Woodcock Johnson IV (WJ-IV)
The WJ-IV is a cluster of subtests designed to measure academic achievement. It provides statements regarding a person’s predicted performance in three areas of achievement (reading, mathematics, and written language) and makes age and/or grade-level comparisons of predicted and actual achievement within these domains. Cluster scores are derived from the administration of certain subtests, and they provide broad measures of achievement.
Test of Early Reading Ability (Tera) and Test of Early Mathematics Ability (Tema)
The Test of Early Reading Ability, 3rd Edition (TERA-3) is a measure of reading ability for children ages 3.6 to 8.6 years. It assesses early developing or emerging reading skills. Percentile ranks show where (Student) falls relative to other students. The Test of Early Mathematics Ability, 3rd Edition (TEMA-3) is an individually administered norm-referenced measure of early mathematical ability for children ages 3.0 through 10.11. It provides a comprehensive assessment of basic skills in math.
Young Children’s Achievement Test (YCAT)
The YCAT measures achievement levels of preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade children in the areas of: general information, reading, mathematics, writing, and spoken language. It can be administered to children between the ages of 4 years, 0 months and 7 years, 11 months. The YCAT is designed to quantify the early academic achievement levels of children by comparing their performance with that of their age-mates through the use of a norm-referenced early academic ability instrument.
Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (KTEA)
The KTEA assesses students current basic academic, reading, written language, oral language, and mathematics.
Assessments used to Guide Instruction
Qualitative Reading Inventory- 6th Edition (QRI)
This is an informal reading assessment that provides information about student oral reading accuracy, rate of reading, and comprehension of passage read orally and silently. The QRI assesses a child’s reading level with graded word lists and numerous passages. It ranges from pre-primer to high school level.
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP)
The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP) is a criterion-referenced assessment used to track skills and assist in educational planning for children with autism and language delays. It assesses a student’s verbal, language acquisition, and learning skills that are impacting them. The VB-MAPP Milestones Assessment is designed to provide a representative sample of the child’s existing verbal and related skills. The assessment contains 170 measurable learning and language milestones that are sequenced and balanced across three developmental levels (0-18 months, 18-30 months, and 30-48 months).
VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment — provides an assessment of 24 common learning and language acquisition barriers faced by children with autism or other developmental disabilities. The barriers include behavior problems, instructional control, defective mands, defective tacts, defective echoic, defective imitation, defective visual perception and matching-to-sample, defective listener skills, defective intraverbal, defective social skills, prompt dependency, scrolling, defective scanning, defective conditional discriminations, failure to generalize, weak motivators, response requirement weakens the motivators, reinforcer dependency, self-stimulation, defective articulation, obsessive-compulsive behavior, hyperactive behavior, failure to make eye contact, and sensory defensiveness. By identifying these barriers, the clinician can develop specific intervention strategies to help overcome these problems, which can lead to more effective learning.
Brigance
- The Inventory of Early Development III – Early Childhood Edition consists of more than 100 assessments that cover a broad array of skills and behaviors in these key early learning and development domains of physical development, language development, literacy, mathematics, science, daily living, and social/emotional development. Assessments in the IED III align to many established sets of early learning and state standards and are commonly used following screening to get a more in-depth understanding of a child’s skill mastery. It assists early childhood professionals with identifying strengths and needs, evaluating school readiness, planning for individualized instruction, and writing instructional objectives.
- The BRIGANCE Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills (CIBS) is a comprehensive assessment for students in grades K-9 and contains over 400 tests for reading/ELA and mathematics. The assessment is aligned with state and national standards and can be used for monitoring progress, providing ongoing assessment, and writing IEPs. The CIBS offers both criterion-referenced and norm-referenced measures.
- The BRIGANCE® Transition Skills Inventory (TSI), combines some of the features of the BRIGANCE® Life Skills Inventory (LSI) and the BRIGANCE® Employability Skills Inventory (ESI), with additional content to best address transition planning needs. It includes hundreds of in-depth assessments of job-oriented, academic, and functional life skills in the context of employment, post-secondary education, and real-world situations and community participation skills to help students transition to post-school activities. The assessments cover a broad range of skills that include pre-employment/functionalwriting, career awareness, job-seeking, post-secondary opportunities, functional reading, speaking and listening, math, money/finance, technology, housing, food/clothing, health, travel/transportation, and community resources.
