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The ELPA21 assessment for the Grade 4–5 band is an online test that evaluates English proficiency across four domains: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. The tasks are designed to mirror academic activities students encounter in English Language Arts, math, and science.
1. Reading Tasks
Students interact with both literary and informational texts through various technology-enhanced item types.
Short and Extended Sets: Tasks involve reading literary passages (with protagonists) or informational texts (often including charts or graphs) followed by 4–7 questions.
Item Formats: Students use "Hot Spot" selection, drag-and-drop matching, and drop-down menus to answer questions.
Skills Tested: Identifying main ideas, supporting details, and determining the meaning of academic or figurative language.
2. Writing Tasks
Writing tasks focus on both foundational skills and constructed responses.
Word and Sentence Builders: Activities that require students to construct grammatically correct sentences.
Storyboard and Narrative: Producing a coherent narrative using compound and complex sentences with varied transitions.
Opinion and Argument: Constructing a written claim, providing logically ordered reasons, and supporting evidence.
Discrete Editing: Identifying and correcting errors in grammar, word order, and punctuation.
3. Speaking Tasks
These tasks are typically recorded through the testing platform and may be human-scored.
Oral Presentations: Delivering a presentation with details, examples, and a conclusion.
Describe Pictures/Graphs: Using academic language to explain visual data or a sequence of events.
Participate in Discussions: Responding to prompts that require building on others' ideas or summarizing key information.
4. Listening Tasks
Tasks test the ability to process spoken academic and social English.
Listen and Match: Matching spoken sentences or descriptions to corresponding pictures or graphics.
Main Idea Identification: Identifying the main point or theme of a read-aloud or oral presentation.
Following Directions: Completing multi-step tasks based on verbal instructions.
The ELPA21 assessment for the Grade 6–8 band advances in complexity from the elementary levels, requiring students to engage with more sophisticated academic language and longer, more abstract texts. The tasks are designed to evaluate proficiency in four language domains: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking.
1. Reading Tasks
Students must construct meaning from a variety of literary and informational texts through technology-enhanced items.
Short and Extended Sets: Reading literary narratives or informational texts about science, math, or technology, followed by 3–6 questions per set.
Item Types: Includes "Hot Spot" text choice (clicking specific sentences), drag-and-drop matching, and drop-down selection menus.
Skills: Determining central ideas, analyzing arguments, distinguishing between supported and unsupported claims, and using context to define academic vocabulary.
2. Writing Tasks
Writing tasks shift toward constructing academic arguments and narratives.
Storyboard Task: Producing a coherent narrative using compound and complex sentences with varied transitions.
Writing Questions: Formulating appropriate questions based on a given prompt or stimulus.
Opinion and Argument: Constructing a written claim, providing logically ordered reasons, and refuting counter-claims.
Discrete Editing: Identifying and correcting grammatical and punctuation errors within short passages.
3. Speaking Tasks
These tasks often require students to produce extended oral responses that are recorded for scoring.
Language Arts Presentation: Delivering a short oral presentation with specific details, evidence, and clear organization.
Analyze a Visual and a Claim: Describing pictures or graphs and supporting a claim about the data using content-specific vocabulary.
Academic Discussions: Summarizing information and participating in simulated conversations using appropriate grammatical structures.
4. Listening Tasks
Students process spoken English in academic and social contexts.
Main Idea and Details: Identifying themes or specific information from a recorded lecture or conversation.
Inference and Prediction: Drawing conclusions and making predictions based on spoken information from multiple sources.
Understanding Instructions: Following complex, multi-step directions provided orally.
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