1. Assessments for Secondary Students
Principal’s Leadership Conference
Randee Winterbottom
Pat Howard
Florida Center for Reading Research
June 2005

2. Objectives To assist principals to…
Understand purposes for reading assessment
Know the four types of assessment
Know what skills may need to be assessed
Have an overview of the secondary study on progress monitoring tools
Learn about oral reading passages for next year
Become familiar with commonly used secondary assessments
Summarize objectives for the session

3. Why Assess?
Collect data to determine problems and make decisions about students
May be formal or informal and conducted through a variety of methods:
Record reviews
Interviews
Observations
Testing
One of the first questions to ask is, “Why Assess?” We assess to gather information and data that will assist us as we make instructional decisions about our students, to guide us in knowing if we are on the right track in meeting students instructional needs.
Assessments may be formal or informal and conducted through a variety of methods.

4. Four Types of Assessments
Screening
First Alert – which students may need extra
assistance
Progress Monitoring
Is the child making adequate progress towards
reading goals?
Diagnostic
Used only if progress monitoring is not answering
Questions concerning a student’s weaknesses
and strengths in reading skills
Outcome
Did the student make progress toward reading
standards
There are four types of assessments that should be considered when as assessment needs are determined. What is the purpose of the assessment? (Review each type on the screen.)

5. Upper Grades Study - Spring 2005
Purpose: To establish the reliability of several measures and their relationship to performance on the FCAT and to determine if one of the measures would be suited for use as a state-wide progress monitoring measure.
Leon and Dade – 300 randomly assigned students in grades 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Measures to be used:
FCAT passages for ORF – grades 6, 7, 8, 9 - Individual
FCAT maze passages – grades 4, 6, 8, 10 - Group
Espin Mazes – grades 8 and 10 - Group
Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency (TOSWRF) - Individual
Test of Sentence Reading Efficiency (TOSRE) - Group
WASI – Vocabulary and Similarities - Individual
In an effort to provide TA for middle/high schools as they write their k-12 comprehensive reading plans, FCRR is working with the JRF! Office to establish valid and reliable measures for middle school progress monitoring of students scoring Level 1 or 2 on FCAT Reading. The goal is to determine which of several measures used in the study, will provide the most efficient and predictive information on how students are progressing toward year end goals and the on the FCAT. This summer the data will be analyzed in order to make some decisions related to the goals of the study. We are very interested in the results on the mazes because the maze assessment taps into vocabulary and comprehension and is group administered, requiring only about a total of 5 minutes to administer including directions. As you can see in the slide Dr. Torgesen has included several kinds of tests; both individually and group administered, and published as well as locally developed measures in the study.

6. Upper Grades Study - Fall 2005 cont.
If one of the group administered measures
shows promise as a valid and reliable predictor
of FCAT performance, a progress monitoring
tryout study will be conducted.
School districts representative of the overall demographics of the state will participate
The same students who are receiving progress monitoring with ORF probes will be administered the group measure to determine any meaningful differences - group vs. individually administered and sensitivity to individual growth
In an effort to further investigate valid and reliable measures for middle school students the study will continue on into the school year. In selected schools where students who are being administered the ORF passages they will also be administered the group administered measure to determine if there any meaningful differences between the two types of measures and sensitivity to growth.

7. Oral Reading Fluency Passages for 2005-2006
FCRR working with JRF! Office to make passages available for ORF for progress monitoring
Optional
FCAT released passages or FCAT- like passages developed for this purpose
Plan to make them downloadable from a JRF! web site
Will be able to enter data into the PMRN
One of the measures included in Joe’s study is ORF. In an effort to provide districts with something that is free and uniformly available until the study is complete, and scientifically-based recommendations can be made; FCRR and JRF, are providing ORF measures for the school year. Training for MS personnel began on May 11th. Three sites were chosen for these regional trainings. On the 19th, the last training until the fall, was conducted in Lake Placid at the Heartland Educational Consortium. These trainings; what we call facilitator trainings, (train the trainer) were for those persons who will provide training within their own district.
Schools are required to do progress monitoring of their level 1 and level 2 students in middle school but they have the choice of what PM tool to use.
Districts may continue to use something they already have in place.
These new passages will just be an additional resource for districts/schools who choose to use them.
The ORF scores from the FCAT-like passages will be enterable into the PMRN; simplifying record keeping for schools. The 6th grade DIBELS scores will not be enterable into the PMRN.

