Focus on Classroom-Based Assessment

Clark County School District (CCSD) is home to many students and

professionals. According to the CCSD website[The district was] established in 1956; Clark
County School District is the fifth largest school district in the country, educating almost 75
percent of all students in Nevada with more than 320,000 students enrolled in Kindergarten
through 12th grade,(About section, para. 1). Therefore, the arrival of transfer students and outof-state students with no records available upon registering may be a possibility. This is where
the beauty of your career comes into play; it is up to you to put the pieces to the puzzle together,
so you can provide appropriate instruction for that child until further notice of information and
records are received.
As I proceed through my morning routine in my reading, resource room class, Principal
X accompanies Ana to my room. She is a 6th grader from out-of-state student, who just
registered, and who also has an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP). Since she is from out-ofstate, a request must be sent from our school to her previous school to show that she has been
enrolled and that her new school needs her academic records; in which may take several days,
even weeks.
Due to my classroom of diverse room of learners with grades ranging from 6th grade to 8th
grade and reading levels ranging between grade equivalents of 1st grade to 7th grade, I must find
out Anas reading skills and abilities in order to appropriately meet her learning needs. A variety
of assessments must be completed over a course of time to determine her strengths and
weaknesses in reading and writing. Although this paper is from the lens of a special education
teacher, these questions and assessments are suitable for all teachers. While these assessments

are suitable for all teachers, I am also writing from a middle school teacher perspective where the
order of assessments strategically conveys a backward design to narrow down Anas areas of
needs.

Special Factors
The first question that I am going to ask is Is Ana an English language learner? This
question should be the first question that surfaces for teachers when receiving a new student in
their classroom. With classrooms becoming more culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD), a
student may have prior knowledge and experiences inside and outside of the classroom that we
may be unaware of (Brisk, Barnhardt, Herrera, Rochon, & Ronald, 2002, p. 1). This is when it
becomes difficult for teachers because we must consider the special factors of a CLD student
when we are assessing them in the areas of reading and writing. Researchers, Wagner, Francis,
and Morris (2005) stated that assessments of English language learners in English as opposed to
their native language can be problematic in that individuals may not fully understand the task
instructions even if they have the competence to perform the task in English (p. 10). Not only is
this an important factor but educators must also be aware of the misrepresentation of CLD
students that receive special education services. The number of students from linguistically
diverse backgrounds is growing; therefore, identifying ELLs with LD [ learning disabilities] has
become very important in education settings to provide appropriate educational services to this
group of students, (Chu & Flores, 2011, p. 244).

Therefore, this should always be acknowledged for CLD students and once teachers have
this awareness and understanding, they may proceed to assessing their new student with this
consideration in mind. So one may ask, Where do I begin?

Fluency Assessment
The first assessment I am going to give is a reading fluency passage to determine Anas
reading skills. Majority of my students have completed elementary school where foundation
reading skills should have been taught with the exception of those who may not have attended or
been enrolled in an elementary school consecutively. By completing this assessment first, I am
able to recognize and most importantly, hear Anas areas of strengths and deficits. Author
Rasinski (2004) stated, Initial fluency assessment[s] gives teachers baseline information against
which to measure subsequent progress, (p. 20). With this in mind, I will be able to further
assess Ana after I have an initial understanding of her reading abilities after reading aloud. This
can be done formally and/or informally depending on what the teacher is using (i.e. standardized
material or lesson material) and/or doing (i.e. recording data or observations).
As for all assessments, they should be reliable and valid when implementing and
measuring students present levels and for this reason I am going to use AIMSweb R-CBM
(fluency). According to AIMSwebs website AIMSweb introduced National Norms in the fall
of 2011 to provide benchmark measure norms that reflect the performance of the national student
population at grades K through 8, (AIMSweb National Norms Technical Documentation,
2012 para. 1). This information is significant when comparing students reading levels. The pro
to using this assessment is I will be able to compare Anas reading performance to her general

education peers (her grade level) nationally to where she is currently reading at an independent
level.
The disadvantage of using AIMSweb R-CBM is that I am only recording Anas words
read correctly per minute (wpm) and her errors. This type of assignment truly only assesses her
accuracy and automaticity. However, according to Rasinski (2000), To ignore reading rate
when assessing childrens reading and designing appropriate instruction may do a major
disservice to many readers who struggles with reading, (p. 150). This is just a mere window of
Anas reading abilities; fluency is only one component of reading but can help lead to other
assessments in the reading development. Once her reading rate is determined I can then move
forward to assessing Ana in other areas of reading.