Statewide Testing
Virginia Alternative Assessment Program (VAAP)
This assessment is designed to evaluate the performance of students with significant cognitive disabilities. These students are working on academic standards that have been reduced in complexity and depth. The content is derived from the Standards of Learning (SOL) and is referred to as the Aligned Standards of Learning (ASOL) for students in grade three through twelve. For elementary and middle school students, they are required to submit evidence in the same subject areas as required of their non-disabled peers in the same grade level. For high school students, they are required to submit evidence in reading, writing, mathematics, science, history/social sciences by the end of their completion of grade 11.
Progress Tracking
IEP Progress Reports
These reports share with parents/IEP teams information about a student’s progress toward reaching their IEP goals throughout the school year. Progress reports are provided at least as often as parents are informed of the progress of children without disabilities. Progress reports will include a progress code and a brief, data-based statement describing the student’s progress towards mastery. If a student is not making progress on their IEP goals, the team should reconvene and make changes as needed.
Direct Instruction Programs
With Formal and Informal Mastery Checks for Understanding
Reading Mastery
This program is used as a complete basal reading program that uses direct instruction method to master decoding and comprehension skills. It emphasizes teaching thinking skills and helping students acquire background knowledge. Program materials include fully scripted lessons to guide teachers through carefully constructed instructional steps – modeling new content, providing guided practice, offering individualized practice and applying skills. Utilizes a special orthography designed to assist students identify letter sounds-Special font is later phased out and replaced with traditional orthography.
Connecting Math Concepts
Connecting Math Concepts curriculum is an explicit, research-proven approach for teaching critical math concepts. Connecting Math Concepts combines facts, procedures, conceptual understanding, applications, and problem-solving skills to provide a comprehensive approach for students. Students learn to understand math by making connections among related math topics, procedures, and knowledge.
Language! Fourth Edition
This program is used as a This program is an intensive, comprehensive literacy curriculum for students in grades 4-12 who are substantially below grade-level expectation. Each lesson has 6 stems: phonemic awareness and phonics, word recognition and spelling, vocabulary and morphology, grammar and usage, listening and reading comprehension, and speaking and writing.
Corrective Reading
The decoding strand helps students who have trouble identifying words, who don’t understand how arrangement of letters in a word relates to its pronunciation, and whose reading rate is inadequate. The comprehension strand helps readers who do not follow instructions well, lack vocabulary and background knowledge needed to understand what they read, and have poor thinking skills.
Moving with Math
This program is a research-based program using manipulatives and the concrete-representational-abstract instructional method.
Number Worlds
This program is a highly-engaging, research-proven, teacher-led math program that brings math-challenged PreK–8 students up to grade level with Real World Applications.
Edmark
This program is a sight word based reading program that is systematic, highly repetitive, and works on comprehension concretely. It is recommended for developmental disabilities, autism, struggling with phonics, and non-readers.
Unique Learning
This program is an online, interactive, standards-based curriculum specifically designed for exceptional education students. Each unit contains special education lesson plans and interactive materials that teachers can implement into classroom learning activities.
Wilson
This program is used as an intensive Tier 3 reading and spelling program for students in grades 2-12 and adults in the lowest 30th percentile with decoding and spelling deficits. It is an interactive and multisensory language instruction, requiring students to use visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile senses to reinforce skills learned and engage motor memory. WRS presents the language system of English in a systematic, sequential, and cumulative manner over the course of 12 Steps. Steps 1-6 of the program provide consistent patterns to establish a solid foundation of word knowledge, including the first four syllable types, multisyllabic words, and suffixes with unchanging base words. Steps 7-12 teach more complex concepts including spelling options, advanced spelling rules, and morphology, including sound options, contractions, r-controlled syllables, “D” syllables, adding suffixes to changing base words, and other advanced language structure concepts.
Institute for Multi-Sensory Education (IMSE)
This program is an Orton-Gillingham approach involving multi-sensory strategies, which involve a three part drill on blending, letter sounds, and vowel intensive. Student’s progress through concepts at a diagnostic and prescriptive individualized pace. Instruction is based on assessment and is not scripted but is direct and explicit based on student need.
