WIDA ELD framework- How to explain and use with your classroom teachers

This past week I spent three days in Frankfort at the yearly WIDA conference! There was a WEALTH of information given over these three days, but I felt like one particular activity stuck with me the most and will be very important for me to take back to "my" classroom teachers. Every year the classroom teachers in my building get a refresher course on the WIDA ELD framework in hopes that they will use this framework during planning and differentiating for our ELL students. However...we know that usually doesn't happen. The WIDA framework is not user friendly for those that are not ESL trained and are unfamiliar with the lingo associated with the framework. One of the ideas suggested by the presenter of the training was the help your classroom teachers create their own ELD strand that applies to their unit of study (instead of using the generic samples, which never seem to correspond to the classroom)

 One of the first things that classroom teachers need to understand in order to make a strand is the difference between the "discourse level", "sentence level", and "word/phrase level"of text. They need to understand that students will work from word to sentence to discourse level throughout their proficiency development, and that making modifications to accommodate their current level is the right thing to do! So many teachers are hesitant to change the type of response or the way they are asking students to respond because they do not think it's fair. However, this is exactly what we need to be doing in order to meet our student's needs and understand how to push them to the next level. It is important to work through the major texts and tasks involved in each unit and recognize what students will need to understand at each level. Below is a detailed explanation of what each level entails. This would be a perfect visual for explaining each level to your classroom teachers.
 
 I am hoping to attend one planning session per month with each of my grade level teams to help them create their own ELD strand for their more "cumulative" assignments/ tasks/ texts. Below is a sample of a 2nd grade ELD strand that we created for their informative writing piece at the end of their current unit

 I hope to continue to do this throughout this school year, and hopefully this will help my classroom teacher build a better understanding of how to accommodate our ELL students based on their proficiency levels! I hope you can use this strategy too!

 Happy Teaching!