WIDA Level 1 Entering: What to Expect and How to Scaffold

What WIDA Level 1 Students Can Do

The WIDA Can Do Descriptors for Level 1 describe what entering-level students are able to do with language — and the list is more substantive than many teachers expect.

Listening: Students can follow simple one-step oral directions when accompanied by gestures or visual demonstrations. They can identify objects, people, and places when named. They respond to yes/no questions nonverbally.

Speaking: Students produce single words, memorized phrases, and very short responses. They may name objects, repeat words and phrases, and respond to direct questions with one or two words.

Reading: Students can recognize letters, words, and simple phrases. They can match images to words and identify familiar environmental print.

Writing: Students can copy words and phrases, label images, and produce single words with support.

The entering level is not absence of ability. It is a specific developmental stage with real capabilities that instruction should build on.

What Level 1 Students Need Most

Comprehensible input. Language just beyond their current level, made accessible through visuals, gestures, repetition, and context. The goal is not to simplify the content — it is to make the language that carries the content accessible.

A low-anxiety environment. The silent period is real and should be respected. Pressure to produce oral English before a student is ready produces anxiety that slows acquisition.

Consistent routines. Predictability reduces the cognitive load of navigating a school day in an unfamiliar language.

Survival language. Before academic language, students need the words to meet basic needs and navigate school.

Bilingual support where available. A student who can access content in their home language is building the conceptual foundation that English instruction will eventually connect to.

Scaffolds for Every Task at Level 1

For listening tasks

• Accompany all oral instruction with images, objects, and gestures
• Use consistent visual routines — the same image for the same instruction every day
• Provide think time — do not expect immediate responses
• Accept nonverbal responses: pointing, nodding, drawing, sorting

For speaking tasks

• Provide sentence frames with single blanks: "This is a ___." / "I see ___."
• Accept single-word responses as complete answers
• Do not cold-call — structure participation so students know what they will say before they say it
• Use choral response to reduce individual performance anxiety

For reading tasks

• Provide bilingual glossaries for key vocabulary
• Use picture-supported texts
• Label diagrams and provide word banks
• Read aloud while pointing to words

For writing tasks

• Accept labeled drawings as writing
• Use cloze passages — sentences with blanks filled from a word bank
• Provide a word bank for every writing task

Vocabulary Supports at Level 1

Prioritize three to five high-frequency words per lesson. Teach each word with an image, a gesture where possible, a student-friendly definition in plain English, and repetition across multiple contexts in the lesson. Do not introduce more vocabulary than students can hold in working memory. Depth of exposure to five words is more valuable than surface exposure to fifteen.

Common Mistakes With Level 1 Students

Expecting too little. A Level 1 student can sort, match, label, point, draw, and demonstrate conceptual understanding in multiple nonverbal ways. A lesson that asks nothing of an entering-level student is not a scaffold — it is an exclusion.

Expecting too much too soon. Extended verbal production before the student is ready produces anxiety, not language.

Ignoring the home language. A student who can express sophisticated thinking in Spanish is not a low-ability student. Their home language is the vehicle for their thinking until English can carry it.