Hayward, Stewart, Phillips, Norris, & Lovell 8

Test Review: Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL)

Name of Test: Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL)
Author(s): Lonigan, C., Wagner, R., Torgesen, J., & Rashotte, C.
Publisher/Year (Please provide original copyright as well as dates of revisions: not published yet
Forms: No Alternate Forms
Age Range: 3 - 5 years
Norming Sample:
Total Number: 842
Number and Age: 212 (3 yr olds); 313 (4 yr olds); 317 (5 yr olds)
Location: 2 states – 4 major US geographical areas to represent U.S. whole (TOPEL closely approximates the U.S. population). The manual provides details.
Demographics: Reported by gender, ethnicity, family income, parents’ education, exceptionality and age.
Rural/Urban: not stated
SES: SES was reported by parental income and parental education levels.
Other: Exceptionalities were reported: learning disorder, articulation disorder, emotional disturbance, hearing impairment, language disorder, Attention-Deficit/hyperactivity disorder, other disability, or multiple disabilities. Although the percentage of the sample in some cases represents the estimated percentage of population from the census (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001) figures, most of these exceptionalities represented less than 1% of the total sample for each exceptionality category (so 8 or fewer children in the sample).
Norming samples were collected in 12 states in the spring, fall, and winter of 2004. Examiners were selected from the Pro-Ed customer base in various states as well as in four larger centers that were selected by the examiners.
Comments: The validity section says that Hispanic American children were either monolingual English or bilingual. When describing children who participated in criterion validity study, all were described as typically developing.
Summary Prepared By: Denyse Hayward (15 January 2007)
Test Description/Overview:
Purpose of Test:
This test has three principal uses:
·  Identify children who likely to have problems learning to read and write (Once identified, the examiner pursues the causes and extents of problems and designs an appropriate intervention).
·  Document progress in early literacy related skills as a result of intervention.
·  Measure early literacy skills in research studies.
Theoretical Model:
There are key skills that represent developmental precursors to learning to read and write based on research literature. Consensus exists that oral language, phonological awareness (PA), and print knowledge serve as cornerstones to learning to read and write. Identifying those children who lack the requisite language arts skills and providing appropriate instruction before they begin formal reading instruction can prevent many reading problems.
Research from NRC Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998) identifies three basic problems (a) understanding and using alphabetic principle to acquiring fluent and accurate reading skills, (b) failure to acquire verbal knowledge and strategies needed for comprehension of written material, and (c) absence or loss of initial motivation to read. The authors concluded that reducing the number of children who enter kindergarten or grade 1 and are deficient in vocabulary, PA, and print knowledge could prevent the majority of cases of early reading failure. The authors cited other studies that agreed with this conclusion, in particular National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) (2006) meta-analysis which concluded that alphabet knowledge and PA are consistently the strongest non-reading correlates for decoding, reading comprehension, and spelling.
Oral language (definitional vocabulary) has substantial correlations with decoding and reading comprehension.
Areas Tested:
·  Oral Language Vocabulary Grammar Narratives Other (Please Specify)
·  Print Knowledge Environmental Print Alphabet Other (Please Specify)
·  Phonological Awareness Segmenting Blending Elision Rhyming Other (Please Specify)
·  Reading Single Word Reading/Decoding Comprehension
·  Spelling Other (Please Specify)
·  Writing Letter Formation Capitalization Punctuation Conventional Structures Word Choice Details Other (Please Specify)
·  Listening Lexical Syntactic Supralinguistic
The rationale for selecting Print Awareness and Phonological Awareness comes from research evidence of the test authors over the past decade. Thus, measure free of floor and ceiling effects + adequate sampling of skills in domains.
The TOPEL is considered a downward extension of Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP).
TOPEL has a broader assessment of print knowledge than is typically provided. It also has measures of alphabet knowledge.
It is unique in that it incorporates quantitative measures of skills reported to be precursors to reading as found in qualitative studies.
The authors used multiple picture choice and free-response format so that knowledge was captured. Correct answers are all real words to make it relevant for young children.
Who can administer: Early school educators, special educators, psychologists, and other diagnosticians may administer the test.
Administration Time: Test administration time is 30 minutes (total test). The authors recommend not using TOPEL more than twice a year.
Comment: There is nothing that evaluates writing in this test even though they say this is a purpose. The research literature used to support the test relates to reading.
Test Administration – General:
The authors recommend five trial administrations by examiner(s) before using the test. The test is administered individually, and uses picture-book style items that child must respond to by pointing or providing oral responses (usually one-word or short phrases).
Test Administration – Subtests: There are 98 items across three subtests:

