few weeks, I noticed that more students were using the anchor chart and annotations, they were rereading passages, and partner discussion participation increased in class. Even if they didn’t know the correct answer, they provided a brief reflection or returned to reread the questions.

As students became more familiar with the resources and strategies I had in class, I gradually reduced scaffold support. First, I made this resource simple for them by modeling how they could use an anchor chart, then how they could annotate important information from the passage, and last, how to reread the question. If they still needed my support, I actively encouraged the students to discuss with a partner before requesting my help. As time passed, I noticed that the students were returning to the text to check and revise their answers independently, which showed me they were building more confidence and responding to their answers on their own.

Even though I know formal assessment matters too, these small changes help me to recognize the importance of demonstrating that when the student speaks up, they are developing more literacy skills, even though the formal scores have not yet reflected their progress.