How AIR Language Uses Progress Checks to Place Students at the Right Reading Level

High school multilingual learners often arrive with very different reading levels, language backgrounds, and schooling experiences.

Some students are newcomers. Some have had interrupted formal schooling. Some can communicate socially but struggle with academic reading and writing. Others understand more English than they can confidently produce.

For teachers, this creates a difficult question:

Where should each student begin?

A student needs reading content that is accessible enough to understand, but challenging enough to promote growth. If the content is too difficult, students can shut down. If the content is too easy or childish, students can disengage.

AIR Language helps solve this through a short Progress Check that helps identify a student’s current language-reading level and connect that student with appropriate reading content.

A short check designed to measure a larger body of knowledge

The AIR Progress Check is intentionally brief.

It is not designed to overwhelm students with a long exam. Instead, it asks targeted, image-supported questions that represent larger patterns of English language development.

The goal is not to test every possible skill.

The goal is to ask the fewest useful questions possible while still gathering enough information to place the student appropriately.

To do that, the Progress Check focuses on key language structures that reveal a student’s broader understanding of English. These structures help show whether students can understand sentence meaning, identify people and actions, process questions, recognize relationships in a scene, and connect written English to visual information.

In other words, AIR is not simply checking whether a student knows a list of words.

It is checking whether the student can process the kinds of English structures needed for reading, writing, speaking, and classroom participation.

What the AIR Progress Check measures

The AIR Progress Check measures language patterns that tend to develop as students acquire English.

Students may be asked to look at an image and answer a question about what is happening, who is doing something, where someone is located, or which sentence best describes the scene.

These questions help assess important language skills, including:

• Basic sentence meaning

• Subject-verb agreement

• Present progressive forms

• Common vocabulary

• Wh-question comprehension

• Prepositions and location language

• Descriptive noun phrases

• People, actions, and relationships in a scene

• Image-to-language comprehension

• Reading comprehension across short connected language

These skills are not isolated grammar points. They represent a broader body of language knowledge that students need in order to read, write, speak, and participate in academic coursework.

For example, a question may ask students to identify who is doing an action in a picture. To answer correctly, the student may need to understand the question word, identify the person being described, understand position or clothing clues, and connect those details to the correct answer choice.

That single question can reveal much more than one vocabulary word.

It can show whether the student understands how English organizes meaning.

Why AIR uses image-supported questions

Many multilingual learners know more than they can show on a traditional reading test.

For beginning and intermediate students, a long passage-based test can sometimes measure stamina, frustration, or unfamiliarity with academic testing more than actual language development.

AIR uses image-supported questions because they allow students to demonstrate language understanding without unnecessary overload.

The image gives context. The question gives a language task. The answer choices reveal whether the student can connect the visual information to accurate English.

This helps AIR assess meaningful language knowledge while keeping the check short and practical for classroom use.

A Progress Check teachers can send more than once

The AIR Progress Check is not a one-time test.

Teachers can send it as many times as they need.

Students do not receive the exact same test every time. Each time the Progress Check is sent, students receive different questions that assess similar language patterns.

This matters because multilingual learner placement is not a one-time decision.

Students grow. New students arrive. Teachers adjust groups. Some students need more foundational support. Others are ready for more challenging reading content.

Because the Progress Check uses varied questions, teachers can use it throughout the year for:

• Initial placement

• Progress monitoring

• Regrouping students

• Checking readiness for the next level

• Supporting reading conferences

• Documenting growth over time

• Matching students with more appropriate reading content

The repeated use is important. Teachers do not have to wait for one annual assessment to understand whether a student is ready to move forward.

How the Progress Check helps place students

After students complete the Progress Check, AIR uses their responses to help identify the reading level that best matches their current language development.

The purpose is not simply to produce a score.

The purpose is to help students begin reading at the right level.

Once students are placed, they are connected with AIR reading content that is accessible, age-appropriate, and designed to support language growth.

This creates a simple cycle:

Check → Place → Read → Practice → Monitor Growth → Adjust Level

That cycle matters because students do not grow by taking tests alone. They grow when assessment leads directly to better instruction, better reading choices, and more consistent practice.

Why this matters for high school multilingual learners

High school multilingual learners need support quickly.

They may be preparing for English I, English II, sheltered content classes, end-of-course expectations, ACCESS testing, or graduation requirements. Teachers need to know what students can handle now so they can provide the right level of support.

AIR’s Progress Check helps teachers answer practical questions:

• Which students need beginning-level reading support?

• Which students are ready for intermediate academic reading?

• Which students may need more foundational language development?

• Which students are ready to move into more complex texts?

• How should students be grouped for reading, writing, or language support?

• Has the student grown enough to move to the next level?

For a high school ELD class, literacy lab, sheltered English class, or after-school academy, this information can help teachers make better instructional decisions without adding a heavy testing burden.

Supporting WIDA-aligned language growth

AIR Language is designed to support WIDA-aligned language growth by helping students build the language they need for reading, writing, speaking, and academic participation.

The Progress Check helps identify where students are in their language development so teachers can connect them with reading content and support that match their current level.

For multilingual learners, growth is not only about reading more words.

It is about developing the language structures, vocabulary, comprehension, and academic routines that help students succeed across the school day.

That is why the Progress Check looks at key structures that represent a larger body of English knowledge. Those structures help reveal whether students are ready for certain kinds of reading content, classroom tasks, and academic language demands.

Placement is connected to instruction

A placement check is only useful if it helps teachers make better decisions.

AIR connects placement directly to reading.

Once a student’s level is identified, the student can begin reading books that match their current language level. Teachers can then monitor reading activity, vocabulary development, progress checks, and student growth over time.

This makes the Progress Check part of a larger instructional system, not a separate assessment event.

Teachers can use the information to:

• Assign appropriate reading content

• Support student goal-setting

• Guide reading conferences

• Group students by need

• Monitor progress over time

• Help students move toward more advanced academic language

The goal: right-level reading with visible growth

AIR’s Progress Check gives teachers a simple way to place students, monitor growth, and adjust support over time.

It is short enough to use practically.

It is flexible enough to send more than once.

It is varied enough that students do not simply repeat the same test.

And it is designed to connect assessment directly to instruction, so multilingual learners can begin reading at the right level and keep moving forward.

For high school students, that structure matters.

When students know where they are, teachers know what they need, and reading content is matched to the right level, language growth becomes easier to see and easier to support.