Subtest 1: Print Knowledge (36 items)

This subtest uses multiple item sets: Set A (items 1-12); Set B (items 13-22); and Set C (items 23-36). Testing begins with Item 1 of each set until ceiling (3 consecutive errors) or until the last item in each set is reached. All sets are administered no manner how poorly a child may do on one set. This subtest is designed to assess knowledge of written language conventions and forms and alphabet knowledge. The child must point to aspects of print and letters, name letters, say sounds associated with letters, and identify letters associated with specific letters.

Subtest 2: Definitional Vocabulary (35 items)

This subtest is a single item set. Examiners begin testing at item 1 and ceiling is reached when the child cannot name the object nor answer questions on 3 consecutive items of last item successfully answered. This subtest assesses single word vocabulary and definitional vocabulary (surface and deep vocabulary knowledge). The child first labels the picture (e.g., What’s this?) then describes one of its important features or attributes (e.g., What do you do with it? What’s it for?).
Definitional Vocabulary fills the gap in available measures of emergent literacy skills.
Vocabulary knowledge of words that students would likely encounter in print when learning to read is assessed.
The subtest format uses single word vocabulary typically used with preschool children and deep vocabulary more strongly associated with later reading skills. Word choice selections are based on high frequency words in early print.

Subtest 3: Phonological Awareness (27 items)

This subtest uses multiple item sets: Set A (items 1-6); Set B (items 7-12); Set C (items 13-18); and Set D (items 19-27). Across both tasks (12 items elision; 15 items blending) a developmental continuum of PA is sampled based on research literature.
Comment: I found the administration of the phonological awareness subtests awkward and also practice items didn’t always match what the child had to do. There is no mention of looking at how children did on multiple-choice versus free-response in manual was given even though they designed items in this manner.
Test Interpretation:
For all ages, examiners can use scores to identify children at risk for literacy problems. The 3 to 4 year olds’ subtest and composite can only be used to identify children performing below peers but not for establishing specific levels below average. For 5 year olds, examiners can use scores to identify specific levels below average.
Comment: This is never discussed again in manual so we are left not certain what they mean by specific levels.
Kids who score above average (> 110) are not likely have problems learning to read and write. Kids who score in the average range (90 – 110) perform like most kids their age. Kids who score below average (< 90) are below the developmental trajectory that predicts success in learning to read and write. Not all children will have problems. The authors gave a list of reasons: limited exposure to printed materials, ESL, intellectual factors, vision, hearing, TBI, and examiner error etc. This test cannot differentiate difference from disorder. The authors gave some examples of the sorts of interventions that could or could not be done for each of the three classifications.
Comment: The authors give a strongly worded warning about test interpretation. Tests may not have good reliability or errors may be made in interpretation. In addition, tests alone should never be used for diagnostic purposes or to plan clinical programs. Other sources of data, such as observation, are also needed for these purposes.
Standardization:
Roids’ continuous norming procedure was used to compute standard scores (Roids is used to fit skewed distributions and to generate percentile norms suggesting skewed or kurtotic distributions for TOPEL). Age-based norms values were estimated at 3 month intervals. The raw scores, percentiles, and standard scores for each subtest composite score combines all 3 subtests into the ‘Early Literacy Index.’
Age equivalent scores Grade equivalent scores Percentiles Standard scores Stanines Other
Reliability:
Internal consistency of Items:
The entire sample, consisting of 3 age groups (3-, 4-, and 5 year olds), was used. Coefficient alphas all round were reported to be .90 or above (range .86 to .96) for subtests and composite scores. SEM was low (range 3-6). The authors therefore conclude that there is a high degree of reliability.
Subgroups identified in the testing were based on gender and ethnicity (European American (EA); African American (AA); and Hispanic American (HA). Coefficient alphas across the three age ranges showed large alphas (range .84 - .97) and were equally reliable across all subgroups so little bias relative to those groups was found.
The authors used Pearson coefficient correlation between item and total score. Their finding was: the test was acceptable with median discriminating power across three age groups and three subtests (range .38 - .66) [.35 or higher are being acceptable] and
median difficulty across three age groups and three subtests (range .20 - .84) [.15 - .85 being acceptable].

