WIDA Speaking Rubric: How ACCESS Scores Speaking Since 2025-26

Last updated: September 28, 2026

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

The WIDA speaking rubric used to score ACCESS for ELLs is the WIDA Speaking Scoring Rubric Grades 1-12, last revised in April 2025 and used from the 2025-2026 school year. Each spoken response receives one of five score points: Exemplary, Strong, Adequate, Attempted or No response (in English). The rubric judges three response characteristics: language use compared with the model response, delivery, and word choice. Raters at Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) apply it to ACCESS Online, and the test administrator applies it to ACCESS Paper. WIDA uses different speaking instruments for the Screener, for kindergarten and for the classroom. This guide explains each one and how a speaking score becomes a proficiency level.

Executive Summary

When ACCESS incorporated the 2020 Edition of the WIDA ELD Standards Framework in 2025-2026, WIDA introduced new tools for scoring Speaking and Writing. For grades 1-12, the WIDA Speaking Scoring Rubric compares each response with the model the task provides, and adds task-specific scoring notes for the P1, P3 and P5 tasks. Kindergarten ACCESS was redesigned with its own speaking rubric, scored from 0 to 6. The WIDA Screener and ACCESS Braille keep the existing WIDA Speaking Scoring Scale. For classroom use, the WIDA Speaking Rubric Grades 1-12 has been updated by the WIDA Language Charts.

For district leaders, speaking is still the domain that carries the least weight in the Overall composite and moves the slowest. Knowing exactly what the rubric rewards is the first step to building it.

Key Takeaways

• ACCESS speaking is scored with the WIDA Speaking Scoring Rubric Grades 1-12, revised April 2025.
• Five score points: Exemplary, Strong, Adequate, Attempted, No response (in English).
• Three response characteristics: language use (against the model), delivery, word choice.
• Who scores: DRC raters for ACCESS Online, the test administrator for ACCESS Paper.
• Different instruments apply to the Screener, ACCESS Braille, kindergarten and the classroom.
• Speaking is 15 percent of the Overall composite and 50 percent of Oral Language.

Which WIDA Speaking Rubric Applies?

The older classroom WIDA Speaking Rubric Grades 1-12 (revised in 2020) and the 2017 Speaking and Writing Interpretive Rubrics still circulate on district sites. They describe six levels across Discourse, Sentence and Word/Phrase dimensions. Neither is the instrument used to score ACCESS today.

The ACCESS Speaking Rubric Score Points

Quick answer: the response characteristics in the WIDA Speaking Scoring Rubric are language use, delivery and word choice. Each score point describes all three.

The reference point is the model. On ACCESS, students first hear a recorded model student respond to a task at a targeted proficiency level, and the rubric asks how the student’s language compares with it in sophistication. That is why a long answer can still score Adequate: length is not the criterion, sophistication relative to the model is.

Scoring Notes for P1, P3 and P5 Tasks

ACCESS speaking tasks are built to target different proficiency levels, and the rubric’s scoring notes adjust for each:

• P1 tasks: a single-word response, including a word repeated from the model, is scored Attempted. Two or more words earn Adequate. For Strong or above, grades 1-3 need an original simple sentence; grades 4-12 need two original simple sentences, or one sentence as sophisticated as the model.
• P3 and P5 tasks: students “may take up and use language from the model and should not be penalized for this.”
• All tasks: “simply repeating or reading all or part of the task question should be scored Attempted.”

The practical lesson for teachers: at the lowest level, the jump from one word to two words moves a response from Attempted to Adequate, and at every level, original sentences are what separate Strong from Adequate.

From Score Point to Proficiency Level

Rubric score points are not proficiency levels. The task scores feed a Speaking scale score, which is converted to a proficiency level from 1.0 to 6.0 according to the student’s grade; WIDA explains that composite scale scores “are converted to composite proficiency levels based on the student’s grade level.” Speaking then carries 50 percent of the Oral Language composite and 15 percent of the Overall composite. Because of that weighting, a full level of speaking growth moves the Overall composite by roughly 0.15, as worked through in how WIDA scores are calculated.

WIDA asked districts to treat 2025-2026 ACCESS scale scores as a new baseline, and new proficiency level cut scores apply from spring 2027, after the July 2026 standard setting.

The Classroom Version: WIDA Language Charts

For classroom assessment, WIDA calls the Language Charts “updated versions of the WIDA Speaking Rubric Grades 1-12 and WIDA Writing Rubric Grades 1-12.” They come in six grade-level clusters (K, 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-12), describe six proficiency levels across Discourse, Sentence and Word/Phrase dimensions, and cover Expressive and Interpretive language. From the 2026-2027 ACCESS results, WIDA says they can be used to interpret a student’s scores. See the WIDA Language Charts guide.

District Benchmark: How Often Speech Is Actually Judged

Take a high school with 210 English Learners. Over a school year, how many times is each student’s speech formally scored against a WIDA rubric? In many districts the answer is once: the ACCESS speaking test. Reading is checked in every unit, and writing leaves a graded artifact each week. Speaking is assessed once, in winter, and the result arrives in spring.

