Sped 512: Diagnostic Assessment

WJ-III Practice Administration

Sped 512: Diagnostic Assessment

WJ-III Practice Administration Assignment

(170 points)

CEC standards require that teachers of students with special education needs are competent in administering, reporting and interpreting standardized assessments. This assignment will help you learn to

□  Correctly administer a standardized test of achievement

□  Correctly score a standardized test

□  Learn to analyze and interpret scores

□  Plan interventions from the results of the assessment

You are to administer one practice administrations of the 15 subtests assigned whose combined scores will report scores for the following eight achievement clusters

Subtests Assigned

I.  In Class Practice/Peer Assessee

You will be assigned to a triad. One WJ-III Achievement Assessment kit will be checked out to your triad. Therefore, you will have to carefully plan when you will be administering your practice tests to your student.

During the class “lab” time, each partner will take turns as follows:

1.  Partner A – administer the assigned subtests to Partner B.

2.  Partner B – try to put yourself into the mindset of a 3rd grade student. Provide feedback to your partner.

3.  Partner C – Observe the process. Take notes.

Switch roles until each of you has experienced all three roles. Debrief the process. Consider what was easy, hard, what must you pay close attention to, etc.

II. Scoring

After several class sessions, you will have completed administering each of the assigned subtests. Double check your raw scores. Use Compuscore (in the MISL) to generate a report. Use 68% (default) confidence interval and print profiles of standard score/percentile ranks.

III.  Analyze and Interpret Results

Look at the scores for patterns of strengths and weaknesses. Construct a chart or graph of the scores (see sample below). Write up your findings. Label one section for each of the cluster areas (i.e., Basic Reading, Reading Comprehension, Listening Comprehension, Oral Expression, Math Calculation, Math Reasoning and Written Expression). Write a narrative for each section. Your report must be free of grammatical and/or spelling errors. Capitalize all clusters and subtests. This should be your best work!

WJ-III Academic Report

Name: School:

Sex: DOB:

Grade: Language of Instruction:

Teacher: Examiner:

Test Dates:

I.  Reason for Referral

Identify who referred the student and specific reasons for the referral. Explain the purpose of the evaluation. Be concise. This is usually one short paragraph.

(The reason for referral is the reason for testing. The concerns specified here should guide the areas of assessment.)

II.  Background Information

Describe relevant family and student history including current family/living situation, health/developmental issues, behaviors, community involvement, language(s) used in home and community and familial history of learning/behavioral problems.

III.  Classroom Observation

Describe the students behavior and engagement in a general education setting. Provide the class activity, general tone, tasks assigned and student’s attention, effort, focus and interest.

IV.  Tests Administered

Include the complete names of tests administered and the form or edition followed by the initials or shortened name in parentheses (you then use this abbreviation in the remainder of the report). Include dates for each test. Describe any cautions or limitations regarding validity of scores (e.g., when used with ELL students).

V.  Observations During Testing

Briefly describe the students reaction and responses during testing (attention, motivation, rapport, response style, frustration, persistence). Give specific examples (e.g., Joe kept tapping his feet throughout the assessment process.)

VI.  Results and Interpretation

Begin the assessment results section with a paragraph such as:

XXX was assessed using the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Academic Achievement. This is a standardized assessment that allows comparison of a student’s performance to same-aged peers. Performance is reported in a standard score (SS), with scores between 85 – 115 considered the average range.

Present information by cluster area. Each cluster should be labeled in bold and the subtests within the cluster should be described and the student’s performance given. Give specific examples of what the student did, said etc. For example, John read “land” as “lad.” Make connections between performance and assessment concerns.

Use third person working and remember children are tested in a certain area and on a particular subtest (e.g., John was assessed in Basic Reading. His performance on the Word Attack subtest was in the above average range.)

Basic Reading

XXX was assessed in Basic Reading which is comprised of two subtests: Letter-Word Identification and Word Attack. Both of these require the fluent reading of words in list form. Letter-Word Identification measures an aspect of reading decoding (sight recognition) including reading readiness skills. XX scored within the XX range (SS= XX) which means there are/are no concerns in this area. (If the score is below average, describe the difficulties the student had; what did they miss?) Word Attack measures aspects of phonological and orthographic coding; students read regular nonsense words orally. XXX scored in the XX range (SS = XX) on Word Attack. On the Basic Reading Cluster XX scored within the XX range (SS = XX). Based on these results there are/are no concerns in decoding or fluency skills.

Reading Comprehension

XXX was assessed in Reading Comprehension which is comprised of the two subtests etc.

(NOTE: We will discuss in class that if the two subtests within one cluster are not overlapping bands on the Compuscore print out meaning they are very discrepant from one another, this renders the cluster score meaningless and may require further assessment in the low area.)

VII.  Results Table

Cluster / Standard
Score / Standard
Score
Range / Below, average or above
Oral Expression
Basic Reading
Reading Comprehension
Written Expression
Math Calculation
Math Reasoning
Listening Comprehension
Reading Fluency
Subtests
Letter-word Identification
Word Attack
Reading Fluency
Passage Comprehension
Reading Vocabulary
Understanding Directions
Oral Comprehension
Story Recall
Picture Vocabulary
Calculation
Math Fluency
Applied Problems
Quantitative Concepts
Writing Fluency
Writing Samples

IV. Summary/Conclusion

For the practice administrations, you do not have to include recommendations. Just write a brief summary of your findings that include reasons for referral and how data support the concern or not. Highlight overall strengths and weaknesses.

1

SPED 512