Test-retest:

A sample of 45 kids from North Dakota were tested twice within a two week time period (71% female, 95% European American, 5% Hispanic American). There was no detectable practice effect except for the PA subtest (range for all subtest and composite r = .81 - .91).

Inter-rater:

ProEd staff independently scored 30 completed protocols randomly selected from the normative sample across 3 age groups and
reliability was found to be all above .90 (range .96 -. 98) for subtest and composite scores.
Reliability (Other): none
Validity:

Content:

Research indicated that the 3 areas assessed in TOPEL (Print Knowledge, Definitional Vocabulary, and Phonological Awareness) provided unique aspects of early literacy important to predicting later reading skills. The authors used the entire normative sample in testing validity.

Criterion Prediction Validity:

The authors examined correlations between TOPEL means and standard deviation with TERA –3 Alphabet subtest and reading quotient measures; Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT); Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP) elision & blending; and Get Ready to Read. A total of 154 kids were tested, and all but one correlation was large or very large. The TOPEL PA and TERA-3 reading quotient correlation was moderate.

Construct Identification Validity:

The authors examined three areas:
(1)  Age differentiation: early literacy skills are related to experience. Performance on TOPEL should be highly correlated with age. Raw score means were calculated along with SD for TOPEL at three ages, and this was used to calculate correlation with age. Raw scores went up with age on all subtests, with a large-moderate effect size. Comment: Could there be a floor effect for print knowledge for 3 and 4 year olds?
(2) The authors looked at gender and ethnicity. Logistical regression of all items on the test between three dichotomous groups male-female AA (African American), non-AA, HA (Hispanic American), non-HA and effect sizes were calculated. Only 27 comparisons were found to be statistically significant: 20 had negligible effect sizes, 3 had moderate and 4 large effect sizes. The authors concluded that the test was non-biased with regard to gender and ethnicity.
(3) TOPEL should differentiate groups (average or below average) on language skills. Bilingual children would do less well than students who speak English only.
Differential Item Functioning:
HA children categorized into those who were monolingual English speakers (Hispanic American-English) and those who were bilingual (Hispanic American- Bilingual). TOPEL mean scores for each subtest and Composite were within the average range for all groups (male, female, EA, AA, HA-E) but children in HA-B homes performed below average.
Other: none
Summary/Clinical/Diagnostic Usefulness: The usefulness of TOPEL is questionable because tasks are too complex. This test does not measure what it claims to measure.


References

Lonigan, C., Wagner, R., & Torgeson, J. (2007). Test of preschool early literacy. Greenville, SC: Super Duper Publications.

National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) (2006). Report on a synthesis ofearly predictors of reading. Louisville, KY: National Center forFamily Literacy.

Snow, C.E., Burns, M.S., & Griffin, P.(Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children.Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

U.S. Bureau of the Census, (2001). The Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, DC: Author.

To cite this document:

Hayward, D. V., Stewart, G. E., Phillips, L. M., Norris, S. P., & Lovell, M. A. (2008). Test review: Test of preschool early literacy (TOPEL). Language, Phonological Awareness, and Reading Test Directory (pp. 1-8). Edmonton, AB: Canadian Centre for Research on Literacy. Retrieved [insert date] from http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/elementaryed/ccrl.cfm.