A domain assessed once a year gives teachers almost no feedback on whether their speaking instruction worked. Districts that add even a light internal speaking check twice a year, using the Language Charts, give teachers the only feedback loop the domain has.

Why the Rubric Is Hard to Reach in a Classroom

The upper score points ask for language as sophisticated as the model, delivered fluently, with original sentences. Those features are built through extended turns with someone responding. In a typical whole-class discussion, a student turn is a few seconds long and often a single clause, which is too short to practice what the rubric rewards. And in a class of 25, extended individual turns are scarce. That shortfall between the responsive spoken practice an English Learner needs and what one teacher can supply is the Speaking Time Gap.

Common Mistakes

1. Using the Screener scale or the classroom rubric to predict ACCESS speaking. ACCESS has its own rubric and task notes.
2. Reading a score point as a proficiency level. Exemplary on one task is not level 6.
3. Coaching students to repeat the question, which is scored Attempted.
4. Rewarding length over sophistication. The rubric compares language with the model.
5. Comparing 2025-2026 speaking results with earlier years without noting the new baseline.

Recommended Actions

Immediate (this month): Share the current ACCESS Speaking Scoring Rubric and its task notes with EL teachers, and retire older speaking rubrics from shared drives.

Medium-term (this year): Build speaking routines that require original, connected sentences, and check speaking twice a year with the Language Charts.

Long-term (strategy): Resource individual speaking practice so students get the extended turns the rubric rewards.

Questions District Leaders Should Ask

• Which speaking rubric are our teachers using, and is it current?
• How often is each English Learner’s speech scored during the year?
• How many extended speaking turns does a student get per week?
• How far do our speaking levels trail reading and writing?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the WIDA speaking rubric?

For ACCESS for ELLs, it is the WIDA Speaking Scoring Rubric Grades 1-12, revised in April 2025. It gives each spoken response one of five score points, Exemplary, Strong, Adequate, Attempted or No response, based on language use, delivery and word choice. For classroom use, WIDA’s updated rubric is the WIDA Language Charts.

What are the response characteristics in the WIDA speaking scoring rubric?

Language use (compared with the model in sophistication), delivery (from clear, automatic and fluent down to compromised comprehensibility) and word choice (from precise and appropriate down to not fully adequate).

Who scores the ACCESS speaking test?

DRC raters score ACCESS Online Speaking. For ACCESS Paper, the test administrator scores Speaking during the test with the WIDA Speaking Scoring Rubric Grades 1-12. ACCESS Braille and the WIDA Screener use the WIDA Speaking Scoring Scale Grades 1-12.

Is there a WIDA speaking rubric for kindergarten?

Two. The WIDA Kindergarten Scoring Rubric for Speaking (September 2025) is for Kindergarten ACCESS and runs from 0 to 6. The WIDA Speaking Rubric Kindergarten (April 2025) is for the WIDA Screener for Kindergarten and WIDA MODEL for Kindergarten only.

How can students improve their WIDA speaking scores?

By producing original, connected sentences rather than single words or repeated prompts, and by getting frequent extended speaking turns with feedback. The main constraint is how much individual speaking time a classroom can supply.

How much does speaking count on ACCESS?

Speaking is 15 percent of the Overall composite and 50 percent of the Oral Language composite.

Related Resources

• WIDA Language Charts
• WIDA Writing Rubric
• WIDA ACCESS Practice Test
• How WIDA Scores Are Calculated
• Best Strategies for EL Speaking Practice
• Why English Learners Need More Speaking Time

Conclusion

Since 2025-2026, ACCESS speaking has been scored with the WIDA Speaking Scoring Rubric Grades 1-12: five score points, three response characteristics, and task notes that reward original sentences over repeated words. The Screener, kindergarten tests and the classroom each use their own instrument. Knowing which one produced a score, and what it rewards, tells a district exactly what practice to build.

Sources: WIDA Speaking Scoring Rubric Grades 1-12 (revised 4/2025); WIDA ACCESS in 2025-26; WIDA Kindergarten Scoring Rubric for Speaking; WIDA Speaking Rubric Kindergarten; WIDA, Scoring ACCESS for ELLs; Massachusetts DESE, Guidance to Students Prior to Taking the Online Speaking Test; WIDA, ACCESS Standard Setting 2026. Verified September 28, 2026.

Building What the Rubric Rewards

The rubric asks for three things a student cannot fake on test day: language as sophisticated as the model, fluent delivery, and precise words. None of them appear in a student who has answered a handful of questions all year. They are built through repeated attempts with someone responding to each one.

A teacher can give a whole class a reading passage at once, but spoken language grows only when a student speaks and gets a reaction, and a full class leaves each English Learner a few minutes of that a day.

This is why some districts add speaking practice that supplies those attempts without waiting on one teacher’s attention. Telo AI is one example: five-minute speaking sessions three times a week that adapt to each student’s level and push past one-word answers, with progress reported on a dashboard mapped to WIDA. It also runs in Spanish and French for bilingual programs.

See how districts build rubric-level speaking at scale: https://mytelo.ai/how-telo-works/

The rubric is a fair description of strong spoken English and an honest measure of how much practice a student has actually had.