Pre-Assessment Tools
​As a teacher knowing your students is as important as any approach or method you possess in your toolkit.  In fact, possessing a wealth of knowledge on the art of teaching is useless if an educator is unable to identify their students' areas of need.  Therefore it is imperative that teachers pre-assess their students' knowledge in order to gain the information they need in order to accurately and efficiently ply their trade.

Below I have included a number of pre-assessment tools that you can use to analyze your students' needs and learning types so that you can tailor your lessons to address what they need and save yourself from teaching subject matter that your students already understand. (Note: if you find that the links I provide do not work you can always locate the reference on my Resources for Teachers page here.  

LDPride.net offers a free learning styles test here  that you can use with your students.  It is quick, efficient, and can help you and your students identify their learning styles and what kind of multiple intelligences they possess.  It is important to use this type of test at the beginning of the term or when you first meet your student(s) so that you can adjust your lessons before the term becomes too complicated.

​Beyond determining your students' learning styles it is important to pre-assess background and prior knowledge.  This can be done informally through one-on-one discussions or more formally through the use of pre-testing in content areas.  Herrera and Murry (2011) note six variables that need to be considered during the pre-assessment of a CLD student.  These variables include:
  • Recency of immigration
  • Cultural background
  • Prior schooling in the home country
  • First language (L1) and second language (L2) proficiency
  • Family dynamics
  • Prior knowledge in the content areas (p. 25)
During L2 acquisition it is important to consider using visuals to pre-assess prior knowledge because it is easier for students to identify pictures and it allows teachers to utilize common underlying proficiency (CUP).  Herrera and Murry (2011) define common underlying proficiency as knowledge that "connects the two languages of a bilingual individual so that prior knowledge and academic skills in one language are transferable to learning and performance in another" (p. 111)  Below is an example of a pre-test that I use in my Basic English class to test my CLD students on their knowledge of the names of typical animals.  You may recognize this as a common, basic English pre-test, but it is important to note that young students are able to understand their world visually much more readily than they do linguistically.  Therefore, pre-tests of this variety are a valuable way for a teacher to explore a CLD students' prior knowledge.