8. Student Practice #1 Video Clip
Let’s listen to a student reading a 7th grade ORF passage. If you’d like to follow along and try to identify the errors you can find this passage in your handout.

9. 139
- 8
131
This is how the examiner scored this students ORF. Briefly go over these errors.

10. This is an example of a maze passage
This is an example of a maze passage. This measure requires the child to read and choose the best answer. For every 7th word, a choice of 3 words is presented with only one being the correct answer. The other 2 words are intentionally words that could not possibly be substituted for the correct response. The measure is timed for 3 minutes and can be group administered. The student’s score is simply the number of correct choices made in the three minutes. It is a measure of fluency (how much is read in three minutes and comprehension (the student would need to read and understand the text to select the correct word from the three choices).

11. This is the answer key for the maze passage.

12. What Skills Should be Assessed?
Testing older students specifically on phonological awareness measures does not add power to the identification of reading and spelling difficulties (Hogan, Catts & Little, in press)
Direct measures of academic skills will provide the most accurate data for planning instruction
Older students will not necessarily need to be assessed on phonemic awareness but if they are not fluent readers it is important to assess decoding to determine if the student has a deficit in sound-symbol correspondence. If this is a deficit teachers will have data to assist them as they plan for instruction.

13. What Skills Should be Assessed? (cont.)
Some of the types of assessments to consider are…
Passage Reading Comprehension
Oral Reading Fluency
Vocabulary Knowledge
Word Recognition Speed and Accuracy
Knowledge of Phoneme-Grapheme (sound-symbol), Syllables, Morphology (units of meaning) and Correspondences in Ortholography (writing)
Here are some of the skill areas to consider assessing.

14. You have a two – page handout with the complete table of listings of commonly used assessments for older students. Please understand that this list in no way should be considered an endorsement of or recommendation of any of the assessments. It is simply a compilation of measures that we know are commonly used.

15. DAR Diagnostic Assessments of Reading
Florence Roswell and Jeanne Chall
Diagnostic
Assessments of
Reading
The Diagnostic Assessments of Reading (DAR) is one of the diagnostic assessments provided to districts by the State for free.

16. DAR: Characteristics
Six individually administered tests of essential areas of reading and language
Suitable for students of all ages functioning on pre-reading levels through end of high school
Easy to administer
Brief administration time
The DAR is made up of a series of six individually-administered tests of reading and language. A single DAR kit can be used for students from grade one through high school and includes the assessment of pre-reading skills.
The DAR is easy to administer and has a brief administration time. Because the test is adaptive in nature, the administration of the test will revolve for each student around the sub-tests and levels where the student will show mastery.

17. DAR: Characteristics (cont.)
Easy to score
Separate scores for each subtest
Meaningful, easy to interpret scores
Based on extensive research & experience
Meets the State DOE content requirements
Quality, sturdy materials
The DAR is easy to score. Directions for administration and scoring are listed together with each subtest and level so that the teacher doesn’t have to go back and forth searching for directions or scoring criteria.
The DAR yields separate scores for each of its subtests. When recorded in the individual interpretive profile (a report we will visit later), the scores become meaningful and easy to interpret.
The DAR was authored by two very well known and respected leaders in the field of reading: Florence Roswell and Jeanne Chall.

