Monitoring Success

A critical aspect for all EL students to move forward is the monitoring of success. While it is important for teachers to keep a detailed record of their EL students progress, it is equally as important to encourage self-assessment and monitoring so that an EL student takes ownership of his or her learning.

Ways to Monitor Success

1. Growth Charts– one area in which an EL student (particularly LTELs) struggle is reading comprehension. In order to encourage students to read more and progress in reading levels, have students keep and maintain a reading growth chart. Have students print or create a monthly monitoring chart that tracks their STAR reader scores. Encourage students to progress in small, reasonable steps.

2. Rubrics

Providing students with a rubric before any major assignment can also help students. Rubrics allow students to follow a specific and set structure. Students can use rubrics to monitor their own progress on individual assignments as well as monitor classmates progress. By using a rubric students learn to self-grade and become more aware of why a teacher made a specific decision about the grading on their assignment. Because the students are highly aware of what is expected, students are more likely to succeed.

These are just a couple simple ways to encourage student learning and self-awareness. In order for an EL student (or any student) to be academically successful, they must be active participants in their own learning.