For this weeks journal reflection I am going to be looking at my observation of the

re-evaluation process and in particular my observation of the school psychologist

administering the WIAT-III to one of the students Ive worked with at Winslow Junior
High School. I was able to observe the Psychologist on two different occasions as
she administered the battery of test associated with WIAT. On the first day as the
student and I entered the classroom she asked them if it would be alright for me to
view the administration of the test. Once the student approved I went and sat down
in a section of the classroom that would be out of the view of the student and limit
the distractions as the psychologist administered the test. Before the test began
the psychologist offered the student candy and opened up with some light humor in
an attempt to help alleviate any anxiety that may be associated with taking test.
The first day the psychologist and the student spent about one hour doing some
short reading sections and then had the student answer questions that related to
the reading. This took the majority of the time with the student and at the end they
had a brief conversation about how the student had been feeling and seemed to me
the psychologist was trying to lessen the stress the student may have had with
taking the test. The test for the reading section was set up on a binder set up so
the student could read the paragraph and then still had the visual left in front of the
student as the psychologist asked the questions related to each reading. Once the
student left the classroom I asked the psychologist a few questions in regards to
who is qualified to administer WIAT III and she informed me that it was typically
someone with a masters degree and even though I had taking the assessment
class with my degree it would not be proper for me to administer the test to a
student. At this school she administered both set of assessment testing that is
conducted by the school district. She administers the WIAT-III for the educational
piece of the assessment or evaluation process and then uses WISC-IV for cognitive
assessment of students who are referred to the special education department in the
district. The next morning I brought the student up to a conference room in the
school so they could receive the rest of the assessment test for their re-evaluation.
This was a re-evaluation test for this student and not an initial referral. Most of the
students in the special education department were referred in the elementary level
and have had assessment and IEPs for a few years and so it is more typical at the
middle school level to be doing re-evaluations unless the student moves from out of
state or district and the school would like a new evaluation done by their own

psychologist to get a better picture of the students abilities. As we entered the

conference room the Psychologist was sitting their greeting the with a big smile and
comforting the student because they had been sick the past few weeks with Mono
and had only recently returned to school to only get a cold and flu that had been
traveling through a few members of the staff and student body. She also talked
about how it was important to complete the testing before vacation because it was
close to the end of the window of time allotted to be within the law and after spring
vacation there was an IEP scheduled to discuss the psychologists findings from the
WIAT-III testing. It seemed a little out of norm to be kind of forcing the student to
take the test even though he was under the weather but the psychologist did ask
the student if they wanted to reschedule and the student informed her that he
would be going home once the testing was completed. So they buckled down and
he did another short reading section and then a section that consisted of him
reading spelling words and pronouncing them properly. The next section I found
was interesting and it consisted of having the student read fake words that
consisted of recognizable sounds to see how the student pronounced or sounded
out the fake words. I liked that section. The next section consisted of math and
there were a few sections that related to math. My favorite was the one minute
time limit section to solve as many problems in that time frame. I also enjoyed the
other sections of math. Overall the test did not seem to be very difficult for the
student and although there were sections the student was not totally proficient at
overall I would say they did well. They clearly were not functioning at an eighth
grade level as far as reading and maybe even their math ability but they seemed to
be capable of attaining or being successful at doing academics with assistance at
their grade level. I will not know the psychologists findings until after vacation but I
will receive a HIPA approved copy to review for myself and to install to my portfolio
for student teaching. I found the actual chance to watch a test being administered
to be very informative. I had the opportunity to take a class with Prof. Ball in
regards to assessment testing but during my class I learned about the Woodcock
Johnson battery of test so learning about the WIAT III and being able to watch
someone tested live was very informative and I was able to take the knowledge
from that class and see it in action. It does not sound like I would conduct a lot of
assessment testing as a special education teacher but I do think having knowledge

about the language being used to explain the results from the test is important to
understand as a special education teacher.