UNIVERSAL SCREENING AND PROGRESS MONITORING IN READING Secondary Level

Universal Screening  What is universal screening?  Why use universal screening?  What universal screeners are used at the secondary level?  How do you conduct universal screening at the secondary level?

What is Universal Screening?  Universal screening is a quick and easy assessment system designed to determine  the effectiveness of curriculum, instruction, and school organization  students’ level of proficiency in essential academic areas  Typically administered three times a year

Why Universal Screening? To Determine Program Effectiveness  Are 80% of our students meeting the benchmark?  80% by ethnicity?  By program sub-group?  By subject?  By teacher?

Why Universal Screening? Program Evaluation  Helps you to determine if the core curriculum needs to be addressed  Intensity  Fidelity  Targeted  Group size  Instructional skills

Why Universal Screening? Identify Students in Need of Support  Periodic and universal screening ensures that no students “fall through the cracks”  Strategic support: Students are placed in a program that provides moderate intervention and progress monitored every 2 weeks  Intensive support: Students are placed in an intervention that is intense and progress monitored every 2 weeks

What Assessments Are Used For Universal Screening With Secondary Students?  MAZE  OAKS  Grades  Attendance  Office Discipline Referrals (ODRs)

What is Maze?  Multiple-choice cloze task  Grade-level passage w/ every 7 th word replaced by 3 word choices in parenthesis  Student reads silently and selects as many correct words as they can in 3 minutes  Curriculum-Based Measurement test that is “INDICATOR” of overall reading health  Combines fluency, comprehension, and all other subsumed reading skills  Can be administered to a group; scored later  Easy, quick to administer, multiple forms

Example of Maze Assessment

Benefits and Rationale for Maze  Allows for screening/assessing ALL students, ALL groups of Students, and School-wide literacy in time for intervention  Can use same test to monitor progress  Frequent progress monitoring increases academic achievement  Maze scores are a predictor of performance on OAKS AND NOW HS graduation

Reading and Writing Studies Tables of Probable Success Maze Correct Choices 3 minutes Writing: CWS minus IWS 7 minutes Probability of Passing Minnesota Basic Skills Test 4910% 73320% % % % % % % % % Critical values corresponding to likelihood of passing 8 th grade Minnesota Basic Skills Test – Doug Marston, et al.

MAZE OAKS Correlations in TTSDS GradeMedian ScorePassage 1Passage 2Passage

How Do You Analyze Effectiveness Of Academic Programs?  Focused on MAZE, OAKS and Grades  Queried ESIS for a demographic file with student name, ID #, ethnicity, program subgroup  Merged demographic file with data file for each measure  Created an Excel template organized by all subgroups

How do you analyze program effectiveness using OAKS and Maze?  MAZE, OAKS, Grades blank template MAZE, OAKS, Grades blank template  MAZE, OAKS, Grades Data Example MAZE, OAKS, Grades Data Example

How do you identify the lowest 20% of students with Maze data?  Example Excel file Example Excel file

How Do Identify Students In Need Of Intervention?  Post Screening Diagnostics and Placement:  Every student at each grade level who scores in the lowest 20 percent on MAZE, or at or below the 35 th percentile on the OAKS, is: further screened with oral reading fluency measures from 6- Minute Solution (check for fluency & accuracy); then, the San Diego Quick is administered to evaluate what level of the SRAI to use; then, the SRAI is administered to gauge comprehension skills; then, for students with the most comprehensive reading needs, the Language! placement tests are administered.

Progress Monitoring  What is progress monitoring?  What are the effects of progress monitoring?  How do you decide if the intervention is working?

What is Progress Monitoring?  An on-going, systematic approach to gathering academic and behavioral data to  evaluate response to intervention, thereby allowing data-based decision-making regarding instruction and learning outcomes on a frequent basis.  help schools establish more effective programs for children who have not benefited from previous programming.  In other words, it tells us if our interventions are working

Effects of Progress Monitoring Progress monitoring has been extensively researched in Special Education (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1986) Students showed improved reading scores when teachers: monitored their progress (+.70 effect size; ≈ 25 th  50 th %ile. Like it!) graphed their reading scores (+.80 effect size. Love it!) used decisions rules to determine whether to make a change in instruction (+.90 effect size. Gotta have it!)

Effects of Progress Monitoring CBM with decision rules (Fletcher, et.al., 2006)  “ goal raising rule ” for students responding well: effect size.52 (≈ 25 th  40 th %ile)  “ change the program rule ” for students not responding well: effect size.72 (≈ 25 th  50 th %ile)  Results in teachers planning more comprehensive reading programs Additional support for effectiveness in General Education (Fuchs, et al., 1994)

Meet Monthly to Consider… 1. Continuing (Student is making progress, but, continues to need support) 2. Intensifying (Intervention is not working and should be revised), or 3. Referring for Special Education Evaluation (Intensive intervention is proving unsuccessful) 4. Exiting (Intervention no longer needed)

Intervention Change: Language C 3-4 Data Points Below the Aimline!

Intervention Change: Language C Now that’s WORKIN’!

Intervention Change: Language C 3-4 Data Points Below the Aimline! Individualize intervention

Exit From Intervention When: Maze scores indicate 4 or more data points above the aimline AND are at or above the 50 th percentile; AND Grade+ scores are at or above the 5 th stanine; AND OAKS scores are at or above the 35 th percentile

Make a Plan  Select Measures  Decide  Who will assess students?  Who will record & graph the information?  Who will make instructional decisions?  Get Training  Establish  Decision rules  Team Process  Schedule for assessment

Resources  AIMSweb (  Intervention Central ( 

QUESTIONS?