PI: Dr. Gita Martohardjono
Project Director: Dr. Jennifer Chard
Contact: mls.email.server@gmail.com
The Multilingual Literacy SIFE Screener (MLS) is an online, semi-adaptive suite of assessments designed to provide educators in New York State with information about the home-language literacy and math skills of Students with Interrupted/Inconsistent Formal Education (SIFE). The MLS is part of New York State’s SIFE Identification Process and is featured prominently on NYSED’s Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages SIFE Resources website. It is strongly recommended for all New York state schools. The MLS provides teachers with an automatically generated summary of students’ home language literacy skills so that teachers can design instruction appropriately. The MLS has four modules: Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary, Early Literacy and Mathematics, and is available in 16 languages: Arabic, Bangla, Burmese, Chinese, English, French, Fula, Haitian Creole, Maay-Maay, Nepali, Russian, S’gaw Karen, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, and Urdu. For more information please watch our webinar or the 2021 update webinar, describing the design features and administration of the MLS. The project is commissioned by the New York State Education Department Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages.
History of MLS
Klein, E., & Martohardjono, G. (2006). Understanding the student with interrupted formal education (SIFE): A study of SIFE skills, needs and achievement (Phase I). New York: New York City Department of Education.
Klein, E., & Martohardjono, G. (2009). Understanding the student with interrupted formal education (SIFE): A study of SIFE skills, needs and achievement (Phase II). New York: New York City Department of Education.
Garrison, L., G. Martohardjono, and M. Chodorow, 2019. The Impact of Home Language Skills on L2 Reading Comprehension: A study of newcomer emergent bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.
Martohardjono, G. and E. Klein, 2015. English language learners with low native language literacy: A profile and an intervention. In Santos, M.G. and A. Whiteside, eds., Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition: Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium. Lulu Publishing.
Curinga, R. and L. Garrison-Fletcher, 2015. The Importance of First-Language evading Skills in English Reading Comprehension for Adolescent Newcomers. In Santos, M.G. and A. Whiteside, eds., Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition: Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium. Lulu Publishing.
ELL Geographical Information
Below are visualizations of student home languages from Central America/Mexico and West Africa reported by students who were administered the MLS. The goal of these infographics is to provide a better linguistic understanding of these regions and to show the diverse language backgrounds of students from these regions.