Linking Data to Instruction
Jefferson County School District
January 19, 2010
RTI Assessment Considerations
• Measurement strategies are chosen to…
– Answer specific questions
– Make specific decisions
• Give only with a “purpose” in mind
– There is a problem if one doesn’t know why the
assessment is being given.
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Types of Assessments
1. Screening Assessments - Used for ALL students to identify
those who may need additional support (DIBELS, CBM,
Office Discipline Referrals for behavior, etc.)
2. Formative Assessment/Progress Monitoring - Frequent,
on-going assessments that shows whether the instruction
is effective and impacting student skill development
(DIBELS, CBM, etc)
3. Diagnostic Assessments - Pinpoint instructional needs for
students identified in screenings (Quick Phonics Screener,
Survey Level Assessments, Curriculum Based Evaluation
Procedures, etc.)
ALL PART OF AN ASSESSMENT PROCESS WITHIN RTI!
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Universal Screening Assessments
 Universal screening occurs for ALL students at least three times
per year
 Procedures identify which students are proficient (80%) and
which are deficient (20%).
 Good screening measures:
 Are reliable, valid, repeatable, brief, and easy to administer
 Are not intended to measure everything about a student, but
provide an efficient an unbiased way to identify students
who will need additional support (Tier 2 or Tier 3)
 Help you assess the overall health of your Core program
(Are 80% of your students at benchmark/proficiency?)
Why Use Fluency Measures for
Screening?
• Oral Reading Fluency and Accuracy in reading connected text
is one of the best indicators of overall reading comprehension
(Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins, 2001)
• We always examine fluency AND accuracy
• Without examining accuracy scores, we are missing a BIG
piece of the picture
• Students MUST be accurate with any skill before they are
fluent.
Oral reading fluency (ORF) does not tell you everything about a
student’s reading skill, but a child who cannot read fluently cannot
fully comprehend written text and will need additional support.
Linking Screening Data to Instruction
• Questions to consider:
– Are 80% of your students proficient based on set
criteria (benchmarks, percentiles, standards, etc)?
• If not, what are the common instructional needs?
– i.e. fluency, decoding, comprehension, multiplication,
fractions, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc
• What is your plan to meet these common instructional
needs schoolwide/grade-wide?
–
–
–
–
–
Improved fidelity to core?
More guided practice?
More explicit instruction?
Improved student engagement?
More professional development for staff?
Progress Monitoring Assessments
• Help us answer the question:
• Is what we’re doing working?
•
•
•
•
Robust indicator of academic health
Brief and easy to administer
Can be administered frequently
Must have multiple, equivalent forms
– (If the metric isn’t the same, the data are
meaningless)
• Must be sensitive to growth
Screening/Progress Monitoring Tools:
Reading
• DIBELS PSF, NWF
– Pros: Free, quick and easy, good research base, benchmarks, quick, linked
to instruction
– Cons: Only useful in Grade K-2
• ORF (DIBELS, AIMSWEB, etc)
– Pros: Free, good reliability and validity, easy to administer and score
– Cons: May not fully account for comp in a few students
• MAZE
– Pros: Quick to administer, may address comprehension more than ORF,
can administer to large groups simultaneously, useful in secondary
– Cons: Time consuming to score, not as sensitive to growth as ORF
• OAKS
– Pros: Already available, compares to state standards
– Cons: Just passing isn’t good enough, not linked directly to instruction,
needs to be used in conjunction with other measures
Screening/Progress Monitoring Tools:
Math
• CBM Early Numeracy Measures
– Pros: Good reliability, validity, brief and easy to administer,
– Cons: Sensitivity to growth, only useful in K-2
• Math Fact Fluency
– Pros: Highly predictive of struggling students
– Cons: No benchmarks, only a small piece of math screening
• CBM Computation
– Pros: Quick and easy to administer, sensitive to growth, surface validity
– Cons: Predictive validity questionable, not linked to current standards
• CBM Concepts and Applications
– Pros: Quick and easy to administer, good predictive validity. Linked to NCTM
Focal Points (AIMSWEB)
– Cons: Not highly sensitive to growth, newer measures
• easyCBM
– Pros: Based on NCTM Focal Points, computer-based administration and
scoring
– Cons: Untimed (does not account for fluency), lengthy (administer no more
than once every 3 weeks), predictive validity uncertain
Screening/Progress Monitoring Tools:
Writing
• CBM Writing
– Pros: Easy to administer to large groups, can obtain
multiple scores from single probe
– Cons: time consuming to score, does not directly measure
content of writing
– Correct Writing Sequences (CWS, %CWS)
• Pros: Good reliability, validity, sensitive to growth at some grade
levels
• Cons: Time consuming to score, not as sensitive to growth in upper
grades, %CWS not sensitive to growth
– Correct Minus Incorrect Writing Sequences (CIWS)
• Pros: Good reliability, validity, sensitive to growth in upper grades
• Cons: Time consuming to score, not sensitive to growth in lower
grades
Screening & Progress Monitoring
Resources
• National Center Response to Intervention
(www.rti4success.org)
• Intervention Central (www.interventioncentral.com)
• AIMSweb (www.aimsweb.com)
• DIBELS (https://dibels.uoregon.edu)
• easy CBM (www.easycbm.com)
• The ABC’s of CBM (Hosp, Hosp,& Howell, 2007)
Diagnostic Assessments
• The major purpose for
administering diagnostic tests is to
provide information that is useful
in planning more effective
instruction.
