Questioning the monolingual norm with conceptually scored bilingual vocabulary assessments: Findings from a research–practice partnership

Spanish‐English bilingual learners are the fastest growing demographic in U.S. elementary schools. Yet many schools, particularly those in new immigration destination regions, continue to measure bilingual students’ vocabulary using monolingual norms. This inequitable practice makes it appear as if bilingual learners have lower language abilities compared to their monolingual peers. Use of conceptually scored bilingual vocabulary assessments allows bilingual students to more comprehensively draw from their entire linguistic repertoires to demonstrate their vocabulary knowledge—which is distributed across languages—thus allowing for a more complete understanding of their language development. As part of a research–practice partnership program, the authors collected receptive vocabulary data from Spanish‐English bilingual students from three urban elementary schools in the southern United States. A comparison of their performance on monolingual versus conceptually scored bilingual receptive vocabulary assessments demonstrates the importance of utilizing assessments that center bilingual practices as the norm. Implications are discussed, including the importance of advocating for more equitable language practices and policies.