When is a New Language Learner Ready for Standardized Testing?

photo: greatschools.org

It’s spring and while most of us anticipate the awakening of plant and animal life that the warmer weather brings, students all over the country also wait in anticipation for the challenge of standardized testing.  But just how prepared are new language learners when it comes to taking standardized tests?

I often refer back to this 12 minute short film when reflecting upon the abilities of bilingual students.  It serves as a reminder of how capable these students are, yet how often their abilities are overshadowed by language barriers. (Side note: This film is also really well done, in my humble opinion, which is also why I watch it so much)

Multiple factors must be considered to determine if a child’s language abilities in the new language are adequate for testing, but one researcher of language development helps to measure language ability in a simple way.  

Building the Phonemic Awareness Skills of Multilingual Individuals

Photo: imgkid.com

With more and more SLPs taking on the role of reading specialist in the school environment, important reading strategies must be reviewed with current evidenced based practice (EBP).  Additionally, multilingual clients bring a greater challenge to the SLP teaching phonemic awareness.   In fact, reading and writing can be more complex in English than in many other languages because English has a moderately complicated spelling system.  In Spanish, for example, the relationships between letters and sounds are typically 1:1, meaning each sound is usually written using one spelling unit, and each spelling unit is typically pronounced one way.  There are exceptions with a few letters like the “C,” which has a “soft c” and “hard c” distinction in both languages.