Background: A Big Class With Even Bigger Goals
Ms. Conde teaches ESL at Hempstead Middle School. She serves 100+ Emergent Bilingual 6th-8th grade students. The group is large, and the goals vary by proficiency level.
- For beginners, the goal is simply to get them comfortable speaking English.
- For intermediate students, it is building grammar and more complex skills.
- For advanced students, the goal is to exit the program entirely.
“We do not want students going all the way through middle school and into high school still classified as English Learners. We want them to exit, and we want them to exit with the skills they need to be successful.”
— Ms. Conde, ESL Teacher, Hempstead Middle School
The Challenge: Student Stamina and Mixed Proficiency Levels
Two challenges stood out at Hempstead Middle School. The first was scheduling. Ms. Conde would have liked to group her newest beginners together, but the schedule mixed students of varying proficiency levels in the same classes. She found ways to work around it as the year went on.
The second challenge was student stamina. Toward the end of the year, with holidays and summer ahead, students mentally checked out. When students are tapped out, they do not give their best effort. Keeping them engaged from the first day of school to the very last one was a real test.
The Search: A Tool With Built-In Motivation
Ms. Conde inherited Connect to Literacy™ when she came to work at the campus. That was a major advantage because her rising sixth graders already knew the platform and were familiar with the routines the school had built around it.
What makes the program work really well is the way it embeds motivational strategies into every lesson. Color-coded progress levels and a friendly little goat climbing a mountain is visual proof of growth that students can see for themselves. When students can actually see the progress they’re making in front of them, they chase it.
The Solution: Color Levels, Friendly Competition, and a Climbing Goat
Ms. Conde made progress visible and competitive. Students could see themselves moving from red to yellow to blue, and then to green. Watching the colors change kept them motivated. She turned it into friendly competitions between grade levels to see who could log the most minutes in a week. Small rewards were given to the most dedicated learners.
And then there was the mountain. Students loved watching the goat climb. They tracked their own levels and knew exactly where they were along the pathway.
“Miss, I just moved up on the mountain! It gets them excited, it gets me excited, and it is those small visual wins that keep them moving forward.”
— Ms. Conde
How Students Show Up Differently: Confidence That Spills Into the Hallway
The biggest outcome was not on the screen. It was in the way students carried themselves through the hallways and around school.
They became less afraid of using English and interacted more, not just among themselves, but with peers who were native English speakers. That kind of confidence does not just show up on a test. It shows up every day and changes the culture of the school.
Ms. Conde also saw her advanced students helping beginner-level students from across the hallway. They had built a supportive peer-to-peer community around language learning.
“Once the confidence starts building, the growth just takes off. It is really something to watch.”
— Ms. Conde
Test Preparation: Modeling, Mics, and Real Practice
Before TELPAS, Ms. Conde pulled up Connect to Literacy lessons and worked on them as a group. She walked students through the types of questions they would see, the keywords to look for, and how to approach each speaking and writing task.
She put on her headset and modeled exactly how to speak into the microphone— demonstrating pacing, tone, and how to hit the time requirements. Modeling matters, and Summit K12 gave her the content and structure to do it effectively.
Most Impactful Features
- Color-coded progress levels students can track themselves
- The incentive to earn tokens for ClassCade games
- Visual mountain climbing animation that celebrated growth
- Friendly grade-level competitions with small rewards for best progress
- User-friendly dashboards with usage minutes and scores visible to teachers
Impact and Results: Students Tracking and Taking Ownership of TheirGrowth
Students owned their progress. There were days they could not use the program, and they would speak up about it.
“Miss, are we not going to use Summit K12 today? I was so close to jumping from yellow to blue.”
— Hempstead student, as told to Ms. Conde
Ms. Conde had one student who could not wait until the end of the school day so she could play ClassCade at home. That kind of excitement about learning is what every teacher hopes for.
“Students are willing to take ownership of their learning when the tool is right. Summit K12 is that tool.”
— Ms. Conde, ESL Teacher, Hempstead Middle School
