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| Reading 4 |
IEPs
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Melinda McKnight Assessment can be defined as the process of gathering information to assist decision- making. You do this all the time, probably without being aware of the process; for example, you check your gas gauge to decide whether or not you should stop and buy gasoline on your way home. The process of assessment involves measuring a specific event, using a specific criterion to evaluate the measurement, and making decisions for action based on the evaluation. Think about the gasoline example: your measurement comes from the gasoline gauge which you evaluate as you make your decision. Let's look at another example (Fisher & Gildroy, 1999). Swimming and track coaches assess their athletes' abilities regularly. Coaches often use stopwatches to measure the time it takes an athlete to run or swim a lap. By knowing the athlete's previous speed, the coach can make a quick evaluation about the athlete's progress. Based on that evaluation, the coach can decide if the athlete's program should be changed. A good coach would of course frequently assess the athlete's abilities to enable the athlete to become even better at his or her sport. Assessment plays an important role in the decisions everyone makes everyday, and it is certainly a key element in the many important decisions that special educators are continually called upon to make. An initial question that educators must answer focuses on the possibility that a student may have a disability. Screening is the process used to decide if a student may have a disability and should therefore be referred for a more comprehensive assessment. For young children screening might include a report or checklist from parents, vision and hearing tests, observations reports, and the use of commercial assessments. Once students reach school, screening may be done informally by the teacher as he observes the student's behavior and work in class or by parents who may have concerns based on their own observations. More formal screening activities include group achievement tests given to students by their classroom teachers. Screening assessments are typically brief and can be used with large numbers of children at one time. After the screening process, those students needing further assessment are referred to the IEP team. The IEP team may recommend specific assessments to be used to determine eligibility for special education services and the nature and extent of the student's disability. These assessments may include a variety of physical, psychological, educational or vocational assessments. Perhaps the school psychologist will administer an individual intelligence test, an individual achievement test, and/or a test to assess memory, attention, or organization. An audiologist may check for hearing loss. A speech-language pathologist may conduct an assessment of language and communication skills. Various approaches can be used and might include observations and performance assessments as well as norm-referenced instruments. Educators work together as they gather and evaluate information from the assessments in order to make decisions about student eligibility and services. These are major decisions for the individual students involved. It is crucial that special educators choose assessments carefully, use them appropriately, and understand their limitations. A large part of the testing that is conducted in education is done so to identify children for, and appropriately place them within, special education. To give you an idea of the extent and diversity of the assessments that this entails, the following is a brief look at the assessments that professionals may use with individuals with high-incidence disabilities - individuals that often exhibit problems related to behavior, the social environment, and academic work (Friend & Bursuck, 1996). Included in this group are individuals with learning disabilities, individuals with emotional and behavioral disorders, and individuals with speech and language problems. The area of learning disabilities is one that has seen rapid growth and has engendered much interest and activity (Heward, 1996). Heward (1996) includes, among his list of the most commonly used types of tests for assessing learning disabilities, both formal assessments of achievement and ability and informal assessments, such as informal reading inventories. The assessment of children with emotional and behavioral disorders can take several different approaches. Recently, there has been an increase in the use of direct observation and frequent measurement to assess this group of students (Heward, 1996). Within this behavioral perspective or approach, targeted behaviors are specified and observed within their usual setting, with particular attention given to the events that cause or sustain the problem behavior (Cohen & Spenciner, 1998). Cohen and Spenciner (1998) describe other perspectives from which professionals might assess individuals with problem behaviors The biological approach is often used to assess students with more severe emotional disorders and looks closely at the effects of the biological, chemical, neurological, and physical aspects of the individual. Assessment might involve the use of biochemical tests or perhaps standardized tests such as behavior rating scales, interviews, and checklists to assess temperament. Assessments within the developmental approach would include gathering information about the individual during critical periods of development from interviews with parents, teachers, and other caregivers. When professionals embrace the humanistic perspective, assessment of students with behavior problems is from the perspective of the students themselves. Information about problem behaviors are gained through student interviews and the examination of the learning and social environment. It is important that children with speech and language disorders be assessed and evaluated by a professional speech and language pathologist. These professionals are also one of the best resources for gaining ideas about how best to facilitate speech and language development within the regular classroom (Vaughn, Bos, & Schumm, 1997). It is likely that speech and language professionals would conduct assessments that might include a case history and examination; evaluation