• Diagnostic tests should only be
given when there is a clear
expectation that they will provide
new information about a child’s
difficulties learning to read that
can be used to provide more
focused, or more powerful
instruction.
Diagnostic Assessment Questions
• “Why is the student not performing at the
expected level?”
• “What is the student’s instructional need?”
Start by reviewing existing data
Diagnostic Assessments
•
•
•
•
•
•
Quick Phonics Screener (Hasbrouck)
DRA
Error Analysis
Survey Level Assessments
In-Program Assessments (mastery tests, checkouts, etc)
Curriculum-Based Evaluation Procedures
– "any set of measurement procedures that use direct
observation and recording of a student’s performance in a
local curriculum as a basis for gathering information to
make instructional decisions”(Deno, 1987)
• Any informal or formal assessments that answer the
question: Why is the student having problems?
The Problem Solving Model
1. Define the Problem:
• What is the problem and
why is it happening?
2. Design Intervention:
• What are we going to do
about the problem?
3. Implement and Monitor:
• Are we doing what we
intended to do?
4. Evaluate Effectiveness:
• Did our plan work?
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Using the data to inform interventions
• What is the
student missing?
• What does your
data tell you?
• Start with what
you already
have, and ask
“Do I need more
info?”
Phonemic
Awareness
Phonics
Fluency &
Accuracy
Vocabulary
Comprehension
Using your data to create interventions:
An Example
Adapted from
Organizing Fluency Screening Data:
Making the Instructional Match
Group 1:
Accurate and
Fluent
Group 2:
Accurate but
Slow Rate
Group 3:
Inaccurate and
Slow Rate
Group 4:
Inaccurate but
High Rate
Regardless of the skill focus,
organizing student data by looking at
accuracy and fluency will assist
teachers in making an appropriate
instructional match!
Digging Deeper with Screening Data
• Is the student accurate?
– Must define accuracy expectation
• Consensus in reading research is 95%
• Is the student fluent?
– Must define fluency expectation
• Fluency Measuring Tools:
– Curriculum-Based Measures (CBM)
– AIMSWeb (grades 1 - 8)
– Fuch’s reading probes (grades 1 - 7)
– DIBELS (grades K - 6)
Organizing Fluency Data:
Making the Instructional Match
Group 1:
Accurate and
Fluent
Core
Instruction
*Check Comp*
Group 3:
Inaccurate and
Slow Rate
+Decoding then
fluency
Group 1: Dig Deeper in the areas of
reading comprehension, including
Group 2:
vocabulary and specific comprehension
Accurate but strategies.
Group 2: Build reading fluency
Slow Rate
skills. (Repeated Reading, Paired Reading, etc.)
+Fluency
Embed comprehension checks/strategies.
building
Group 3: Conduct an error analysis to
determine instructional need. Teach to the
instructional need paired with fluency building
strategies. Embed comprehension
Group 4:
checks/strategies.
Inaccurate but
Group 4: Conduct Table-Tap Method. If student
High Rate
can correct error easily, teach student to selfmonitor reading accuracy. If reader cannot selfSelfcorrect errors, complete an error analysis to
Monitoring
Determine instructional need. Teach to the
instructional need.
