WIDA ACCESS Testing goes on from the middle of January until the middle of March here at Grayslake Central every year, but many people don’t actually know what it is. The state of Illinois has many rules and regulations of how the test is run, and it is a pretty complex system. There are about 120 GCHS students that are taking the test this year. There are high expectations for the test, and the test isn’t easy even for some fluent English speakers.

ACCESS testing at Grayslake Central is mainly run by Multilingual Department Chair James Murphy. Murphy also works at Grayslake North with ACCESS testing. ACCESS Testing is for students who are identified as English learners. The test has four main components to it: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. The ACCESS test is important because it allows school staff to look at the results and connect students with the needed amount of services. It’s important that students are able to understand lessons and communicate with others.

Murphy explained what goes on during ACCESS testing. “The ACCESS Test is administered, grades K-12 grade. The ACCESS Test has four main parts to it. The four main domains of language. There’s a listening test, a reading test, a speaking test, and a writing test.” These four main testing components are very important, as Murphy said “the four main domains of language” determine what level of an English speaker you are.

Melissa Dodge, a Spanish teacher at Grayslake Central talked about why she thinks ACCESS testing is important. “It’s a test that allows students to show what kind of English that they know. It’s not about how intelligent they are and it’s not a contest test.” Leigh Cavanaugh, who is a Academic Language Development teacher in the Multilingual Department said what the goals for her students are in her specific class, which focuses on developing English skills. “One of the biggest goals we have is confidence and knowing that even as a native English speaker, we all make mistakes. Also knowing that it’s a process. We’re not gonna start learning the language and immediately be able to speak it. So our practice is a little bit of everything, but mainly we focus on the speaking and the writing, [which is] part of the test.”

ACCESS Testing is over now but it was very hard for some students to prepare for. There is a lot of work that went into the test by both Multilingual teachers and their students.