Imagine It! Assessment

Assessment General Outcome Measurement Standardized classroom assessment whereby students’ overall competence is measured. The testing methods and content of general outcome measurement remain constant over the course of the academic year. Each test is of equivalent difficulty and represents competence in the entire school year’s curriculum.

Assessment The assessment system of Imagine It! consists of : Screening Progress monitoring Diagnosis

Imagine It! Formal Assessment System Benchmark Assessments For all students Given regularly throughout the year Lesson Assessments Weekly Progress monitoring and diagnostic

Benchmark Assessments Administrated at the beginning of the year for screening. Administrated after every unit to show student mastery of the curriculum and identify students at risk for failure. Benchmark test assess:(depending on grade level) Phonics High-frequency word recognition Vocabulary Spelling Grammar, usage and mechanics Comprehension Fluency

Benchmark Assessment Unit Cutoffs Schedule: 1 at the start of the year for screening and then 1 after every unit. Benchmark Skills Phonics High-Frequency Word Recognition Grammar, Usage and Mechanics Spelling Comprehension Vocabulary Oral Fluency Passage Reading

Lesson Assessment Lesson Assessments are given weekly. Lesson Skills Phonics Grammar, Usage and Mechanics Comprehension Selection Vocabulary Writing Oral Fluency Spelling

Assessment General Outcome Measurement Two basic approaches to general outcome measurement: Curriculum-Sampling Approach Skills that constitute the annual curriculum are specified A set of procedures for measuring each skill The proportion of each item type is determined so that each test samples the various skills to reflect the relative importance of each skill Strand # Items Total Weight Comprehension 20 40 Vocabulary 10 30 Grammar, Usage, Mechanics Spelling

Assessment General Outcome Measurement Each alternate form of the test is created the same way. The difficulty and content of the test remain constant and we expect the student’s scores to gradually increase over the course of the year. Incorporated into the Benchmark Assessments with the 100-point Skills Battery.

Assessment General Outcome Measurement The Performance Indicator Approach A single task for measurement that is correlated with the various skills addressed in the annual curriculum. The content and difficulty of the task remains constant across the school year although the testing material differs across alternate forms of the test. Example- passage reading fluency Although this is a direct measure of oral reading fluency, it also functions well as an indicator of a student’s overall reading competence.

Assessment General Outcome Measurement Formal assessment is addressed in the form of Benchmark Assessments and Lesson Assessments The Benchmark and Lesson Assessments incorporate the performance indicator approach with their Fluency Assessments

Assessment General Outcome Measurement Measures have been validated to accurately reflect overall reading competence and those measures differ by grade level. Kindergarten Phoneme segmentation- The examiner says a word, the student says its constituent sounds Rapid letter naming- The examiner presents a page of lower- and upper-case letters randomly ordered- students says as many as they can in one minute Letter-sound fluency- The examiner presents a page with lower- and upper-case letters randomly ordered, this time the student says sounds for one minute

Assessment General Outcome Measurement First Grade Combining nonsense word fluency and passage reading- Students begin with nonsense word fluency and move to the more difficult passage fluency where students are presented with grade-level text and they read aloud for one minute. Word identification fluency- Students read as many words as possible in one minute. The advantage of nonsense word fluency is that it maps onto beginning decoding instruction. The downside of the nonsense word fluency/passage reading fluency combination is that getting a good picture of development over the course of first grade is problematic because teachers cannot compare scores collected in the first half of the year.

Assessment General Outcome Measurement Second - Fourth Grade Passage reading fluency measure provides the strongest source of information on reading development as a form of performance indicator general outcome measurement. Each week one test is administered with the student reading aloud from a different but equivalent passage for one minute. The examiner counts the number of words read correctly within the one-minute time frame. The reliability,validity, and instructional utility of this simple measure have been demonstrated repeatedly.

Assessment General Outcome Measurement Fifth- Sixth Grade Research indicates that the validity of the passage reading fluency performance indicator begins to decrease somewhere around Grade 5. So, beginning in the 5th grade (or in Grade 4 for high-performing schools), teachers should consider using a different measure that more directly taps comprehension. One alternative for the higher grades is maze fluency. With maze fluency students are presented with a passage from which approximately every seventh word has been deleted and replaced with three possible replacements, only one of which is semantically tenable. Demonstrates strong reliability and validity and models reading development beginning at Grade 4 and continuing through grade 8.

Assessment 3 Types of Formal Classroom Assessment Screening Progress monitoring Diagnosis

Assessment Screening Screening is the process of measuring all students in a class to identify the subset of students who, without special attention, are in danger of scoring poorly on the end-of-year high-stakes tests and long-term reading failure.

Assessment Screening Students are identified as having potential problems early. Teachers can then allocate special attention to these students as quickly as possible. (Catch-up Time) Once a screening assessment has been selected, a cut-point is determined. Performing below the cut-point signals the teacher to pay extra attention to this student. When periodic screening is used, the cut-point on each subsequent screening gradually increases.

