Tutoring/ELL PROGRAM
English Language Learners Support Services
Description
The English Language Learner program at QISS supports students’ English language acquisition. The school recognizes that English profiency is the most important factor in your child’s academic success at QISS; therefore, attending ELL services is a contractual responsibility of identified students upon acceptance.
The ELL program provides scheduled classes, push-in, and pull-out services on a daily basis depending on the grade level and needs of the students. The year-long English Development course is taught by certified ELL teachers resulting in higher academic achievements for students due to accelerated growth. The school is committed to ensuring that each student be provided with specific instruction in order to become proficient in speaking, listening, reading and writing in English.
Most recent literature on English language acquisition reveals that students need instruction in phonemic awaremess, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, text comprehension and oral language proficiency. Typically, it takes students 5-7 years to achieve academic English proficiency. The length of time a student participates in ELL services is dependent on a variety of factors.
Our ELL program is committed to helping students attain a high level of academic English in order to be successful in mainstream classes, and ultimately universities and workplaces. In order to do this, all QISS teachers need to be aware of current research and use effective ELL strategies. ELL teachers support content-area teachers providing professional development sessions and collaborating to develop and gather differentiated materials.
The ELL Services provide support to students:
- Through a Push-in program – The ESL teachers go into the regular classrooms to provide differentiated instruction for individual students or a small group of students who are working at different language levels. The ELL teachers can also participate in a parallel or team teaching model where the content-area teachers and the ELL teachers work collaboratively to co-teach lessons.
- Through a Pull-out Program – English Language Learners who are at the beginning stages of language development are given individualized or small group instruction in the ELL classroom. The objective is to help the students develop their four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing as well as to help them acquire necessary vocabulary to support their social and academic life.
ELL Testing, Qualification and Exit Procedures
Students are given the WIDA MODEL (Measure of Developing English Language) screener assessment upon enrollment to determine if they will qualify for ELL services. The full WIDA MODEL assessment is given once a year thereafter to monitor English development and determine future placement in the program. Students will be exited from ELL services with a score of 4.0 in reading, 4.0 in writing, and an overall average score of 4.5 in the four language domains. Exited students will placed on a monitored status for two years. Classroom teachers will meet with the ELL teachers during PLCs or another scheduled time to discuss and document student progress. Based on teacher recommendations and administrative decisions, a student can be re-entered into the program in order to increase their academic English skills if they are not, independently, fully successful in their regular classrooms. Some students who do not test out of the program based upon WIDA data, may also be placed on a monitored status if they are performing well in their classrooms. This will be determined by the ELL team and administrators
Current Assessments
WIDA MODEL Screener (upon enrollment)
WIDA MODEL Test (yearly)
Review MAP Testing (2x year)
Running Records (quarterly)
