WI Reads: Website Updates
Literacy Assessment for Students with Low Incidence Disabilities and Complex Communication Needs
Guidance about Act 20 and students who are blind or visually impaired
Parent/Caregiver letters that reflect updates to screening for 2025-2026
2025 - 2026 Screening
The August 15, 2025, DAC Digest includes updates about:
- Order Braille forms and administration guides
- Checklists for 4K – 3rd grade
- Individual student report for Spanish 4K CELF
- Upcoming professional learning: classroom level decisions
- 25-26 Administration and Scoring Manual Available
The next DAC Digest is August 20,2025.
2025 - 2026 Rostering
The information below came from the August 18, 2025, WISEInsights.
Starting in the 2025-26 school year, Pearson and Wisconsin DPI will utilize a flexible, hybrid approach to rostering for Act 20 screener assessments. Student data will be rostered on a nightly basis through the WISEdata API for all districts throughout the school year. LEAs may choose to also load course and staff/teacher data on a nightly basis through the WISEdata API. Or, they may use a third-party tool, such as Clever or ClassLink, to load course and staff/teacher data instead.
For the purpose of rostering students in particular, all LEAs need to do the following for 2025-26 before you plan to administer the screener to students in the fall:
-
Subscribe to your SIS vendor in the Ed-Fi Credential application for the 2025-26 school year.
- Work with your SIS vendor and/or district technology coordinator to add the Ed-Fi Credential key/secret to your SIS vendor configuration screens. In addition, annual configuration set up in your SIS may also be required to remap code sets and enable sending data to WISEdata.
- Log into the WISEdata Portal and ensure data is flowing for the 2025-26 year.
- Ensure that students and student demographics are synced with WISEdata.
- If you will be using WISEdata for staff and classes, also ensure that roster data is synced with WISEdata and flowing for 2025-26; otherwise contact Pearson to choose another third-party vendor to sync staff and class information.
- If you have purchased Pearson for grade levels other than 4K-3, contact Pearson to set up rostering for those grade levels.
Ensure that students appear in aimswebPlus.
If you need assistance with the Ed-Fi Credential application, submit WISE Help Ticket. If you need assistance in configuring your SIS, please contact your vendor.
If you need assistance with step five regarding aimswebPlus or to set up a third-party vendor, contact Pearson at aimswebsupport@pearson.com or +1 (866) 313-6194 and select option two from the phone menu. You can also consult the Pearson 2025-26 Rostering Guide for more information.
Professional Development Training Survey
Due August 29, 2025
On July 30, district administrators and independent charter school leaders received a unique survey link to report on progress with the Act 20 professional development training requirements for 5K – 3rd grade teachers and administrators (principals and reading specialists).
The survey must be completed on or before August 29,2025.
The survey came from noreply@alchemer.com.
A superintendent or independent charter school leader can contact early.reading@dpi.wi.gov to have the unique survey link resent.
Applications for Reimbursement
Applications for reimbursement for professional development training and early literacy curriculum purchases are currently under review.
Upon approval, applicants can expect payment in October 2025.
Due to the multiple factors involved in the determination of the recognition of revenue varying from agency to agency, your agency should work with your auditors to determine the appropriate fiscal year your reimbursement should be applied to.
Reading Advisory Council
Accepting applications through September 5, 2025
The department is accepting applications for the State Superintendent’s Reading Advisory Council.
The department welcomes all diverse voices. The Council is especially in need of
- Early childhood classroom teacher
- Elementary school classroom teacher
- Middle school English language arts teacher
- Middle school teacher (such as multilingual, special education, or content other than ELA)
- High school English teacher
- High school teacher (such as multilingual, special education, or content other than ELA)
- Public librarian
Professional Learning Opportunity: Language and Literacy for Students with Significant Support Needs
Are you looking for ways to ensure your literacy system truly serves each and every student?
Join DPI staff and educators from throughout Wisconsin to learn more about ensuring you are engaging students with significant support needs (such as students with intellectual disabilities) high-quality, inclusive instruction that advances learning.
Part of each of the following sessions will include a focus on our responsibility to ensure that students with significant support needs are making adequate progress in early literacy and language. Participants will learn and practice a collaborative (e.g., general and special education together) process for:
- student-specific assessment, including the use of formative practices, to understand a student’s early language and literacy strengths and needs;
- early language and literacy goal writing; and
- planning and implementing high-quality, inclusive early language and literacy instruction.
Pathways to Success: Curriculum and Instruction Focus
Pathways to Success: Advanced Training
Note: This low cost, DPI-provided opportunity is hosted by CESA 6 through a contract with DPI. Participants from anywhere in Wisconsin are welcome.
What I’m Reading
I’d love to know what you’re reading, too.
I use StoryGraph (@barbn) to save what I want to read and notes about what I’ve already read. StoryGraph describes me as “mainly reads fiction books that are emotional, reflective, and dark”. I guess all those seasons of Grey’s Anatomy shaped what I preferences.
Why am I telling you this?
- Prompt you to think about your reading habits
- Share a tool that students (or you) could use to learn more about your reading
- Share a few books I’ve enjoyed.
StoryGraph provides data about my reading; I track what I read. I will begrudgingly admit that I have come to really like the data. I want my reading to be 100% intrinsically motivated. It’s also really socially motivated; I’m part of a community of readers. I don’t want to chase numbers or read because of certain metrics. However, the data has helped me notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise.
I’ve read 30,000 pages this year with a 75-25 split between fiction and non-fiction. Half of the books I’ve finished are audio books. I read four books by Anne Tyler this year. I’ve only read 20 things that came from the library. I’ve joined a few reading challenges and have only made progress on one of the three. April is the month I read the least.
What am I going to do with the data? Well, I’ll use the library more; I don’t need to buy 80% of what I read. I noticed that my life right now lends itself to audiobooks. It’s important to me to read books by and about diverse life experiences. I will figure out a way to use some tags to get data to see if my book choices match my values.
And, the data lets me quickly find my five star reads from 2025 so far. If you also like books that are emotional, reflective, and dark, you might enjoy:
-
I Leave it up to You by Jinwoo Chong
-
Fleischman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
-
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
-
The Anthropologists by Aysegul Savas
The data also seems to say I’m stingy with my stars.
|
