Spanish-language test-takers' scores climb once again

Colorado third-graders who took reading tests in Spanish continued their upward mobility with scores inching up to 56 percent ‘proficient’ and ‘advanced’ this year, compared with 53 percent last year and 41 percent in 1998.

‘It’s great – lots of good teachers doing good work,’ said Tom Quackenboss, a senior consultant for language arts in assessment at the Colorado Department of Education. Quackenboss said everybody has been keeping up on how best to teach students whose first language isn’t English. ‘We’re looking at acquiring native language first, reading and writing, then it’s easier to teach the English,’ he said.

Fewer third-graders took the Spanish CSAP this year than last year: down to 1,444 from 1,795 in 2001, Quackenboss said.

That was true in Adams County District 14, where Spanish-speaking third-graders zoomed from 56 percent at or above proficiency last year to 80 percent this year. Last year, 79 took the Spanish CSAP; this year only 30 did.

Superintendent John Lange said that even those students who tested in Spanish last year but English this year did well. Overall, though, the district’s English-speaking students did not perform as well the Spanish-speaking ones, with only 48 percent of those who tested in English scoring proficient or advanced.

Lange said the success of the Spanish-speaking students speaks to a good bilingual program that uses bilingual teachers recruited from Mexico. Students are gradually introduced to English after they have reading and writing in their first language down cold, Lange said.

Adams 14 invested in quality materials in English and Spanish, but Lange also credited youngsters who had a winning attitude: ‘They’re very serious about their education, wanting and willing to learn. They get up here with all the resources and support and they thrive.’



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