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Whether the first bell of the new school year rings virtually or in person, with it begins the process of benchmarking to determine each student’s ability level in every major domain. Because all learning begins with reading, knowing the strength of each of your student’s reading ability is going to be paramount in the very short term — as if the clock's tick wasn’t loud enough already.

Half the battle is knowing where to start

DRA3’s Level Estimator, as its name suggests, will quickly provide you with each student’s estimated reading level, giving you the best possible indication of where to begin instruction.

Have a minute?

DRA3’s Level Estimator will give you the in-depth information you need to plan instruction and foster a love a reading... in less time than it takes to watch this video.  

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Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a complex group of related disabilities marked by differences in communication and socialization, a limited range of interests, and the presence of repetitive behaviors (NASP, 2010). Students with ASD often include the following characteristic:

• Cognitive. Differences in the development of traditional cognitive skills, with incongruencies between development in processing visual/nonverbal information and rote learning with delays in developing skills in processing verbal information and a difference in the learning and use of abstract information;
  
• Social skills. Poor development of traditional social skills and rule governed behavior;
• Communication. Differences in responding to quickly presented verbal information, understanding complex commands, and expressing wants and needs;
  
• Organization/self-direction. Organizational abilities do not conform to traditional classroom practices. Often has difficulty screening out distractions, completing activities independently, initiating work activities, organizing free time, stopping one activity and moving on to the next, being flexible, shifting attention to a new focus.

The Group Autism Speaks

Provides Excellent resources to assist in the Support of Children with ASD, they also provide information and statistics and information about Autism Research.

Here are some of the data and information they have recently collected.

• In 2020, the CDC reported that approximately 1 in 54 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to 2016 data.
  • 1 in 34 boys identified with autism
  • 1 in 144 girls identified with autism
• 31% of children with ASD have an intellectual disability (intelligence quotient [IQ] <70), 25% are in the borderline range (IQ 71–85), and 44% have IQ scores in the average to above average range (i.e., IQ >85).
• Autism affects all ethnic and socioeconomic groups, but minority groups tend to be diagnosed later and less often.
• Early intervention affords the best opportunity to support healthy development and deliver benefits across the lifespan.
• There is no medical detection for autism.

Evaluation procedures and assessments like the Vineland 3 continue to assist in the identification of students who need support for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), increasing its prevalence and requiring educators to develop practices that allow them to support more students.

In order to guide our efforts we have worked with Special Educators, surveying them, in order to discover the challenges they are facing in supporting these students.

They indicated that they need more and better trained coworkers, Professional Development and Resources and instructional programs/materials.

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How do you know if your students are ready for the next level or if they’re at risk for school failure? Spring benchmarking is the ideal time to get a full picture of each student’s abilities in order to determine if they’re ready for the next step in their educational journey. Knowing what to look for and having a test that assesses all domains of development are the most critical factors in that process.

We have a number of valid and reliable tools to help you make that determination. For students ages 2:6–5:11, assess Motor, Concepts, Language, Self-Help, Social, and Emotional domains with the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning(TM), Fourth Edition (DIAL(TM)-4). To assess Visual Motor/Adaptive, Language and Cognition, and Gross Motor domains for students ages 3:0–5:11, use Early Screening Inventory(TM), Third Edition (ESI(TM)-3).  

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What are they, and why do they matter when choosing a developmental screener?

The extent to which a test performs accurately in a screening situation can be determined by the three indices of a test’s validity: Sensitivity, Specificity, and the Agreement Index. Here’s a brief explanation of each and how they relate to a test’s validity:

• Sensitivity relates to the proportion of the children at the extreme end of the continuum (Potential Delay category) who were identified as such in the screening process.
• Specificity refers to the proportion of those children in the OK category who were identified as OK in the screening process.
• Agreement Index refers to the percentage of children for whom the screening decision was correct, whether at the extreme or in the “OK” range.

These three indices are the best way to determine the extent to which a screening test is doing what it is supposed to do: separating children at the extreme end (potential learning delays) from children who perform in a more typical manner. Having these factors at play when identifying the children who may need further testing can help get them the support they need... sooner.

ESI-3 takes all three indices into account!

If you need to take a closer look at overall abilities to determine where additional support may be necessary, the Early Screening Inventory, Third Edition will give you the tools you need to individually screen kids ages 3:0–5:11 in several areas of development.  

Read the previous articles in this series.

For more information on developmental screening with the ESI-3, visit  

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Reliability, as it pertains to assessment, is a measure of consistency. For example, if a group of people took a test on two different occasions, they should get nearly the same scores both times, assuming that no memory of the items carries over to the second. If an examinee scored high the first time and low the second, we wouldn’t have any basis for interpreting the test’s results. Initially, the most common means of determining reliability was to have the examinee take the same test twice or to take alternate forms of a test. The scores of the two administrations would then be correlated. Generally, one would hope for a correlation between the two administrations to reach .85 to the maximum correlation of +1.00. Reliability is the essential condition of a test: if it’s not reliable, it has to be disregarded.

