Print Topic 
Email TopicRenaissance Star assessments are available in English and Spanish. Assessing students in multiple languages allows educators to analyze students' demonstrated strength and areas of growth in both languages.
Emergent bilinguals/multilingual learners have diverse skill sets and a diverse range of needs. Renaissance Analytics makes it easy to find students' assessment results in English and Spanish in one place so that educators can provide targeted instruction to meet their needs. With this data, along with other important background information about these students, administrators and teachers can have a better holistic picture of who their students are, what they bring to the classroom, and how to support their biliteracy journey.
The chart below shows examples of how to group students and potential instruction strategies to consider. Please connect with your district's multilingual department for additional resources on supporting Emergent Bilingual/Multilingual students.
Using the clickable bar charts on the Our Students dashboard, you can apply filters to see students who meet the criteria you have selected. For example, in the images below, we have filtered to create a list of students who fall into the Urgent Intervention Category for Star Reading English but are At or Above Benchmark on Star Reading Spanish.
When you begin selecting filters, the Save View button will appear.
Clicking the Save View button will give you the option to name this view. You can also use the toggles to share it with other leaders from your school or district.
Saving a View moves both metrics to the left side of your screen, making it even easier to compare students’ Percentile Ranks on Star Reading English and Star Reading Spanish.
| Urgent Intervention in English, At/Above in Spanish | At/Above in English and Spanish |
|---|---|
|
This might signal that your Emergent bilingual/multilingual learner has a very high level of literacy in Spanish and is starting to develop language and/or literacy skills in English. Review the student’s English language proficiency level (via ELP assessment). Determine what transferable skills Learn more: Reading in Any Language Improves Reading Levels in English |
These students are on track to becoming fully biliterate. Celebrate their success and explore ways to maximize and continue their growth trajectory. If any of these students are currently receiving ELL services, review how long they have been receiving services to determine if they are ready to exit the program and move to a different dual language instructional model. They might actually be a great candidate for the gifted program. This is a great article to learn how to identify emergent bilinguals as gifted: https://www.edutopia.org/article/identifying-and-supporting-gifted-ells |
| Urgent Intervention in English and Spanish | At/Above in English, Urgent Intervention in Spanish |
|---|---|
|
Students that fall in this category are continuously acquiring language - keep in mind they are learning two languages simultaneously and are therefore building a more complex bilingual linguistic reservoir than their monolingual counterparts. Determine what skills students have acquired in each language and target instruction around focus skills as well as transferable skills. This may also be a great time to review what type of ELL or dual language program the student is currently enrolled in and how long has this type of instruction been provided. Are there additional language enrichment services that could be implemented? |
This might signal that your Emergent bilingual/multilingual learner has a very high level of literacy in English and is starting to develop language and/or literacy skills in Spanish. Determine what transferable skills can be applied from English to Spanish as a way to start planning instruction and making connections, leveraging the high literacy level of students that fall in this category. Learn more about the differences and similarities of Spanish and English in early learning https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/early-literacy-instruction-spanish-teaching-beginning-reader |