Word Recognition Assessment

I will move to the next literacy assessment of word recognition. According to Pikulski
(1997) fluent word identification appears to be a prerequisite for comprehending text. If a
reader must slowly analyze many of the words in a text, memory and attention needed for
comprehension are drained by word analysis, (p. 2).
For this assessment I will use the word recognition lists from Morris Informal Reading
Inventory. According to Morris (2015) Word recognition can be assessed in context or in
isolation. Word recognition in isolation is usually assessed by having a child read graded lists of
words until he or she reaches a frustration level, (p. 18). Assessing word recognition will allow
me to see Anas ability to automatically recognize words accurately in isolation rather than a
fluency passage, although word recognition can be assessed in both forms. The purpose of this

assessment focuses on sight-word identification verses on decoding skills. Ehri (2005) stated
all words, even easily decoded words, become sight words once they have been read several
times, (p. 116).
A disadvantage of using recognition word lists as an assessment is very similar to the
fluency assessment; it only represents a brief view of Anas reading abilities. Word recognition
in context and/or in isolation doesnt demonstrate comprehension or understanding the meaning
of the words. However, word recognition is still a good measure of Anas reading abilities. The
automaticity theory proposes that we should also pay close attention to the measures of
automatic print processing. By attending to these automaticity measures and how they interact
with other measures, we can gain a fuller, more accurate picture of a childs reading ability,
(Morris, 2015, p. 13).

Reading Comprehension Assessment

At this point I have a good indication of Anas reading skills and the next component of
reading I need to assess is her comprehension. Assessing reading comprehension can become
difficult because the teacher needs to evaluate the assessment being used to measure this
component of reading. Klingner (2004) stated, one of the greatest challenges of reading
comprehension assessment is to accurately determine students metacognitive abilities because
these processes cannot be measured through traditional means, (p. 59). However, the end goal
of reading is being able to comprehend and understand the given text that was read and with this
being emphasized assessing reading comprehension is necessary.

I am going to use the reading passages from Morris Informal Reading Inventory for the
component of reading comprehension. When giving Ana a reading passage, I am using her
independent reading level to assess her comprehension; this now gives me another opportunity to
assess Ana in fluency and word recognition except now I can conduct a miscue analysis. Unlike
AIMSweb R-CBM, I can record the types of oral reading errors she makes (i.e., substitutions,
omissions, insertions, and self-corrections) while still assessing her comprehension. Although
reading comprehension can be assessed using any reading material at a students independent
reading level, I feel in order to keep the comprehension component as valid as possible all
students should initially be assessed using the same material. This is the reason as to why I
chose Morris reading passages that include preselected comprehension questions. As a teacher,
I am not changing any questions that I may or may not have asked other students nor am I being
affected by various types of reading material that may influence the type of questions I may
create.
Contrary to what I just stated, a con of using the comprehension section of an IRI is the
preselected questions. I say this in regards as to what the questions measure (i.e., recall or high
level thinking). According to Klingner IRIs are overwhelmingly text based, emphasizing the
readers ability to reproduce ideas rather than integrate and reconstruct them with his or her own
knowledge, and may not be the best tools for assessing higher level thinking skills, ( 2004, p.
61). Open-ended items better measure a childrens ability to think about a story and to use the
information in a story to explain their thinking, (Applegate, Quinn, & Applegate, 2002).
Although this tool can add to Anas baseline data, it truly is my responsibility to implement
opportunities for Ana to respond to high level thinking in various forms (i.e. projects, writing,
retelling, interviews, etc.)

