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Volume 20, Number 3
May/June 2004

Assessing Young Immigrant Students

Are We Finding Their Strengths?

by Evangeline Harris Stefanakis

 

Currently, one in five public school students in the U.S. is either the child of immigrant parents or is an immigrant her- or himself. Yet it is far too easy for these children, especially those whose dominant language is not English, to "fail" preschool screening and later testing and to enter school with the label "special needs." Many teachers and specialists are sensitive to the limitations of standardized tests, but state law mandates that kindergarten screening take place so that the system is "in compliance."

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    For Further Information

    For Further Information

    D. August and K. Hakuta. Improving Schooling for Language Minority Children: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997.

    L.M. Baca and H.T. Cervantes. The Bilingual Special Education Interface (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 1998.

    Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence. University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064; tel. 831-459-3500.

    The Education Alliance at Brown University, 222 Richmond Street, Suite 300, Providence, RI 02903; tel. 401-274-9548.

    G.M. Fedoruk. "Kinder­garten Screening for 1st-Grade Learning Problems: The Conceptual Inadequacy of a Child-Deficit Model." Childhood Education 66, no. 1: 40-42.

    A. Martin. "Screening, Early Intervention, and Remediation: Obscuring Children's Potential." Harvard Educational Review 58, no. 4 (1988): 488-501.

    J.M. O'Malley and L. Valdez Pierce. Authentic Assessment for English-Language Learners: Practical Approaches for Teachers. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996.

    B. Perez and M.E. Torres-Guzman. Learning in Two Worlds: An Integrated Spanish/English Biliteracy Approach (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2002.

    M. Suárez-Orozco and C. Suárez-Orozco. Children of Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.