18. The DAR Will Help You...
Develop a constructive student-teacher relationship
Identify a student’s strengths and weaknesses in reading – provides opportunities for quantitative and qualitative diagnostic information
Assess the reading development/growth of a given student
Prescribe meaningful individualized instruction
Based on years of actual practice and proven reliability and validity.
For this program, it is assumed that students having reading difficulties have been identified. Either through a formal group assessment process or screening, or through teacher observation, the State is assuming that we have identified the students who are having reading difficulties.
These are the students for which the DAR will be administered.
Because the DAR is administered individually, it helps teachers develop a constructive relationship with students.
The data collected with the DAR are recorded in an individual Interpretive Profile that is useful to identify strengths and weaknesses in reading.
The DAR can be administered at any time during the year. Pre-, interim, and post-testing is often helpful. Comparing a student’s profile from one administration to the next can help teachers determine growth in weak areas.
The DAR provides opportunities for not only quantitative but qualitative diagnosis.
The information provided by the DAR is based on years of actual practice and research and has proven reliability and validity. Because of this it can help teachers design meaningful instructional plans.

19. DAR Tests Word Recognition Word Analysis Oral Reading
Silent Reading Comprehension
Spelling
Word Meaning
We are now going to look at the six subtests that make up the DAR. As stated earlier, you will see frequent references to levels 1 through 12. Although these roughly correspond to grade levels, the DAR is considered to be appropriate for pre-reading through the end of high school. Because of the range of development during the early stages of reading, it’s difficult to assign “grade level” correspondences but an effort to provide some meaning to the “leveling,” these “approximate grade levels” were assigned.
Because the DAR is an adaptive test, the test administrator will not necessarily administer all the subtests to a given student. In most cases, the progression of testing is such that an attempt is made to try to match the subtest to the student’s level of reading in order that the student experience some measure of success.

20. The student logs iin to the SRI and is asked, first to select readings that are of interest.

21. The student is given a series of brief writings and then asked to fill in the blank by selecting the correct response. The foils provided would all be sensible choices if the student had not read and understood the reading selection.

22. The teacher is able to gain a listing of all students in the class and to see at a glance which students had been tested and their most recent Lexile score.

23. These are the reports that are available to the teacher
These are the reports that are available to the teacher. We will look at two on our student.

24. This is a report that the student receives and is duplicated for the teacher. The selections are based on the student’s initial indication of interest.

25. This teacher report lists all students who have participated in the SRI and their most recent test date with lexiles indicating independent, instructional and challenging texts.

26. GRADE Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation
Provides data for older students to assist with instructional decision - making
The Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE) is appealing not only because it is group administered but also because it has good psychometrics and is valid and reliable.

27. Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE)
Can be group administered
Out-of-level testing is available
Students who are in need of intensive interventions may need to be assessed below their grade enrollments
Level 5 is for very low 6th – 12th graders
Please remember that for reporting purposes students must be assessed 4x/year using grade level materials. For ongoing progress monitoring that is conducted more frequently, it is good practice to use instructional level materials. Teachers may choose to administer only one or two of the subtests, based on students areas of need.

28. GRADE cont. Level 6 is for very low 7th - 12th graders
Level M is for very low 10th – 12th graders
Vocabulary – measures decoding and vocabulary knowledge
Sentence Comprehension – measures ability to comprehend a sentence as a complete thought

29. GRADE cont.
Listening Comprehension – measures understanding of spoken language
Passage Comprehension – measures ability to comprehend extended text as a whole
Test is not timed but recommendation is for two 30 – minute sessions
Has 2 forms making progress monitoring an option

30. GRADE cont.
Norm-referenced – with a variety of score types: stanines, percentiles, normal curve equivalencies, standard scores, grade equivalents
Provides Diagnostic Analyses Summary for each subtest
Passages include narrative and expository and vary in length

31. Here is an example of the vocabulary and sentence comprehension subtest.

32. This is what a completed individual score summary looks like
This is what a completed individual score summary looks like. As you can see there is the option for deeper error analysis by indicating the types of errors the student made. This can be useful information when planning instruction.
AGS has recently published a Reading Fluency measure called Reading Fluency Indicator that would be a nice companion measure to the GRADE. It measures rate, accuracy and comprehension and is individually administered.