Phonemic Awareness Assessment

If Ana continues to struggle with reading, I will continue to assess further into the
beginning stages of reading development. The next assessment I am going to give will target the
skill of phonemic awareness. This will help me become aware of Anas ability to identify and
orally respond with letter sounds she hears in a given word (initial, medial, and final sounds).
This is a foundational skill that all readers and writers must have in order to be successful with
the English language. According to Stanovich (1994) phonemic awareness tasks are the best
predictors of the ease of early reading acquisition-better than anything else that we know of
including IQ (p. 284). Phonemic awareness is not only limited to identifying initial, medial,
and final sounds but can also be the ability to blend and segment phonemes, substitute, add and
delete phonemes as well as rhyming. To a child with well-developed phonological awareness,
an alphabetic writing system will seem to be a sensible way of representing speech in print.
Conversely, a child lacking phonological awareness will find an alphabetic writing system to be
arbitrary and much more difficult to master (Wagner et al., 2005, p. 11). There are many
phonemic awareness assessments available online however it is crucial that teachers use
assessments that are reliable and valid. For this reason, I am going to use the Yopper-Singer
Tests of Phoneme Segmentation, which has undergone an analysis to determine its reliability and
validity. This assessment measures a childs ability to separately articulate the sounds of a
spoken word in order (Yopp, 1995, p. 21). This will allow me to see if Ana can phonetically
hear and orally segment the letter sounds without reading the word, which will demonstrates the
letter-sound relationships. Anas performance will inform me if Ana is phonemically aware of
the English letter-sounds relationship or if Ana needs intervention/instruction in a targeted area to
help support her literacy development.

This assessment however, is only needed for those who cannot read or is a struggling
reader. If a student can read, there is no need to administer this assessment. A con to this
assessment is it does not consider culturally and linguistically diverse students. However,
research does indicate that phonemic awareness is a critical variable in languages that have an
alphabetic orthography (Yopp, 1995, p. 28). Another con when using the Yopp-Singer Tests of
Phoneme Segmentation is that it does not offer other phonemic awareness skills mentioned
earlier (i.e., blending, substituting, adding, deleting, and rhyming phonemes). I personally would
still like to assess Ana in those areas to see how she processes the given phonological and
phonemic tasks in order to identify strengths and any weaknesses.

Phonics Assessment
Unlike phonemic awareness where the assessment is auditory, assessing phonics is when
the student can visually see the letter and respond with the letter sound orally. Phonics
instruction is one gateway toward this goal [of comprehension] by providing students with the
skills to decode unfamiliar words encountered in new and challenging passages, (Norman &
Calfee, 2004, p. 42). Not only does phonics help readers decode unfamiliar words but will also
help students in writing.
To assess Ana in phonics I am going to use the Tile Test. The Tile Test validity was tested
by examining the relationship of performance on the Tile Test with measures of early reading
commonly used in schools and has been shown to be a reliable measure of basic decoding and
spelling skills. The purpose of this test is to assess students with letter and sound names and
decoding and spelling of words. For the letter and sound names, I will ask Ana to point to the

letter that was given orally and vice versa where Ana will say the letter and its sound orally when
I point to the letter. This lets me know if Ana can recognize and identify letters of the alphabet
along with the sound it makes. This will lead to decoding of words of simple words (consonantvowel-constant). I will build the word and Ana will say the word, and again vice versa where I
will say the word and Ana will build the word with tiles. This assessment will give insight as to
if Ana is familiar with the English orthographic system.
The Tile Test recommends starting with eight letters with the addition of adding two
more letters for the decoding piece. However, the teacher can adapt the amount of tiles
depending the needs of his or her students. After the initial administration, assess different
collections of letters and select words to decode and spell that are based on orthographic
concepts being studied, (p. 50). This is important once letter combinations begin to build and
become more complex.