Assessment Progress Monitoring SRA Imagine It! uses the term progress monitoring to refer to specifically systematic formal assessments in which students are assessed on a regular basis. Teachers can use results from progress monitoring: To formulate decision about how to make classroom-level instruction more responsive to individual student needs To determine whether a student is responding adequately to the instructional program For students who are unresponsive to validated or researched-based instructional program, to inductively design individualized instructional plans

Assessment Progress Monitoring In most reading programs, progress monitoring is accomplished via mastery measurement. SRA Imagine It! does not use mastery measurement. With mastery measurement, teachers assess mastery of a sequence of skills. Most basal reading assessments provide unit test to assess mastery of skills addressed in each unit. Nevertheless, research indicates that few classroom teachers adhere to mastery rules, based on those tests, for advancing students to new instructional content. High-stakes tests do not rely on single-skill measurement.

Assessment Progress Monitoring Benchmark Assessments- 6 or 7 administered through out year Student will encounter 5 lesson assessments before the next Benchmark assessment which will allow the teacher to use the information to reinforce the opinion of a student’s at-risk status or it can provide data of growth and greater comfort within instructional strands. Not all students receive fluency progress monitoring. Weekly progress monitoring for those students who do can help teachers gain insight about the effectiveness of their attempts at remediation for these at-risk students. Once a student is designated as at risk they should receive weekly progress monitoring for the remainder of the year even if the student scores above the risk cut-point on a subsequent screening.

Assessment Diagnosis Diagnosis means assessment that describes a student’s strengths and weaknesses with respect to skills or strategies. Goal is to identify productive targets for instruction A curriculum-sampling approach to general outcome measurements provides teachers with a strong basis for describing students’ strengths and weaknesses in the curriculum because all the skills embedded in the annual curriculum are assessed on each testing occasion

Assessment Diagnosis Because each of the segments of the Benchmark Assessments provide a separate score in each of the strands of the curriculum, they can be used to identify the specific curriculum areas that are strengths or weaknesses for a student or across a classroom. If students score below the cutoff for any Benchmark Assessment, use one or more of the following options to help students get back on track: Re-teach Intervention Workshop Leveled Readers

Assessment Benchmark Assessments Benchmark Assessments show how students’ knowledge of essential skills grows over the course of the year as these benchmarks are periodically administered. Each Benchmark Assessment is of equivalent difficulty, content covered, and question formats and each samples the entire year’s curriculum.

Assessment Benchmark Assessments At each grade level there are periodic Benchmark Assessments. Kindergarten and grade 1 6 assessments Grades 2-6 7 assessments Assessments are timed One assessment is administered at the beginning of the year and then one after each unit the remainder of the year.

Assessment Benchmark Assessments The specific test items vary from assessment to assessment. Rising test scores reflect increased student competence in the curriculum. These assessments differ from traditional assessments that: cover only the material in the most recently taught unit become increasingly difficult over the course of a school year

Assessment Benchmark Assessments Benchmark Assessments include the following components: 100- Point Skills Battery- Students answer questions relating to comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, usage, and mechanics, spelling, phonics, and phonemic-phonological awareness. Each strand has been assigned a weight in accordance with its importance in the curriculum to reach the total of 100 points. Fluency Assessment- A general overall indicator of a student’s reading ability. Writing Assessment- Grades 2-6 , a writing assessment is included with the first, fourth, and seventh Benchmark Assessments. These prompts are similar to the type of prompt found in high-stakes tests.

Assessment Benchmark Assessments At the beginning of the year; and then periodically throughout the year, any student who falls below the cutoff score on the 100-Point Skills Battery, Fluency Assessment, and Expository Writing Assessment should be considered for intervention. That student’s progress should be closely monitored through weekly fluency assessments.

Assessment Lesson Assessments Lesson Assessments at the end of each lesson assess students’ understanding of the instructional content and the literature in each lesson. They cover the most important skills featured in the lesson of a given unit-skills that are closely related to reading success and are typically in state and national standards.

Assessment Lesson Assessments These assessments will help you determine how well students are grasping the skills and concepts as they are taught and will help inform you about any additional instruction they might need.

Assessment Lesson Assessments As students complete each lesson, they will be assessed on their understanding of the instructional content and the literature in each lesson. The results of the assessments will then be used to inform subsequent instruction. The Lesson Assessments are in a structure similar to that of the Benchmark Assessments in terms of assessments sections that equal 100-points, a fluency assessment, and a writing assessment.

Assessment Informal Assessment Opportunities Informal Assessment throughout the Teacher’s Edition provides tips for informal assessment on a daily basis for each part of the lesson. These include; decoding skills vocabulary comprehension grammar- usage, and mechanic skills listening, speaking, viewing handwriting skills.

Assessment Because a one time-screening assessment, especially at kindergarten and first grade, typically makes too many errors of these types, SRA suggest that the initial screening assessment constitute only the first step in the process designating risk status.