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The Listening subtest measures students’ comprehension of conversational English or Spanish and their understanding of sentence-level and longer discourse. At the Primary–High School levels, the teacher reads the script or plays an audiocassette or CD that gives a standardized presentation of directions and stimuli.
The subtest includes two tasks. The first task assesses the student’s skill in listening for specific
information. At the Readiness–Preliteracy levels, the Listening items move from assessing simpl
word/phrase comprehension to comprehension of short stories accompanied by visual prompts. At the Primary level, students listen to a short speech and/or question and then choose the picture that answers the question. At the higher levels, students listen to longer speeches and answer oral and printed questions.
The second task measures the student’s skill in responding to authentic, task-based questions.
For Elementary–High School levels, students read and listen to a prompt related to a scenario
represented by a large graphic. A number of items depict situations related to this scenario. For
each item, students listen to a short speech and a question before choosing the correct response
from among graphic options. For Readiness–Primary levels, the short scenarios are read to the students.
The Writing Conventions subtest for Primary–High School levels measures student’s achievement in applying the principles that form effective writing. The subtest assesses students’ recognition of English or Spanish language grammatical structure, of correctly spelled words, and of conventions, punctuation, and capitalization. These concepts are measured in age-appropriate ways for the youngest ELLs.
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The Reading subtest measures word understanding and comprehension of different varieties of text. Questions mirror the developmental nature of good reading instruction and the kinds of materials used in exemplary programs. At the Readiness–Preliteracy levels, items are developmentally appropriate and are ordered according to increasing difficulty. At the Primary–High School levels, item types increase in difficulty, from sight-word recognition and sentence comprehension to vocabulary acquisition and comprehension of discourse.
The Reading subtest aligns with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and
assesses reading with three types of text: literary, informational, and functional. Questions measure two modes of comprehension: 1) initial understanding and interpretation, and 2) vocabulary/idioms in context.
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The direct Writing subtest provides authentic information about students’ productive skills in English or Spanish and can be used to facilitate quick results for placement of students. At the Readiness–Preliterary levels, this subtest elicits developmentally appropriate writing performance. At the upper levels, it requires a written response to a picture prompt.
The subtest measures objectives that cannot be assessed with multiple-choice questions. For example, at the lower grade levels it assesses correct letter and word formation; at the upper levels it evaluates appropriate and precise word choice, varied sentence structure, organization
of sentences, and degree of fluency.
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The Speaking subtest elicits a variety of discourse samples with efficient, individually administered teacher-scored tasks. This subtest measures phonemic and linguistic accuracy, informational appropriateness, and overall intelligibility in the language. Teachers read the script; or, for Primary–High School levels, the teacher also has the option of playing an audiocassette or CD with a standardized recording of all stimuli and directions.
At the Preliteracy–High School levels, the Speaking subtest includes four tasks. For the Repeat/Read Aloud task, the student repeats a word, phrase, or sentence using written and spoken prompts. For the Sentence completion tasks, the student completes the beginning of a sentence using auditory and visual prompts. For the Storytelling tasks, the student tells a story about three sequenced pictures. For the Social Interaction task, the student responds to an utterance with a single sentence.
At the Readiness level, the Speaking subtest includes three tasks. For the Repeat/Read Aloud task, the student repeats a word, phrase, or sentence using spoken prompts. For the Oral Vocabulary task, the student names objects that are presented in pictures. For the Answer Questions task, the student retells a story that is presented with a series of three pictures.