Question 1

What's the difference between Diphthongs, Blends, and Digraphs?

Accepted Answer

Diphthongs, Blends & Digraphs

I had no idea what these were when I first began teaching phonics.

Not that I needed to know what these terms meant in order to teach phonics well, but it did help when it came to sorting out the different combinations in my head as I was teaching them.

Here are the basic differences between Diphthongs, Blends, and Digraphs:

Blends - Consonant Blends include letter combinations like st, pr, and nk. You can hear the individual sounds even as you are blending them.
Digraphs - Digraphs include letter combinations like oo and ew. They only make one single sound when blended together.
Diphthongs - Diphthongs include letter combinations like ai and oa. They make one sound that morphs into a second sound when blended together. (For example, "ai" sounds like "aaaeeee" if you say it really slowly, like a long a morphing into a long e sound 😁 .)

Question 2

What are graphic organizers and how do I use them?

Accepted Answer

Graphic organizers usually include boxes for writing information and pictures to help students organize information they read from a text. Below is a picture of a historical timeline which is a perfect example of a graphic organizer to help students organize important dates from a historical text.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/VJjCVlXBck/resources/ZMOnaK5ADk/ESL-Teaching-Graphic-Organizers6.jpg (ESL-Teaching-Graphic-Organizers6.jpg)

Graphic organizers are incredibly helpful tools for organizing information, regardless of whether students are English learners or not.

For our English learners who are attempting to access grade-level materials, they can be crucial.

In the ESL Curriculum Membership, you can find a growing library of graphic organizers you can use to scaffold learning for your English learners.

Click Here to Check Out the Graphic Organizers

Question 3

How do I score or grade the Kid-Inspired ESL Placement Assessment?

Accepted Answer

There have been a number of teachers who have asked about how to score the Kid-Inspired ESL Placement Assessment.

If you're a member of the Kid-Inspired ESL Curriculum Membership, there is a mini-course on how to use the assessment. There are also instructions included with the assessment itself. Here are a couple of thoughts though that may be helpful:

There is a little ruler of numbers at the top of each section of the assessment tracking sheet. These little rulers correspond to the questions in that section.

Kid-Inspired ESL Assessment Ruler

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/VJjCVlXBck/resources/rzMPxE64kp/ESL-Assessment-Ruler.png (Kid-Inspired ESL Assessment Ruler)

You take the number from here that the student received and write it at the bottom in the Score area.

ESL Assessment Final Scoring Box

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/VJjCVlXBck/resources/YyOtvfPTUc/ESL-Assessment-Grading-Box.png (ESL Assessment Final Scoring Box)

Once you have numbers for each area in this score box, you average them together for an overall level (add up listening/speaking, reading, writing, grammar and divide by 4).

If you're a member...

You can get the member copy of the assessment here.
You can find loads of other resources to get organized with the curriculum here.
You can find the Kid-Inspired Placement Assessment Mini Course here.

If you're not a member...

You can get a free copy here.
You can join the Kid-Inspired ESL Curriculum Membership here.
You can join the Kid-Inspired Interactive Online ESL Curriculum Membership here.

Question 4

Can a student be in more than 1 group?

Accepted Answer

You can put a student in as many groups as you want. The platform is designed to keep things flexible for you. This way you can see data results and get reports across a variety of characteristics you choose.

Generally though, you don't need to group students by any of the data you add on a student's profile—i.e. grade level, background flags, etc.—since you will be able to sort students by these fields at any time.

Question 5

Free Kid-Inspired Student Portal Account Terms of Service

Accepted Answer

Free Kid-Inspired Student Portal Account Terms of Service

These Terms of Service are in addition to the regular Kid-Inspired Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

For a limited time, members of the Kid-Inspired Interactive Online ESL Curriculum Membership can create a free account on the Kid-Inspired Student Portal.

This Free Account Comes with the Following Conditions:

The free account will remain active only as long as an active membership to the Interactive ESL Curriculum Membership is maintained.
If the active membership to the Interactive ESL Curriculum Membership is canceled, the free Kid-Inspired Student Portal account will also subsuquently be canceled.

If you have any questions or need any help, please contact support by emailing support@Kid-inspired.com or by visiting the support portal.

Question 6

Are Kid-Inspired Classroom resources copyrighted? What is the legal use agreement?

Accepted Answer

The Kid-Inspired ESL Curriculum License Agreement

Teachers can use the curriculum as long as they maintain an active subscription to the membership and are only using it with students they personally teach live and in-person whether it's online or offline. If the curriculum is being used on a freelance platform, like Outschool, for example, please leave a link to the Kid-Inspired website as a reference.

Not Allowed Under the License Agreement

The following items are NOT allowed under the Kid-Inspired Classroom License Agreement.

Users may not:

Re-package the curriculum in any way
Build a Self-Paced, Resellable Program Out Of the Resources
Resell the Curriculum
Share the Curriculum with Others They Are Not Personally Teaching
Use Resources, Images, Text, or Logos from Kid-Inspired Classroom in Promotional Materials.

