assessment

Pam if you mean doing faster screening assessments for kids who might get into your program, you could use the PIAT-R or the Woodcock-Johnson for reading comp and vocab. The rdg comp would take about 10 minutes, and the vocab about 2-3 minutes. And the WRAT-3 for written spelling and math ops.

If you mean doing more in-depth assessments for kids already in your program that you want to work with on their specific needs, I’d say an Informal Reading Inventory.
-Bob

Bob, thanks for responding. I was talking about on-going assessment of their IEP goals. With so many students at so many levels with so many different goals, I would like to know if anyone has some suggestions for record keeping and on-going assessment of the goals.

>Bob, thanks for responding. I was talking about on-going >assessment of their IEP goals. With so many students at so many
> levels with so many different goals, I would like to know if >anyone has some suggestions for record keeping and on-going
> assessment of the goals.

So perhaps a goal is spelling skills, and you are working on certain spelling formations, like double letters or vowel digraphs … I’d say make up your own curriculum-based assessments, just like a classroom teacher would do to see if the kids had mastered the lesson. Make up a 10 question test of the sounds/formations you have been working on, and see if they’ve got it. Set an accuracy or success rate equal to the goal, perhaps 70%, 80% accuracy. Standardized tests are not very good for evaluating specific educational goals, they are better for general grade levels to compare the kid to his peers. -Bob

I fully agree that standardized tests are not appropriate for establishing and measuring goals/objectives. This is despite the fact that on the parent board, in the past, many have told other parents that they must insist on standardized tests for goals/objectives, per Pete Wright (isn’t it interesting that the lawyers are telling us how to teach?). I like standardized tests to look for a general trend, but goals and objectives are tied to specific skills that we measure at benchmark dates.

Hi Bob:

I feel that all points are valid, and my opinion I feel that standardized test are irrelevent when dealing with children with special need especially when they are not capable of handling the process of retreiving large amounts of information. I have suggested that they have a separate test for the students in exceptional education to take that is more geared to IEP goals that can be reveiwed to see what the child is actually retaining and can be evaluated from there. Then, if the child is capable in all areas then move them up to the standardized testing. I feel that now the way the system is set up they are setup to fail. If any one has some insight on this, I open the possibilities of looking at it from a wider range.

And in fact I am waiting for this to open up on the parenting board again…

Recently I took a WJIII training and we were told quite clearly that you cannot/should not use normed test scores as measures of achievement on yearly IEPs and 3yrs because:

1. extreme caution needs to be used when comparing scores from assessments which are normed on different groups.

2. many of the tests themselves- much less the clusters- are substantially different

3 because of the “softening” of norms as they get older, even scores from the same test may mean different things over time.

4. grade level in a normed test only means most of the people in that sample- has nothing to do with classroom grade level.

The recommendation is for criterion referenced assessments- no surprise.

Robin

I was also glad to hear- on another post- a voice of caution about cognitive therapy- that training specific factors of a child’s profile- ie Associative memory won’t make them better readers unless you teach reading therapeutically.

Robin

Don’t you think the lawyers are suggesting it because it is a “harder” piece of evidence that what the schools are doing is or is not working? I think that it also is evidence that the parents no longer trust the school rather than being good educationally.

I agree that it certainly symptomatic of parents lack of faith in what schools tell them.And I agree that for many parents, there is good cause for them to fell that way. As for it being a “harder” piece of evidence- no, I don’t think that is the case. It may be that lawyers don’t have clear understanding of what normed assessments really measure and thus choose them simply because they are standardized and therefore seem more reliable. The reality is though that for year to year measurement of progress a test that can jump several grade levels simply by answering one or to more items is not a good way to assess that progress. Normed assessments are survey assessments and provide the sort of data that survey assessments should provide. They are valuable in their place, but not for assessing growth in skill development except in a very general way.

Robin

This is an ongoing issue that many districts are trying to sort out. Does your district have a policy or procedure for addressing the assessment and paperwork issues? Also, our teachers union has bargained for resource teachers, we are on a 80% -20% time schedule for seeing kids (80% or 4 days a week) and 20% time (1 day) for testing (Student study team and IEP) and paperwork. In my district, we are using district written standards based on California’s standards for all students. We are writing goals and objectives based on these standards, so measuring them will be done with curriculum based assessment, criterion referenced (Brigance (Green book) is good) (we also have a district criterion test we are trying to adapt for special ed), portfolios, writing samples. Many of these can be done independently, or by an aide. They are much more relevant and functional than standardized testing. This also fits better with the idea of least restrictive environment area of IDEA 97 and all the connections to being included with the general education population. We are not using standardized tests for annual /quarterly assessment except for initial eligibility and re-establishing eligibility at 3yr evaluations. The grade levels given on the WJ III for instance can not be used as a meaningful measurement of growth, (Like Mr Wright says) if you want to look at the WJIII, look at the standard scores not the grade level equivalencies to see what growth has been made. I am a resource teacher and am much more interested in how my student is functioning in the classroom with the standards they need to learn in order to graduate from high school, I don’t write goals based on the WJIII, they address areas of need based on the formal assessment, but are relevant to our districts’ standards needed to graduate or move on to the next grade. Good luck.
Arlene

PS. I am very familiar with Wrightslaw website and have found it to be very useful in most of the information they offer, they are at times anti teacher / district, but not without reason. There are many districts and teachers (usually general ed, out of ignorance) that aren’t following the law and doing what’s right for kids with special needs. We, as special ed teachers, are sometimes the only advocate the student and their parents have. You didn’t say what state you are from, if you are in Calif, the California Association of Resource Specialists and Special Education Teachers (CARS+) is an excellant resource and they have a great conference in February in Costa Mesa, CA.

I am from Florida and the empaphasis on test scores has changed the amount of service the special education students are getting. If you are identified as learning disabled, your test scores do not count towards the class average and school average. I believe you are better not getting your child identified, because then you will probably get assistance from a reading specialist etc. I work part time, out of choice. When I was hired this year, I was told there were 14 students from K-5 that I would be initially serving. I knew the numbers would go up, but I didn’t think I would now have 27. By the end of Sept. I believe I will have around 30. I only work 53%. I asked for some assistance, but I don’t know if the budget will allow it. I don’t know how to teach that many levels and provide the assessment neccesary. I am required to keep grades in all the subject I teach and complete quarterly assessments and send home progress reports on all my students. I feel like I may get to the point where I can find a way to put grades in my grade book and send home homework, but I just don’t think I am going to do a good job educating my students. I have taught in a resource room before, but I never had these numbers. I think it is also hard because, being the only resource room teacher in my school, I feel like I have to invent the wheel. I have no one to share ideas with etc. There is no resource teacher support group that I no of in the county. I guess what I want to know is there some secret strategies that would help me to be more efficient with the amount of students and levels that I have.