components such as an articulation test, hearing test, auditory discrimination test, language development test, and language samples; and a group assessment procedure such as an arena assessment (Heward, 1996). If the team determines that a student is eligible for special education, an individualized program must be planned. An assessment of the student's present levels of performance (PLOPs) comes first and from that the individual education program (IEP) is built and includes the special education and related services, as well as the curriculum and classroom adaptations and modifications needed. To help make these decisions, team members might use commercial norm-referenced and criterion referenced tests, checklists, observations, curriculum-based assessments as well as other appropriate assessments. Assessment does not stop here. Identification and placement are important uses of assessment, but even more important are assessments that provide information to help educators plan and implement the individual student's instructional program (Heward, 1996). Cohen & Spenciner (1998) emphasize that one of the most critical uses of assessment within program planning is the process of relating assessment to instruction. Monitoring a student's progress provides valuable information on which the teacher can base instructional decisions. The teacher needs to know if the student is making progress. Students' progress should be continuously assessed to determine if they are reaching the instructional goals within an appropriate time frame. With student performance data, you can make informed decisions about whether instruction and interventions should be modified, additional support is needed, and teaching procedures and materials should be changed. Without such information, teachers can only guess as to their effectiveness (Fisher & Gildroy, 1999). The next segment of this reading has been excerpted from Reading Assessment to Inform Instructional Decision Making (Fisher & Gildroy. 1999), which is a part of the Online Academy (Meyen, 1997-2000). It takes a close look at the implementation of an assessment plan to guide instruction toward the achievement of objectives and goals. The segment begins with Mr. Hendrix, a third-grade teacher, as he begins his assessment plan for reading. Mr. Hendrix knew that in order to be ready for Jamal, Matthew, and Sonia, in a few weeks, it was time for him to start putting his assessment plan into place. His assessment plan is the cornerstone of his reading program, as it provides a means for Mr. Hendrix to determine his students' strengths and areas of need. His assessment plan will help him measure and document his students' skills and abilities at the beginning of the year as well as help him monitor their progress toward reaching the third-grade goals. This process also gives him valuable information upon which he will be able to base his instructional decisions. Mr. Hendrix first gathers information about his incoming students. He then prepares to assess his students' overall reading abilities as soon as school starts in the fall. He will analyze and chart the results as a baseline measure. From his analysis of their errors and the skills that are emphasized in the reading curriculum, Mr. Hendrix will decide what additional skill assessments he needs to give each student. As a result of this initial process he will be able to make sound instructional decisions about what reading interventions and instructional methods he should begin with to meet the needs of his students. Once he begins teaching, he will conduct frequent informal assessments and analyze and chart the results to make sure his students are progressing at an optimal rate. This will help him determine if he should be making any adjustments to his instruction. In a continuous process, he will assess, teach, analyze, chart, and make instructional decisions. Each assessment will give him information about his students' progress as well as his instructional effectiveness. Effective assessment plans, such as this, are systematic and require a commitment to making data driven instructional decisions. As more and more elementary and middle schools adopt a policy of using the same type of measure to assess all students' reading abilities several times a year, higher numbers of students in these schools are becoming successful readers. The same types of assessment processes can also be used in basic reading programs for high school and adult education students. Timed reading assessments can be used for school-wide assessment programs as well as to monitor individual student progress. On a school-wide or program-wide basis, each fall, winter and spring, students can be asked to read one or more grade-level passages. From the results, average reading rates and word recognition scores can be established and students' scores can be ranked to show their individual progress as compared to that of their peers. This process will help determine which students may need more intensive instruction. Each student's score should also be placed on an individual graph to help monitor progress over the year. Class-wide, program-wide, and or grade-level data can also be charted and analyzed to see if the instruction is improving students' reading abilities over time. This data can also help the staff evaluate the effectiveness of the school-wide reading program as well as how well the curriculum materials are meeting the needs of their students. Regular school-wide or program-wide assessments also provide a mechanism for the school staff to identify those areas related to reading instruction in which teachers would benefit most from staff development activities. Now that you have a sense of what an assessment plan looks like, let's go back to Mr. Hendrix and see how he gathers information about his students from previous assessments, services, and records. Before school started in the fall, Mr. Hendrix spent time trying to gather more information about Jamal, Matthew, and Sonia. The first place he looked was in their cumulative records to get a sense of their overall academic achievement, as well as areas of strength and need. Mr. Hendrix also wanted to know if any of these students had been referred for or had received any special services such as early intervention services, speech-language therapy, physical or occupational therapy. Knowing this would