If you have any questions or need any clarification, please contact support at support@kid-inspired.com

Question 7

How do standards and scoring work with the assessments?

Accepted Answer

Here is the formula used in the portal to get a score for a language domain on an assessment:

(Number Correct / Standard ) * 100 = Score

The standard gives us a little more flexibility in what we expect students should accomplish on an assessment.

How do standards work and why do we have it set up this way?

Most teachers grade assessments with the following formula: Number Correct / Total Number of Questions. This means that the standard they are expecting students to meet is 100%, to get all of the answers correct. If there are 10 questions on the assessment, I am expecting students to get all 10 correct.

But what if a student gets 8 correct and has shown a good grasp of the content? Did they meet your expectations still? If so, then we can consider setting the standard at 8. Any students who score 8 out of 10 will then get a score of 100%. Students who get 9 or 10 out of 10 will get 110% or 120% accordingly.

It's a little like grading on a bell curve only we are not setting the standard based on the strongest and weakest students results on an assessment, but instead on a goal we would like to see students achieve that shows they have sufficiently grasped the content.

There are a lot of benefits to setting it up this way.

This lets us use a variety of assessment types and map them in the same way on a chart.

This strategy allows us to have assessments where there is no upper limit on the number they can achieve. For example, if our assessment is to see how many sentences a student can say in a minute, or how many words a student can read in a minute. We only need a goal or standard in this situation to get a score and then we will see that same range of ability. This also works for assessments where there is a specific number of questions to be answered, but students do not necessarily need to answer all of the questions correctly in order to show that they have grasped the content well. This is particularly helpful when it comes to something like writing paragraphs or essays. When you're grading student writing with a rubric, there is usually a total number of possible points, but that represents exceptional work. We don't need all of our students to achieve that level of writing to prove competency.

**The data we receive can be more helpful. **

We get to see a spread of data around the goal we have set. We can see which students have exceeded the goal and probably need some more challenging work, which students have met the goal, and which students are still in need of extra practice in that area. If most students are under the standard, we know that is likely an issue with how we have taught the material, whereas if most students have met the standard, we know that certain students may need to use a different kind of strategy to reach the standards.

The ultimate goal of assessments is...

to get actionable data on how students are doing in each area so that we can make better decisions about what will be most helpful for them.

If students are consistenly scoring well above 100%, then we know that the content may be too easy and we may want to step it up a notch.
If we notice students are consistenly scoring below 80% in an area such as reading while doing well in other areas, we know that we should focus extra time on reading and less time on other areas.

For WIDA scoring...

...the suggested standard is 4.5 since that is usually what is required for students to exit the ELL program. Then formula for an assessment then would be, for example, listening 3.3/4.5=73%. This means the student is 73% of the way to the goal for listening of exiting the ELL program.

Basically, when you see a percentage score for an assessment, it means that they are that far along to the goal!

Question 8

How do I delete a group?

Accepted Answer

On the Groups page, select the Mark for Deletion in the Delete field for a group you want deleted. These records are then deleted on a schedule, about every hour or so. Deleting groups and deleting students are a little different than most other records which get deleted immediately.

Question 9

How do I assign materials online using Google Classroom?

Accepted Answer

Using materials on-line in Google Classroom is simple.

If you're already a member of the Kid-Inspired community, you can log in and take the course Engaging Learners Online! for lots more resources and strategies you can use while teaching online.

Start the Course

To get access to the curriculum, you can choose from one of the following memberships:

Kid-Inpspired ESL Curriculum Membership ->

Includes the entire curriculum and all supplementary teaching resources.

Independent Teachers Membership ->

Includes the entire **Kid-Inspired ESL Curriculum Membership **
Also includes your own website, payment processing, scheduling, course-building software, community of other teachers going independent, training courses on topics such as finding students, desigining your site, marketing, etc.

Question 10

Do you accept purchase orders?

Accepted Answer

Hi customer.first_name,

Purchase orders are accepted. Here is the process:

Follow the link below, choose a membership option, and fill out the quick form to get started.
You can also request a W-9 if needed.
After you fill out the form, I'll send you a quote that you can provide your school.
Once your school approves the quote, they will give you a purchase order which you can send me by hitting reply to this email and attaching the purchase order.
After receiving the purchase order, I will set up the account for you and send you an invoice that you can pass along to the accounting department.
The invoice needs to be paid within 30 days.

Get a Quote ->

Get a W-9 ->

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Kid-Inspired Home

Most popular

What's the difference between Diphthongs, Blends, and Digraphs?

What are graphic organizers and how do I use them?

How do I score or grade the Kid-Inspired ESL Placement Assessment?

Can a student be in more than 1 group?

Free Kid-Inspired Student Portal Account Terms of Service

Are Kid-Inspired Classroom resources copyrighted? What is the legal use agreement?

How do standards and scoring work with the assessments?

How do I delete a group?

How do I assign materials online using Google Classroom?

Do you accept purchase orders?