Writing Assessment
In order to begin assessing Anas writing performance, using an informal writing sample
will give me an idea of Anas writing abilities. This is very similar to how I started with fluency
for reading with the notion that Ana has been exposed to writing instruction with the assumption
she has attended primary school. According to Gentry (2000), he introduced the development
stages of writing back in 1982 known as the Gentry Model.
Each stage represents how the speller conceptualizes inventing a spelling in qualitatively
different ways throughout his or her spelling development. The stages describe what the
speller apparently knows or does not know and does and does not do. Looking at

spelling in this new way not only shed light on how children think about orthography
early in their spelling development, but it also gave rise to an expected sequence of
spelling behavior, (pp. 318-319).
The purpose of an informal writing assessment is to evaluate Anas written expression
abilities. Through writing, I can see her strengths and weaknesses before any formal assessment
is given. I can then begin to conduct a miscue analysis to determine what she is cognitively
thinking as she writes using the writing continuum checklist by Hill and Ruptic (1994). It also
displays her abilities in writing structure, mechanics, spelling, vocabulary and the usage of
Standard English. It will help me to determine the developmental stage of writing Ana is
currently in. Then I will be able to further assess using spelling assessments.
A drawback from using an informal writing assessment is that is it does not have a set
protocol; it is ambiguous and up to the teachers interpretation of the students writing. The
teacher then determines further instruction based on the students analytic traits and stage of
writing.

Spelling Assessment
Spelling has started to be assessed in the previous assessment of phonics, however with
the spelling assessment the words will be greater than CVC words. According to Joshi, Treiman,
Carreker and Moats (2009) spelling instruction underpins reading success by creating
awareness of the sounds that makes up words and the letters that spell those sounds, (p. 6).
Therefore, spelling needs to be assessed even though you may have an indication of a students
writing skills based on previous reading assessments. However, one cannot undermine that there

may be a significant difference between the two types of assessments (i.e., reading vs. writing)
for I see the discrepancies in my classroom all the time. By utilizing both reading and writing
assessments together, I can begin to analyze Anas level of phonemic awareness, her knowledge
of letter-sound correlation and spelling patterns based on her spelling she produces.
The assessment that I am going to use to assess her spelling is Words Their Way Spelling
Inventory. This assessment is categorized in primary, elementary, intermediate, and upper levels
and the section used is according to students needs; by now I have an understanding at which
level I will use to assess Ana. I will analyze her errors and begin to determine her spelling stage
(i.e., early, middle and late). This will consist of me looking at her ability to spell beginning
consonants, final consonants, short vowels, consonant diagraphs, consonant blends, long vowel
patterns, other vowel patterns and inflected endings. The kinds of words that student miss and
the types of errors they make are important in evaluating their spelling achievement and their
understanding of language structures, (Joshi et al., 2009, p. 13).
A disadvantage of using Words Their Way Spelling Inventory as an assessment is
assessing Anas spelling abilities in isolation. Spelling in isolation does not always demonstrate
how one would write/spell when given a more authentic writing assignment. However, this
assessment will bring awareness as to what instruction is needed for spelling and phonemic
awareness.

Instructional Decisions
As various assessments were carried out to determine Anas strengths and weaknesses in
the areas of reading and writing, I have sufficient amount of data that has been collected to

determine appropriate instruction for her learning needs. Depending on how Ana performs for
each assessment given, I will be aware if Ana needs whole group, small group, or individual
assistance for target skills being taught in class for reading and writing. Each of these
assessments are precise enough to know where I need to provide support for Ana in order for to
her to be successful and to grow as a learner in literacy.
In addition to conducting these assessments, I now have baseline data for Ana in reading
and writing. I will be able to progress monitor her deficit areas by using the same assessments
throughout the school year. Regardless as to when Anas records are received, I now have Anas
present levels in reading and writing up-to-date based on the assessments I have given. I will be
able to compare and contrast her present levels from the assessments I gave to her educational
folder once it is received.

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