indicate the severity of their reading difficulties as well as give him information as to what if any interventions have been tried previously. In addition, Mr. Hendrix looked at his students' health histories to see if they had any health issues or sensory impairments, such as a hearing or vision loss, for which he would need to provide additional accommodations. He also looked for any information on family histories such as other members of the family who might have a disability. Information on the family structure and employment could also be helpful when trying to contact or talk with the families of his students. Mr. Hendrix felt that it was important to look at students' previous report cards and the comments that their teachers had made. He looked for overall achievement to see if his students were having difficulty with other academic areas besides reading. He also looked for the clues to students' interests and strengths that teachers often highlight on report cards. Finally, Mr. Hendrix looked for reports on previous formal and informal reading assessments. Formal assessments are, typically, tests used to measure students' performance on a broad range of skills. These assessments are used to compare one student's test performance to that of the student's peers or norm group. For this reason, formal assessments are also called norm-referenced tests. An example of a norm-referenced test you are likely familiar with is the American College Test (ACT). Used for college admission purposes, this test samples students' skills and abilities in a broad range of subject areas. Student performance on this test is ranked and compared to the performance of other students planning to attend college. Because norm-referenced tests only sample global skills and do not give you specific information about the specific types of difficulties students may be having, these assessments are not particularly useful for helping teachers evaluate the impact of their instruction or for gaining information for making instructional decisions (Shinn & Hubbard, 1996). The formal or norm-referenced state reading assessments that Mr. Hendrix's new students did poorly on consisted of short paragraphs with four to six multiple choice questions. These assessments indicated only that these three students were having difficulty in reading but did not specify in the areas of difficulty. For that information, Mr. Hendrix would have to use some informal reading assessments. Based on the results of the informal reading assessments, Mr. Hendrix could then choose the appropriate research-based interventions. Informal assessments are primarily used to directly measure students' skills and abilities relative to a curriculum. For this reason, informal assessments are commonly called curriculum-based assessments. There are many forms of informal assessments including general and systematic observations, student interviews, teacher-made tests, tests in curriculum materials, workbooks, and other types of student assignments. Curriculum-based assessments are particularly helpful for assessing student progress and the impact of instruction. One simple curriculum-based assessment you are likely familiar with is the weekly spelling test. By using a weekly spelling test, teachers can directly measure their students' ability to spell particular words specified in the curriculum. Moreover, based on student performance, teachers can evaluate whether their spelling instruction was effective or if, for some or all the students, they should make changes such as teaching students how to categorize words by the word roots or different methods for studying spelling words. Now that you know the reasons for assessing student progress and the differences between formal and informal assessments, how do you determine what reading skills and abilities you should be focusing on in your assessments? Before you can begin to evaluate students' mastery of reading skills and abilities, you must first become familiar with the sequence of skill development and the goals your school district or adult program has for the students with whom you will be working. Every state has a set of reading curriculum goals that is used in K-12 public schools to develop district-level curriculum guidelines. Many private schools also use the state guidelines. Curriculum guides are usually published by individual school districts and typically can be accessed through a district curriculum coordinator or a building principal. In the area of reading, for example, these guides outline the hierarchy or scope and sequence of reading skills thought to be essential for a student to learn how to read. These guidelines isolate, sequence, and describe all the essential skills for reading that should be taught in a given time period. If you are working with adults, there are also scope and sequence charts in the curriculum packages that you would use with your students. Just like the guides for younger students, these list the specific skills and sequences that are appropriate for them. Individual schools or special programs, such as a special education programs, will often adopt a specific reading series or supplemental materials that will better meet the needs of the students and still adhere to district and state curriculum standards. Although there are some excellent supplemental reading materials, teachers and schools need to make sure the materials they use for instruction have been shown to increase students reading abilities. Because there can be several different curriculum guides in one reading program, teachers should be familiar with each of them and be careful to give priority to the most essential reading skills. Mr. Hendrix is already familiar with the scope and sequence charts for the second through the sixth-grade reading curriculum. Because there are many different skills to be taught in these grade levels, he will begin with assessing his students' general reading abilities rather than trying to assess all of the skills. The types of assessments used for determining general reading abilities require that students integrate numerous skills in order to understand the text. Some of these can provide information regarding students' reading rate, word recognition scores, the types of word recognition errors they make, and the types of difficulties they may have with reading comprehension. Mr. Hendrix decided a good place