33. Spellography is a spelling assessment and instructional program developed by Dr. Louisa Moats and published by Sopris West. It is designed for intermediate to upper-grade students who would benefit from word-study and spelling instruction. Students are taught multiple layers of language structure including:
Phoneme-grapheme correspondence
Syllable spelling patterns and combinations
Affixes
Parts of speech and much more

34. Sample Spelling Inventory Error Analysis
Features
Short Vowel
Digraph
Trigraph
Blend
Complex consonant
VCE
Vowel Teams
Root Morphograph
Vowel +R
Total Points
phone ph
o-e
2 + 1 (correct)
smudge u sm
-dge 1
squirt
squ ir
throat
thr oa
fraction
frac
(correct)
dream dr ea
fright fr
igh
This is a modified version of the spelling inventory error analysis. When analyzing the types of errors made on the inventory, a teacher will have data that will indicate any deficiencies in a child’s decoding ability and can base her instruction on that analysis.
Blue circles indicate incorrect spellings
+ 1 indicates that the whole word was spelled correctly
Adapted from Lousia Moats’ Spellography Spelling Inventory

35. Case Study #1: Tatiana, Grade 8 (September)
Skill Assessed
Measure
Results
Reading Comprehension
FCAT Reading from previous spring
Level 2
Oral Reading Fluency
State - Provided Passages on 8th grade reading level
112 wcpm
30th percentile (Hasbrouck and Tindal)
Oral Word Reading Efficiency
TOWRE – real and nonsense words
Real Words 48th percentile
Nonwords 35th percentile
Silent Reading Comprehension
Core Reading Program Placement Test
38% correct on silent reading
Comprehension - beginning 6th grade
Now let’s take a look at a case study.

36. Tatiana Where does her instructional level appear to be?
Does she need instruction in decoding?
Would she benefit from fluency practice?
Are there other measures that should be administered? Which ones? Why?
Ask for audience responses

37. Tatiana
Where does her instructional level appear to be? Based on data provided – about 6th grade
Does she need instruction in decoding?
Would she benefit from fluency practice?
Are there other measures that should be administered? Which ones? Why?
Elicit responses from the audience

38. Tatiana
Where does her instructional level appear to be? Based on data provided – about 6th grade
Does she need instruction in decoding?
Probably, since she scored in the 35%ile on the
TOWRE nonword
Would she benefit from fluency practice?
Are there other measures that should be administered? Which ones? Why?

39. Tatiana
Where does her instructional level appear to be? Based on data provided – about 6th grade
Does she need instruction in decoding?
Probably, since she scored in the 35%ile
on the TOWRE nonword
Would she benefit from fluency practice?
Yes, she only read 112 wcpm and scored
in the 30th percentile on the ORF
measure. Increasing her ORF fluency
would likely improve her comprehension
as well
Are there other measures that should be administered? Which ones? Why?
Elicit responses from the audience

40. Tatiana
Where does her instructional level appear to be? Based on data provided – about 6th grade
Does she need instruction in decoding?
Probably, since she scored in the 35%ile on
the TOWRE nonword
Would she benefit from fluency practice?
Yes, she only read 112 wcpm and scored in the
30th percentile on the ORF
measure. Increasing her ORF fluency would likely
improve her
comprehension as well
Are there other measures that should be administered? Which ones? Why?
Yes. A developmental spelling test. Conducting an
error analysis on the spelling test would provide
valuable information to the teacher about any gaps
Tatiana may have with her decoding skills.
Elicit responses from the audience. Be sure to discuss any other tests they suggest.

41. Summary Understand purposes for reading assessment
Overview of the secondary progress monitoring study
Be familiar with the ORF measure for 05-06
Identify assessments that will meet the needs at your school
What we have tried to do today is provide an overview of reading assessments at the secondary level. We have offered compelling whys for assessing the struggling reader and possible assessments to consider for the secondary student. We hope that you will see the benefit of gathering data to better inform instruction to support students in meeting their reading goals.

42. Contact Information
Randee Winterbottom
Pat Howard

43. Thank You