What Spanish language accommodations are provided in Progress Learning?
Updated
by
Gayle McKee
Progress Learning is committed to providing inclusive educational tools for English Language Learners (ELLs) and bilingual students. Our Spanish translation features are designed to bridge the gap between language acquisition and standards mastery.
Availability and Settings
Spanish accommodations are available across the platform as long as the Spanish Translation toggle is active in the student's settings.
- Questions: All questions in any activity (outside of Skills Practice for grades K-8) within the platform include a Spanish version
- K-5 Dashboard: For younger learners, the entire dashboard interface can be set to Spanish. This is managed via Student Settings in the School Center, where you can choose "Toggle: Spanish Default" to ensure the student sees their work in Spanish first.
- Assignment Builder Settings: When assigning to students, teachers have the ability to over-ride the global language settings in Step 2 (Choosing a class).
Video Resources
Videos are a core part of our remediation strategy.
- Audio Language: All instructional and "Alien Explanation" videos are recorded in English to maintain alignment with standardized academic vocabulary.
- Closed Captioning (CC): When students are viewing a Spanish Video Lesson Question, they will have the option to enable Spanish Closed Captions.
- Video Transcripts: Full transcripts are available for videos, which can be translated or printed to assist with comprehension.
- "Alien Explanations": These popular remediation videos also support Spanish CC, allowing students to receive immediate, understandable feedback after missing a question.
Pedagogical Limitations
Phonics and Early Literacy
Translation is not recommended (and often not helpful) for Phonics instruction.
- The Logic: Phonics is built on the relationship between specific English letter sounds and symbols. Translating these terms into Spanish changes the phonetic structure entirely, making the lesson ineffective for a student trying to learn English decoding skills.
- Pre-Readers: Spanish-speaking students who are pre-readers in their native tongue will struggle with translated phonics because they lack the foundational phonological awareness required to bridge the two languages.
