Assessment Difficulties and Misinterpretation of Learning Gaps

Issue 1: Assessments fail to reflect students’ full bilingual capabilities.

Potential Reason: Assessments are only administered in one language. 

Strategies:

  • Incorporate side-by-side assessment tools – Use equivalent assessments in both languages when available (e.g., MAP Growth in English and MAP Español). This offers a fuller picture of student performance across both languages.

  • Offer alternative assessments – Supplement standardized data with oral retells, student-created bilingual projects, or writing samples in the partner language. These allow students to demonstrate understanding regardless of dominant language.

  • Use bilingual rubrics and translation-friendly tasks – Create rubrics that assess both language and content understanding separately. Design assessments where students can use their stronger language or translanguaging to explain their thinking.

Potential Reason: Data from both languages is viewed in isolation. 

Strategies:

  • Use visualizations to compare language growth – Display student data side-by-side (e.g., bar graphs or radar charts) to analyze biliteracy trajectories over time.

  • Look for cross-linguistic strengths – Identify where skills transfer across languages (e.g., comprehension in Spanish used to support inference in English). Highlight this during team meetings and family conferences.

  • Build student profiles using both language domains – Develop holistic data portfolios with writing samples, anecdotal notes, and performance assessments in both languages. Include student reflections where possible.

Potential Reason: Assessment design does not consider skill transfer across languages. 

Strategies:

  • Integrate translanguaging tasks – Ask students to read in one language and summarize or discuss in another. This reflects real-world bilingual practice and deepens cognitive engagement.

  • Leverage cognate-based activities – Design vocabulary assessments that help students explore roots and meaning across languages. This builds metalinguistic awareness.

  • Adopt a biliteracy continuum framework – Use a progression chart that recognizes growth in both languages simultaneously rather than assessing one in isolation. Tie it to dual language program goals.

Issue 2: Assessment data leads to deficit-based interpretations of student progress.

Potential Reason: Educators prioritize English growth data over bilingual development.

Strategies:

  • Reframe the goal as biliteracy, not English-only success – Anchor assessment conversations in the goals of the dual language program, emphasizing that growth in either language contributes to academic and linguistic success.

  • Celebrate growth in either language – Use visual trackers, bilingual certificates, or progress charts that equally value development in both languages. Recognize and announce achievements in Spanish and English alike.

  • Use both data sets when conferencing with families – Present student growth through bilingual lenses using artifacts like side-by-side charts, bilingual writing samples, or audio reflections. Emphasize strengths and progress rather than gaps.

Potential Reason: Assessment systems do not capture progress made in the partner language.

Strategies:

  • Create schoolwide systems for tracking partner language growth – Develop consistent tools such as oral language rubrics, running records, and vocabulary checklists to monitor student development in the partner language.

  • Use portfolio-based assessment – Compile samples of student work in both languages, including voice recordings, bilingual projects, and reflections. Review these periodically to capture longitudinal growth.

  • Include informal assessments from multiple sources – Gather data from teacher observations, student self-assessments, peer feedback, and home language interviews to construct a fuller picture of student learning.

Potential Reason: There’s a lack of professional development on interpreting multilingual data holistically.

Strategies:

  • Share multilingual assessment videos or resources – Use resources like IMV’s video series to build staff capacity on how to interpret and respond to bilingual assessment data. Facilitate reflection and discussion.

  • Introduce a biliteracy data protocol – Use structured protocols during data meetings that prompt teams to analyze growth across both languages, identify trends, and plan targeted instruction.

  • Use collaborative planning – Pair language specialists with content teachers to co-analyze student data, co-design instruction, and determine language-specific supports.

Issue 3: Assessment tools are not accessible to multilingual learners.

Potential Reason: Assessments are linguistically complex and not scaffolded for language development levels. 

Strategies:

  • Simplify language without lowering rigor – Modify assessment prompts to use clear, direct language while maintaining cognitive challenge. For example, replace idioms or complex syntax with accessible phrasing, but keep academic vocabulary.

  • Embed visuals and graphic organizers into assessments – Support comprehension by including images, charts, and labeled diagrams. Offer graphic organizers for writing tasks to structure thinking.

  • Use small group testing and oral administration – Provide assessments in supportive settings with verbal read-alouds or peer-mediated assistance. This allows students to demonstrate content knowledge without being hindered by decoding challenges.

Potential Reason:  Assessments do not allow for translanguaging or alternate ways to demonstrate understanding.

Strategies:

  • Allow bilingual demonstrations of understanding – Encourage students to use both languages to explain thinking during performance tasks, especially in oral or project-based assessments.

  • Accept bilingual written responses – Evaluate comprehension through bilingual journaling, labeled diagrams, or writing that uses a mix of both program languages. Prioritize clarity of ideas over strict language separation.

  • Use dynamic assessment tasks – Design tasks where students receive support or prompts and are evaluated on how they learn, not just what they already know. This models real-life learning processes and scaffolds success.

Potential Reason: Students are unfamiliar with test formats or lack test-taking strategies in the target language. 

Strategies:

  • Provide practice with test formats using multilingual examples –  Use released or teacher-made items in both languages to familiarize students with question styles and expectations.

  • Teach metacognitive test-taking strategies – Explicitly model how to preview questions, underline key terms, and eliminate distractors. Provide bilingual strategy guides or anchor charts.

  • Incorporate assessment modeling into daily instruction – Embed informal assessments like exit tickets, rubrics, and self-assessments throughout instruction in both languages to build familiarity and reduce anxiety.

Issue 4: Educators and families struggle to interpret what assessment data actually means for multilingual learners.

Potential Reason: Families are unfamiliar with standardized test metrics or what counts as progress. 

Strategies:

  • Host bilingual assessment nights – Provide interactive sessions where families review sample score reports, view student portfolios, and ask questions. Offer real-time interpretation and hands-on materials.

  • Create visual progress reports – Design user-friendly summaries with graphs, charts, and color-coded indicators. Include side-by-side growth in both program languages.

  • Include family-friendly glossaries of assessment terms – Offer translated documents that explain key terms like "percentile," "proficiency level," and "growth target" with visuals and examples.

Potential Reason: Teachers are unsure how to explain bilingual data in accessible, affirming ways. 

Strategies:

  • Develop bilingual student narratives – Write brief summaries that describe a student’s progress, strengths, and next steps in both languages. Use these during conferences to ground conversations in strengths-based evidence.

  • Use side-by-side comparisons in conferences – Share bilingual growth charts or dual-language writing samples to highlight how students are progressing across domains.

  • Highlight strengths and opportunities, not just gaps – Frame discussions around transferable skills, biliteracy milestones, and how students leverage one language to support the other.

Potential Reason: Reporting tools and conferences focus only on English results. 

Strategies:

  • Include Spanish or partner language data in every report card – Report qualitative and quantitative data from both languages. Use sentence stems to describe growth areas if formal metrics are unavailable.

  • Build bilingual digital portfolios – Store and showcase student work samples, recordings, and reflections in both languages. Make them accessible to families throughout the year.

  • Ensure interpreter access for all data conversations – Schedule interpreters for conferences and ensure all communication is linguistically inclusive. Train interpreters on educational terminology and cultural sensitivity.