Assessment
SPCD 587
Sept. 10 and 17
Questions to Consider
• How do you design individualized, comprehensive
instruction?
• How can you determine where to begin
instruction?
• What kinds of information might you want to
discover through literacy/reading assessment
and what do you do with this information? ?
• How do you find assessment tools that are
appropriate for students with more significant
disabilities or those with sensory or physical
challenges?
Model of Silent Reading Comprehension
(K. Erickson, based on Cunningham, 1993)
Language Comprehension
Word Identification
Mediated
Automatic
Knowledge of
Text Structures
Knowledge of
the World
Print Processing
Eye movement
Print-to-Meaning Links
Inner Speech
Integration
Before Beginning Assessment
 Ensure maximum access to
print/picture/logo/writing materials, etc.
 Positioning
 Assistive technology/aug com needs
 Sensory issues that require modification of
materials (e.g., increasing size of print or picture)
Organizing Assessment: Areas to Evaluate
 Language Level*
 Level of language or communication (intentional? Symbolic?)
 Mode of communication (e.g., speech, sign, PECS, other or
combination
 Vocabulary level (e.g., Peabody Picture Vocabulary)
 Listening (receptive) and speaking (expressive) vocabulary
 Early or Emergent Literacy: Understanding of print
 Symbol recognition (if appropriate)
 Might include sight words or be limited to concrete objects,
photographs, or picsyms
 E.g., Concepts About Print; Early Literacy Checklist
Organizing Assessment: Areas to Evaluate
 Word Recognition Skills: Automatic &
Mediated
 Letter name/sound knowledge; single words;
words within connected text; includes phonics
skills (decoding)
 E.g., running records w/ miscue analysis, Informal Reading
Inventories (IRI); standardized instruments, such as W-JR or
Brigance; CBM; GDRT
Organizing Assessment: Areas to Evaluate
 Listening & Reading comprehension
 E.g., Informal Reading Inventories; Gray Diagnostic
Reading Test; story re-telling checklists; story grammar
maps
 Reading fluency
 E.g., CBM procedures using fluency norms
 Writing (composing text)
 E.g., rubrics or classroom based assessments
 Attitudes toward literacy
 E.g., Reading attitude surveys; observations, interviews
Defining Assessment Accommodations
 Accommodations are changes in the way a
student takes a test, without changing the
actual test itself.
 access to the test, but does not make the test
content easier.
Accommodations Categorization

Presentation: Read test/directions, reread, cues, prompts,
clarification, templates, markers, secure paper to desk, and
magnification/amplification devices

Response: Verbal response, pencil grips, special paper, technology,
scribe, and pointing, eye gaze, provide word processor

Timing: Frequent breaks and extended time

Scheduling: Over time and over sub-test

Setting: Preferential seating, separate locations, specialized setting,
adaptive or special furniture
Using Accommodations During Assessments
 Accommodations should be familiar to the
students
 Review the IEP
 Document the accommodations used
 Successful and unsuccessful
Evaluating What Students Understand
About Print
 Examples: Concepts About Print
Checklist of Early Literacy
Checklist for Assessing Early Literacy Development
(D. Katims, 2000)
Name:
Date:
Category/Item
Attitudes Toward Reading & Voluntary
Reading Behavior
Voluntarily looks at or reads books
Asks to be read to
Listens attentively while being read to
Responds with questions and comments to stories
read to him or her
Concepts About Books
Always
Sometimes
Never
Attitudes Toward Literacy
 Parent and student interviews
 Observation
Phonological Awareness
 Example: Yopp-Singer, Dibbles
 Also see reading for next week (Copeland &
Calhoon for additional ways to assess with
students with complex communication needs)
Phonological Awareness Diagnostic
Assessment Form
 Adaptations for:
 Awareness of Rhyme
 Awareness of Alliteration
 Ability to Blend and Segment
Evaluating Word Recognition
 Word Recognition Skills: Automatic &
Mediated
 Letter name/sound knowledge; single words;
words within connected text; includes phonics
skills (decoding)
 E.g., running records w/ miscue analysis, Informal Reading
Inventories (IRI); standardized instruments, such as W-JR or
Brigance; CBM; GDRT
Reading (Word Recognition) Levels
 Independent level
 Recognize minimum of 99% of words/comprehend
90%
 Instructional level
 Recognize minimum of 95% of words/comprehend
75%
 Frustration level
 Recognize less than 90%/comprehend less than 50%
 Listening comprehension level
 Comprehend 75% of material read to her/him
Running Records
 Method of assessing oral reading
skills
 Looking at student’s errors (and analyzing to
see what types they are):
 self-corrections,
 repetitions and re-readings,
 hesitations, and
 requests for help
Running Records
 Use material at student’s instructional
level
 Record student performance on top
line/text on bottom line
 Calculate % of errors
 Can also examine comprehension w/
running records by using re-tellings,
summarizing, etc.
• Miscue analysis – method to examine types of
errors student is making (using info from
running record)
– Use materials at independent or instructional level
– List errors made and categorize according to type
of error
•
•
•
•
•
Semantic (meaning related)
Graphophonic (visual, phonic)
Syntactic
Self-corrected
Nonword
– Calculate % for each type of error
Words
Text
Child
grumble
grumbly
always
SelfCorrection
Meaning
Visual
Syntax
Similar
Meaning?
Graphophonic
similarity?
Grammatically
acceptable?
X
-
didn’t
did not
X
X
X
I’ll
I
X
X
X
move
make
X
X
scarf
cafr
X
of
or
X
my
me
scarf
self
taken
take
scarf
scafer
that
they
may
maybe
X
still
sit
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Analysis: Seth overrelies on visual cues and rarely self-corrects errors.
Tompkins, G. (2007). Figure 3-2 Miscue analysis of Seth’s errors. (p. 79(
Informal reading inventory (IRI)
 Assess student’s reading level and reading
and listening comprehension
 Graded Word Lists (single words)
 Graded Reading Passages
Reading comprehension
Listening Comprehension
Interpreting IRI
 Difference between listening and instructional levels
 Difference between instructional/frustration levels
 Differences between word recognition and
comprehension
 Word recognition in context vs. in isolation
 Reading strategies used
 Reading rate, hesitations, repetitions
 Background knowledge
 Type of comprehension questions student
answered/missed
Reading Fluency
 Calculate rate (# of correctly read words/time)
 Also observe phrasing (chunking), hesitations,
prosody (stress and intonation)
Reading Fluency
 Word by word reading Reads in phrases
 Too slow or too fast  Appropriate pacing
 No expression  Appropriate expression
 Not aware of punctuation  Aware of
punctuation
 Poor sight word recognition  Automatic
sight word recognition
Assessing Writing
 Don’t forget to include this in a
comprehensive assessment of a student’s
literacy skills!
 Teacher-made rubrics and checklists
 (See handout)