to start in assessing his students' reading abilities would be with an informal one-minute timed reading assessment. As of this year, all elementary teachers in his school district would be responsible for using it to assess their students' reading abilities at least three times per year. Had his school implemented this policy before, perhaps Sonia and Matthew would have received more help with reading earlier in their school careers. From the results of the one-minute timed readings, Mr. Hendrix will be able to begin analyzing his students' reading strengths and areas of need. He will then be able to determine what types of skill assessments he needs to give his students to establish baselines and begin the process of continually monitoring their progress. Once school started in the fall, Mr. Hendrix arranged his classroom schedule so that he would have the opportunity to work with students individually. All of the third grade teachers and the para-educators set up several longer blocks of time in which classes were combined for activities to enable individual teachers to spend time doing the timed readings with individual students. Later in the year he and his para-educator would train some peer tutors to conduct the timed readings. To begin the assessments, he first had each student read a graduated word list to determine at what level they should begin reading. A graduated word list is a list of grade level words that increase in difficulty from pre-primer to the 12th grade. Based on the results of the reading of the graduated word list, he had Jamal, Matthew and Sonia start with reading the first grade passage followed by four comprehension questions. As his students read a passage, Mr. Hendrix noted the types of errors they made and also marked how far they had gone in the passage when one minute had elapsed. Even if they didn't finish the passage in one minute, he had them finish the passage so they could answer the comprehension questions. Because all three students did poorly on the reading comprehension portion of the assessment, Mr. Hendrix decided to assess their listening comprehension, as it offers additional information about an individual's ability as it relates to reading comprehension. After that, he analyzed each student's strengths and error patterns in both word recognition and comprehension. He then gave them additional skill-based assessments to establish baselines. The process of assessing reading skills involves preparing probes to determine a student's mastery level and to examine how the student applies the skill in reading. Probes are tests comprised of a limited number of items. To solve or correctly respond to these items, students must be able to apply a particular skill. Probes are used to enable the teacher and student to analyze the types of errors that are being made. For example, to gain information about one aspect of a student's skill in word recognition, you might have a student read a list of high frequency words. The entire probe might be comprised of 50 to 100 words, starting with those used most frequently and moving to those used less frequently. Because there are hundreds of high frequency words, there are different lists for beginning versus more advanced readers. To administer this probe, you ask your student to read each word on the list aloud. You would then record your student's responses on a separate sheet of paper or score sheet. As in this example, most probe items are presented to students in writing with students giving oral responses. The format of questions and responses will vary depending on the student and the nature of the skill being probed. For reading comprehension, a probe could be developed in which students read a paragraph and either write or tell the main ideas and supporting details. To probe an emergent reader's rhyming skill, a teacher might present a set of picture cards with a dog, a cat, a house, and a pig. The teacher would then name the items pictured on each card and ask the student to point to the picture that sounds like the word "frog." This probe presents the items in oral and pictorial formats and requires students to respond by pointing. Because probes are easy to develop and can be given quickly, they are easy to incorporate into your teaching routine. Prior to teaching a new skill, you would assess your students' mastery level and ability to apply the skill. You would then proceed to teach the skill to those students who still needed to strengthen the skill or its application. The next step in Mr. Hendrix's assessment plan was to make instructional decisions based on the results of the probes. Once he decided what skills to focus on for each of his students, Mr. Hendrix would teach, assess, analyze his students' strengths and errors and chart their progress. Based on that data he charted, he would be able to determine if he should continue with his instruction or change it to better meet his students' needs. After teaching and collecting performance data on a student's reading skill or ability, the educator must evaluate the data and make one of three instructional decisions:
To facilitate instructional decision making, charts should include:
If a chart indicates student performance is improving, you should continue with your instruction. If a chart indicates student performance is not improving, you should change your instruction. To help determine how to change your instruction, you should closely analyze your student's performance by doing an error analysis. Error analysis is the inspection of students' responses to determine if error patterns exist. To conduct error analysis, you should first score students' probes and categorize each student's errors. Then, inspect each student's errors and search for any discernible patterns. If an error pattern is detected, try to determine why the error pattern is occurring. Such reasoning can guide you in making informed instructional decisions. Sometimes, however, determining why a student is making an error is not clear. In these situations, you may want to have the student engage in a "think aloud." For a think aloud, a student slowly reworks the probe items he or she responded to incorrectly, and tells about how they approached the items. Think alouds can help you understand why students are making particular errors and can help you more effectively target your instruction to correct the student's