That being said, a test can be reliable without being valid. A central component in early childhood screening test validity is how accurately the test identifies children who may be in need of service. However, no matter how careful examiners are, there will be some error in the decision-making process. Some children identified as OK, may actually be in the Potentially Delayed range and vice versa. Verifying the validity of the tests you use is paramount in identifying kids who are in need of extra support.

With ESI-3, you don’t have to choose between valid and reliable!

If you need to take a closer look at overall abilities to determine where additional support may be necessary, the Early Screening Inventory, Third Edition will give you the tools you need to individually screen kids ages 3:0–5:11 in several areas of development.

Read the previous articles in this series.  

For more information on developmental screening with the ESI-3, visit  

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By Chris Huzinec, MS, and Anne-Marie Kimbell, PhD, MSEd

Assessment performance is rarely a straightforward process. While the tests being used have varying degrees of standardization and psychometric properties, the most effective are those that have robust reliability and validity. However, their results can be skewed by factors relating to the student, client, patient, or clinician — even the testing environment or testing process itself can affect the outcome.

Is the student being tested developmentally delayed? Do they have physical disabilities such as a visual impairment or hearing loss? Did they get enough sleep the night before? Have they eaten that day? Is there a language difference? Perhaps the tester’s physical or mental state is less than optimal, or they are unfamiliar with the testing materials.

Testing adults with fidelity can also be hampered by outside influences such as literacy, substance abuse, language, and many other factors.

Even when thorough assessment procedures are followed, conditions are present during the testing session that can affect performance, scores, and, as a consequence, test results. Being aware of these factors and their potential impact on the testing process is important to ensure maximum performance and accurate results.

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Tierra del Sol Middle School in Lakeside, California had a problem. Like many schools, it was struggling with how to better manage social behaviors that were adversely affecting academic performance. According to the team, there was never enough time or resources to create the necessary interventions for students. They also did not have a reliable assessment method for identifying every student that required assistance and their specific needs. And finally, they could not track students’ progress to know if their interventions were working.

David Brumbaugh, a special education teacher at Tierra del Sol, went looking for a solution and found Pearson’s Review360® in a weekly update from the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE), an international organization that shapes policies and practices that impact the quality of education.

Review360 is a web-based behavior improvement system that includes a behavioral assessment, recommendations for interventions that map to the results, progress monitoring, and an incident reporting tool that is sortable and searchable. It provides Brumbaugh, administrators, teachers, and even parents with a data-driven method for improving disruptive social behaviors, as well as training and resources for teachers and real-time feedback and guidance for learners.

Brumbaugh credits Review360 with making him more effective in the classroom. “ I spent six years beating my head against the wall trying to expand and improve our intervention program and Pearson handed it all to me on a silver tray. It’s just fantastic. Check-In/Check-Out is the most widely referenced evidenced-based practice for multi-tiered systems of support and in my experience is simply not possible with any system except Review360.”

Tierra del Sol psychologist Sue Cradduck, agrees that Review360 helps the school to provide better service to its students: “Review360 gives us a complete view of each student’s behavior throughout the day; now we can see problematic and positive behaviors at a glance. Thanks to Pearson, we can make really great decisions based on data that’s not colored by personal opinion. It’s objective.”

Review360 was designed with teachers and administrators in mind so that they could get insight into student behavior through actionable data and connect with key stakeholders, like parents. In fact, according to Brumbaugh, Review360 has had an unexpected benefit: it has opened the lines of communication between teachers and parents with quantifiable information and solutions for in and out of school.

Joselie Horner’s son Caelan attends Tierra del Sol. She reports real change in her son once his class started using Review360. “When he has been frustrated in the past, he would just give up and say, ‘I can’t do this,’ but with Review360 and Mr. Brumbaugh’s encouragement, he is more persistent and successful in his studies.”

After years of receiving negative news about Caelan, Horner is now filled with hope. She knows exactly how she can assist her son and he is finally willing to go to school. No more morning battles. According to Horner, Caelan is now a self-starter who helps others around him. “Review360 is a game-changer for Tierra del Sol and kids like Caelan,” said Brumbaugh. “I have worked in special education for 18 years and have never been more satisfied with what we have accomplished for our kids.”

To learn more about how Review360 can help your school, read here.
 

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This post is part II of our discussion on silent reading fluency. Be sure to read part I: Why is Silent Reading Fluency (SRF) Important?

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