aimswebPlus

Universal benchmarking

Universal benchmarking, also known as interim assessment, makes it possible to accurately measure student and classroom performance in reading and mathematics. These standards-based measures are designed to evaluate essential knowledge and skills as efficiently as possible.

Key Principles:

• Manage the entire fall, winter, and spring assessment cycle
• Identify students at risk for dyslexia or social-behavioral issues
• Compare math and reading performance to grade level expectations
• Build student and classroom profiles of strengths and weaknesses to tailor instruction and instructional groupings

Dyslexia screening

Our partnership with Shaywitz DyslexiaScreen™ offers an evidence-based, teacher-friendly observational rating scale for grades K–3. It is intended for mass screenings to sort students quickly — those at risk and those not at risk for dyslexia. The data can be used to set direction for intervention and instructional planning for all students, and a ready-to-use handout gives parents and caregivers ideas for supporting at-risk students outside school.

Key Principles:

• Documentation of educator ratings and concerns that show evidence of dyslexia risk
• Reliable and valid, norm-based student performance ratings that support educator observations
• Multiple measures that support best practice in screening and assessment
• Universally screen, identify risk, progress monitor, and report results in one seamless system

Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN)

RAN measures are increasingly common in state-level requirements for dyslexia screening programs. RAN is a highly sensitive construct to reading outcomes. While two aimswebPlus measures, Letter Naming Fleuncy (LNF) and Number Naming Fluency (NNF), may also tap into RAN skills, they can be confounded by knowledge of letters and numbers. The RAN measures include Objects as well as Colors & Shapes for more general RAN screening.

Key Principles:

• RAN has been a common measurement construct for decades.
• RAN measures underlying cognitive skill, rather than achievement.
• Comparing LNF/NNF performance to non-academic tasks allows a deeper understanding of RAN in a student.
• Use as a universal or targeted additional measure for more insight into student capabilities.

Writing Assessment and Intervention

From a young age, students begin learning the fundamentals of writing, starting with the basics of correct sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation. Being a GOOD writer, however, entails more than the mastery of basic writing skills. It requires the writer to organize thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and facts in a way that will both engage the reader and perhaps even influence their own way of thinking on the topic. aimswebPlus hosts WriteToLearn for ongoing writing assessment and intervention for all students or a subset of students.

Key Principles:

• 75% of 8th and 12th grade students are not proficient in writing (NAEP).
• WriteToLearn builds writing skills and reading comprehension in grades 4–12.
• Automated scoring and feedback lighten a teacher’s load and increase the number of graded writing opportunities.
• Embedded support tools (e.g., translated instructions, text-to-speech) benefit struggling readers, writers, and English learners.

Progress monitoring

Progress monitoring enables more frequent assessment to track individualized goal growth and documents each student’s response to instructional changes. CBM measures are regularly delivered to provide continuous student progress data.

Key Principles:

• Brief, standardized, and reliable
• Sensitive to growth that occurs over relatively short intervals
• Available in multiple equivalent forms to reduce practice effects on retesting
• Easy to administer and score, allowing it to be used accurately by a wide range of education professionals

Behavior screening

The BASC™-3 Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BESS) offers a comprehensive, digital system within a benchmark assessment like aimswebPlus that requires just 2 to 4 minutes per student and 60 to 90 minutes for an entire class. The results are available immediately within the aimswebPlus platform.

Key Principles:

• Documentation of educator ratings and observations that evaluate students’ behavior and emotional skills
• Reliable and valid, norms-based student performance ratings that support educator observations
• Universally screen, monitor progress, and report results in one seamless system
• Quick administration with evidence-based results

Social-Emotional Learning

Everyone wins when students’ negative behavior decreases and their learning opportunities and academic achievement increase. However, a deficit in any of the five key social-emotional skills ― self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision making ― can lead to behavior and emotional difficulties, as well as less involvement in academics. The comprehensive SSIS-SEL behavior rating forms assess student strengths and improvement areas across five SEL and three academic competencies.

Key Principles:

• Fully CASEL-aligned
• Teacher, Parent, and Student Forms
• Integrated with the SSIS-SEL Edition Classwide Intervention Program
• Useful as a universal or targeted additional measure for more insight into student capabilities

Integrated Technology: Administration, Scoring, and Reporting

aimswebPlus provides comprehensive reporting for each screening and monitoring component. Each report highlights both performance and progress, enabling educators to make informed decisions about students and instruction. Reports include data for students, classrooms, grades, schools, and districts, as well as student norms at the national, state, and district level. Student reports can be generated in either HTML or PDF format and can be filtered to display the precise data needed. The level of information available in each report is based on the user’s role and access level. Parent-friendly screening and progress monitoring results are also available.

Key Principles:

• Accurately identify at-risk students and learning gaps in key skill areas.
• Monitor and report individual and group growth, and group students based on instructional need.
• Support dual-discrepancy and special ed evaluations.
• Identify students at risk for not meeting end-of-year grade level targets.
• Quickly evaluate the effectiveness of interventions for individuals and groups.

Is a calculator needed for aimswebPlus Math Concepts and Applications?

Students will never need to bring a calculator, nor will teachers ever need to provide one.

Starting in Fall 2022, students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade will see some questions where a digital calculator will be provided in the testing application (TestNav). The calculator will not be provided for all questions; the calculator will only be provided for questions aimed at seeing if the student understands an advanced mathematical concept. There are many questions designed to see if students, especially in lower grades, can calculate a solution accurately with only a pencil and scratch paper. For more advanced concepts like permutations, probability, and factorials we want the question to measure, “Does the student understand how to set up the equation?” Or “Do they understand the logic of a word problem?” It's for these kinds of questions that we enable the calculator, so the student is more likely to get the question right or wrong based on their mathematical understanding, and not because of an accidental arithmetic error.

What is CAT?

CAT stands for Computer-Adaptive Test.

The Adaptive part means that it is a test that adapts to student responses. The list of questions on the test is not set when the test starts. Instead, there is a large bank of items of varying difficulty. Using a starting point on the item difficulty scale, the test starts with an item at that level. For aimswebPlus tests we start at a relatively easy level. When the student answers the question correctly or incorrectly, the CAT will choose the next item from the bank using that information.

To learn more about the CAT, please read the CAT FAQ