performance. You can then provide elaborated feedback and additional practice opportunities to help the student improve his or her performance. Despite its usefulness, these evaluation procedures have one key weakness. They cannot help you determine if what you are teaching is responsible for a change in a student's reading ability or if how you are teaching is responsible, or both. To evaluate the validity of the curriculum you are teaching as well as the impact of your instruction on student skill development, you will need to continuously evaluate students' reading skills and their overall reading abilities. In the above excerpt, Fisher and Gildroy (1999) have given a detailed description of how one teacher used ongoing assessments to direct his instruction. In fact, the practice of ongoing assessments to determine student progress is required by IDEA (Cohen & Spenciner, 1998). An annual review should be undertaken to determine if IEP goals have been met. Teachers may use various assessments to make this determination. Also required is a reevaluation every three years (or more frequently in some cases) of a student's performance and educational needs. During reevaluation, the IEP team reviews a student's assessment information to determine, once again, a student's present level of performance and educational needs and to decide if special education service should be continued. They may need to use additional assessment tools to gain needed additional information. Assessment also plays a key role in the evaluation of whole programs (Cohen and Spenciner, 1998). To gain information about the overall value of special education services provided to groups of students, evaluators might aggregate and analyze student assessment results as well as collect and analyze completed questionnaires, checklists, rating scales, and interviews from students, teachers, and parents. At the end of the excerpt about Mr. Hendrix, Fisher and Gildroy (1999) inserted a cautionary note pertaining to the importance of educators' awareness about the validity of a particular curriculum and the validity of a particular instructional method, that is, whether either or both do what they set out to do. Similarly, when educators choose published assessments, they must be equally careful to choose those assessments that are valid and reliable. The validity of a test is the degree to which a test measures what it sets out, or intends, to measure (Cohen & Spenciner, 1998; Brown, 1983). The reliability of test performance is the extent to which it is stable or consistent over time as well as from one version of a test to another. Brown (1983) describes the reliability coefficient (r) is the correlation between scores from two administrations of a test to the same group of people and states that if the reliability coefficient is close to 1.00 (e.g., .92), a teacher can be fairly confident that the test is adequately reliable. Teachers can also check the reports about validity and reliability in the manuals that accompany assessments. While educators must be careful to use assessments that are valid and reliable, they must be equally cognizant of avoiding assessments that are biased. If an assessment (or assessment procedure) provides an advantage for members of one subgroup or group over another or others, it should not be used. Cohen and Spenciner (1998) remind us that students from subgroups are often less familiar with tests and testing procedures and less motivated than other students and are thus precluded from doing their best. It is also important to keep in mind how members of subgroups, whether they are the students themselves or the parents, may react to assessment. Throughout their book, Assessment of Children and Youth, Cohen and Spenciner (1998) have inserted sections titled "Responding to Diversity." These sections emphasize the importance of understanding and responding to the culture, economic status, ethnicity, language and race of less dominant groups and stress that aspects of diversity may affect willingness to cooperate in the assessment process. Aspects of diversity can influence many areas that directly relate to education and educators: family aspirations for children, willingness to accept assistance, the authority of the school, child rearing, communication, perceptions of disability, legal statutes, language, and literacy, involvement in meetings and support groups, parental roles, transient status, and medical practices. Before using assessments, professionals should take a thoughtful look at the readily available independent reviews and evaluations of tests (Cohen and Spenciner, 1998). Several that Cohen and Spenciner (1998) mention are listed below:
The importance and far-reaching effects of decisions that must be made by special educators cannot be over-emphasized. The decisions they make must be informed decisions. Assessment is integral to the decision-making process used by special educators as they implement a student's IEP and focus on the achievement of the individual's specific goals and objectives. References Brown, F. G. (1983). Principles of educational and psychological testing. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Cohen, L. G., & Spenciner, L. J. (1998). Assessment of children and youth. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Fisher, J. B., & Gildroy, P. G. (1999). Reading assessment to inform instructional decision-making (Module O, Lesson 3). In B. K. Lenz, & P.G. Gildroy (Eds.), Overview of effective reading instruction for individuals with learning disabilities [Online]. Lawrence, KS: The University of Kansas, Center for Research on Learning. Available: Onlineacademy.org Friend, M., & Bursuck, W. (1996). Including students with special needs. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Heward, W. L. (1996). Exceptional children: An introduction to special education. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Meyen, E. L. (1997 - 2000). The Online Academy: Linking teacher education to advances in research. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. (Contract No. H029K973002; U. S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs). Vaughn, S, Bos, C. S., & Schumm, J. S. (1997). Teaching mainstreamed, diverse, and at-risk students in the general education classroom. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. |
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