Data Summary
3rd Grade Class- Fall DIBELS: ORF => 77
Student
Accuracy
WCPM
Jim
97%
58 wcpm
Nancy
87%
59 wcpm
Ted
89%
90 wcpm
Jerry
98%
85 wcpm
Mary
99%
90 wcpm
Day 4’s
Activity 5
Group 1:
Accurate and
Fluent
Group 2:
Accurate but
Slow Rate
Group 3:
Inaccurate and
Slow Rate
Group 4:
Inaccurate
but High Rate
ACTIVITY:
•Based on criteria for the grade level,
place each student’s name into the
appropriate box.
•Organizing data based on
performance(s) assists in grouping
students for instructional purposes.
•Students who do not perform well on
comprehension tests, have a variety of
instructional needs.
Match the Student to the Appropriate Box:
>95% acc.
Group 1:
Accurate and Fluent
Jerry
Mary
Group 2:
Accurate but Slow
Rate
Jim
And
77 wcpm.
Student
Jim
Ted
WCPM
97%
58 wcpm
87%
59 wcpm
89%
90 wcpm
Jerry
98%
85 wcpm
Mary
99%
90 wcpm
Nancy
Group 3:
Group 4:
Inaccurate and Slow Inaccurate but High Ted
Rate
Rate
Nancy
Accuracy
Regardless of Skill…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Phonemic Awareness
Letter Naming
Letter Sounds
Beginning Decoding Skills
Sight Words
Addition
Subtraction
Fractions
Instructional “Focus” Continuum
Accurate at
Skill
Fluent at
Skill
Able to
Apply Skill
IF no, teach
skill.
If yes, move
to fluency
If no, teach
fluency/
automaticity
If yes, move
to
application
If no, teach
application
If yes, the
move to
higher level
skill/concept
Digging Deeper
• In order to be “diagnostic”
– Teachers need to know the sequence of skill
development
– Content knowledge may need further
development
– How deep depends on the intensity of the
problem.
OR
Phonemic Awareness
Developmental Continuum
Hard
 Phoneme deletion and manipulation
 Blending and segmenting individual





Easy
phonemes
Onset-rime blending and segmentation
Syllable segmentation and blending
Sentence segmentation
Rhyming
Word comparison
THEN check
here!
Screening Assessments:
Not Always Enough
• Screening assessments do not always go far
enough in answering the question:
– We will need to “DIG DEEPER!”
• Quick phonics screener
• Error Analysis
• Curriculum Based Evaluation
When does this happen?
• Tier 1 Meetings
How Frequent:
2-3 times per year (after
benchmarking/screening occurs)
How Long:
Who Attends:
What is the
Focus:
1-2 hours per grade level
All grade level teachers, SPED teacher,
principal, Title staff, specialists, instructional
coach
Talk about schoolwide data, evaluate health of
core and needed adjustments for ALL students
Data Used:
Screening
When does this happen?
• Tier 2 Meetings
How Frequent:
Every 4-6 weeks (by grade level)
How Long:
Who Attends:
30-45 minutes
All grade level teachers, SPED teacher,
principal, Title teacher, specialists,
instructional coach
Talk about intervention groups. Adjust,
continue, discontinue interventions based on
district decision rules
What is the
Focus:
Data Used:
Screening, Progress Monitoring, sometimes
Diagnostic
When does this happen?
• Tier 3 (Individual Problem Solving) Meetings
How Frequent:
As needed based on individual student need
and district decision rules
How Long:
Who Attends:
30-60 minutes
Gen ed teacher, SPED teacher, principal,
specialists, school psych, instructional coach,
parents
Problem-solve individual student needs.
Design individualized interventions using data.
What is the
Focus:
Data Used:
Screening, Progress Monitoring, and
Diagnostic
Useful Resources
• What Works Clearinghouse
– http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/
• Florida Center for Reading Research
– http://www.fcrr.org/
• National Center on Response to Intervention
– http://www.rti4success.org/
• Center on Instruction
– http://www.centeroninstruction.org/
• Oregon RTI Project
– http://www.oregonrti.org/
• Curriculum Based Evaluation: Teaching and
Decision Making (Howell & Nolet, 2000)
• The ABCs of CBM (Hosp, Hosp & Howell, 2007)