Assess to Identify Gaps in Performance

Use Norm-Referenced Tests Effectively

To identify discrepancies the current level of skill development must be assessed. There are number of ways to do this. Norm-referenced tests are used to measure skill development in basic academic areas. Performance on them provides an indication of what students know in broad content areas like science, social studies, and mathematics. Most group-administered norm-referenced achievement tests take from two to five hours to administer. Brief, individually ad­ministered norm-referenced tests are also available. There are a few considerations that make efforts to use norm-referenced tests more effective:

• If group tests are used, the smaller the group the better.
• If a large group administration is necessary, bring in additional assistance (paraprofessionals, other teachers, parent volunteer).
• Students with disabilities may need additional assistance and/or testing accommodation. Plan ahead to ensure that accommodations written on the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) are provided.
• Tests must be administered exactly according to directions. Departure from the standardized procedures can destroy the meaning of the test scores. Review the instructions before administering any test.
• As a rule of thumb, the length of sitting should not exceed 30 minutes for primary grades, 40 to 50 minutes in intermediate grades, and 90 minutes in middle and secondary grades. These times may vary for individual students, especially students with disabilities.
• Testing environments should be free of distractions.

Use Curriculum-Based Measures Effectively

Curriculum-based measurement directly assesses a student’s skill and progress within the actual content being taught. It provides information on the student’s mastery of curriculum content. The benefits to this approach include: assessment is completed in natural settings; assessment is completed in the materials with which the student is familiar; assessment can take on many forms and allows for frequent, direct measurement of student performance. Tied to the student’s curriculum, this type of assessment is sensitive to the improvement of student achievement over time. Knowledge of student performance via curriculum-based measures is especially helpful in identifying gaps in skill development and designing instructional interventions to address them. Typically a teacher makes a list of skills that the student needs to acquire as the result of instruction. Test samples commonly called probes are then directly developed and administered to the students. These probes are administered frequently throughout the year or unit of instruction and student performance is recorded (and often graphed). Curriculum-based measures are inexpensive to pro­ duce in terms of both time and development. Al­ though there are commercially-available curriculum-based achievement tests, many are teacher-constructed. Reading (fluency and comprehension), written expression, mathematics, and spelling are the major skill areas easily assessed using curriculum-based evaluation.

Pretest Skills You Teach

Although pretesting can be completed with norm-referenced tests, it is usually more effective to use curriculum-based measures. The purpose of a pretest is to assess the extent to which students have the component skills necessary to perform a more complex skill. Sample performance by asking students to read aloud from their books, read silently and answer comprehension question orally, spell the words on their spelling lists, or complete the kinds of math problems that are in their math texts. Keep records of these performances and use them as a basis for later comparisons. Most reading and mathematics series now include unit mastery tests. These can also be used as pretests to measure the extent to which students have mastered the content to be taught. Teachers may use this information gained from pretesting to make judgments about where and at what level instruction should begin as well as the extent to which instruction has been effective.

Conduct Environmental Inventories

Environmental inventories allow teachers to evaluate the skills a student needs in order to be successful in a specific environment. Sometimes called a functional analysis, information is gathered via skills inventories of the kinds of competencies that are necessary to function successfully in working and learning situations. Once identified discrepant, required skills are directly taught to the student with the ultimate goal, of course, being fluent and accurate skill performance in the natural environment. Environmental inventories are especially useful for those students who present challenging behaviors and/or evidence more severe disabilities.

Use Portfolio Assessment Effectively

Portfolios are collections of products used to demonstrate what a student has done and, by inference, what a student is capable doing. They go beyond a simple display of student work. Portfolios usually consist of collections of students’ work over a relatively long period of time. Portfolios are intended to facilitate judgment about student performance by examining progress over time and by the quality of work done. Portfolio assessment serves several purposes:

• To document student effort.
• To document student growth and achievement.
• To enhance information from other assessments.
• To provide public information about the quality of educational progress.

Six elements define portfolio assessment:

1. Targeting valued student competencies for assessment.
2. Using tasks that mirror work in the real world.
3. Encouraging cooperation among students and between teacher and students.
4. Using multiple dimensions to evaluate student work.
5. Encouraging student reflection.
6. Integrating assessment and instruction.

Portfolios need to be tailored for a specific purpose to avoid the collection of piles of papers placed in a folder. For example, depending on its purpose, a port­ folio could include classroom assignments, rough drafts, audio tapes, a list of books read, tests, check­ lists, journal entries, videotapes, response logs, completed projects art work, and reading logs. Student participation is an important part of the process of developing a portfolio. For example, sometimes students select a product they think is particularly good or of which they are particularly proud and then present it as such in parent-teacher conferences. Other times, students select a product they do not like and make reflective statements about it (e.g., self-evaluation). Decisions about what to include in a portfolio are made in collaboration with students, teachers, and sometimes parents. One of the challenges of using portfolio assessment is the scoring procedure for evaluating student work. Scoring rubrics are carefully articulated scoring systems that often have accompanied work samples that testify, for example, less than satisfactory, satisfactorily strong, and excellent work. Typically rubrics are developed by teachers or assessment committees and reflect a range of acceptable student performance for identified valued learner competencies.

Assess Frequently and Informally

Similar to curriculum-based measurement, informal, direct, and frequent assessment means daily or weekly checks of student performances on instructionally relevant tasks. This type of assessment has high content validity because you measure exactly what you expect to do in current, appropriate instructional material. Information gained from frequent, in­ formal assessments provides instructionally relevant data for planning instruction. Additionally, it pro­ vides information on the extent to which students are able to apply what they learn in their daily lessons. Informal assessment should occur frequently, be direct, and be designed to evaluate precisely what students need to learn or have been learning. To select tasks for informal assessment, have students:

• Use the work you are assigning on a daily basis
• Use the work you expect them to complete over the next week or two or for a specific project or unit of instruction.

As a general rule, informal reading assessments like these should be administered at least several times initially and at least once per week after instruction has begun

Use Informal Reading Inventories

Informal reading inventories (IRIs) are collections of short reading passages written at different reading levels. Typically they include at least two passages at each reading level, preprimary through sixth grade, one of which is to be read orally and one to be read silently. The student reads passages of increasing difficulty until a frustration level is reached. Frustration level is that level at which a student has to struggle considerably with word recognition or comprehension. Based on the student’s word recognition accuracy and comprehension accuracy at various reading levels, an instructional reading level is determined. Using the information about the level at which the student can read comfortably, instruction and/or remediation can be effectively planned.