Academic Assessment Report

Student Information

Name: Claire Burns

Date of Birth: 9/15/2006
Language(s): Spanish at home, English at school
CELDT Scores: Tested overall as intermediate
Disabilit(ies): Specific learning disability - a processing deficit, in long term storage and
retrieval skills. This affects her progress in both math and writing.

Dates of Evaluation: Classroom Observation (2/2/18), Student Interview (2/12/18), Teacher

Interview (2/27/18), Criterion-referenced Assessment (3/6/18 & 3/20/18), Work Sample (3/8/18),
Norm-referenced Formal Assessment (3/12/18 & 3/14/18), Family Interview received back
(3/8/18).

Age: 11 years, 6 months old

Grade: Grade 6
Examiner: Mackenzie Kaiser

Instruments used in Assessment:

● Norm-referenced Formal Assessment: Woodcock-Johnson-IV (WJ-IV) is a norm-
referenced test for the ages 2-90+, that measures reading, written language, mathematics
and academic knowledge.
● Criterion-referenced Assessment: EasyCBM is a criterion referenced assessment with
various measures in literacy and mathematics.
● Work Sample: Personal Narrative Graphic Organizer
● Teacher Interview: Teacher Interview on 2/27/18 with Claire’s ELA teacher.
● Student Interview: (2/12/18) Interview with Claire.
● Family Interview: Received questionnaire back on 3/8/18.
● Classroom observations: (ELA, 9:30am, 2/2/18) Personal observation in ELA class.

Health Records:
● Hearing Date: 5/3/2017 (pass)
● Vision Date: 7/7/2017 (pass)
● Other: There are no other health concerns reported.

Student Background
Educational History:
Claire is 11 years old, in the sixth grade. Claire began special education services on 6/29/2015.
Claire’s classroom experience has been in a General Education class with specialized academic
instruction. Claire is a kinesthetic learner and learns best through a combination of seeing, and
hearing the information and when she is given the opportunity to use manipulatives.

Family Interview:
A questionnaire was sent home to Claire’s parents in attempt to get to know Claire better
academically and socially. After about a week and a half this was returned back to me in class.
Her father ended up filling out the questionnaire in spanish and I was able to get it translated.
When asked what he thinks would help his child succeed in school he responded that she needs
to pay attention more and not get distracted as easily. He talked about her strengths being both
english and math subjects, although I was looking more for strengths about her as a person.
Outside of school, the father explained how she enjoys playing soccer and hanging out with
friends as she is a very social girl. Areas of growth that he has seen academically is in both
english and math. Socially, he has seen her make a lot of friends. Some areas that he would like
to see more growth in are science and PE. When asked if there is anything else we should know
to better understand his child he responded with, “no”.

Educator Interview:
According to the ELA teacher, Claire is a sweet girl who is well liked by her peers. She noted
that Claire is self aware and has been advocating for herself more consistently by asking for help.
She also mentioned that Claire is both curious and interested in the discussions that take place in
class and eager to learn. She also has a strong confidence. Academically, math and vocabulary
are both potential areas of growth. Claire would benefit from more at home reading to help
increase her vocabulary.

Student Interview:
Claire stated that her favorite subject in school is English because she feels that she learns more
about life in this class. According to Claire, when she grows up she would like to be a teacher so
that she can “teach children all that she has learned throughout her years”. Claire’s favorite thing
about herself is her artwork. Outside of school, Claire enjoys hanging out with her friends, and
going to the beach. The one person she looks up to the most is her grandfather. He passed away
about a year ago but she has so many great memories with him. Overall, Claire is loving the sixth
grade compared to elementary school because they do much more fun activities.

Classroom Observations:
While observing Claire in her ELA class, I watched as the students filed in and Claire almost
immediately befriended the new student in class by sitting down next to her and explaining what
the classroom routine was. Claire did this on her own without being asked to do so by the
teacher. I also observed Claire to be very active in group discussion after the audio reading of the
book in class. She came across as very knowledgeable to what was happening in the story and
was contributing great information. I did however note a few things that could affect the
student’s learning. Claire seems to be distracted quite easily. For example, chewing on her
eraser, playing with the led in her mechanical pencil, and staring off into space rather than
writing on her paper.

Cultural Responsiveness:
There was a great effort made in getting to know Claire and building a relationship. This had a
huge impact in developing positive attitudes throughout the semester. It was also important to
use alternative assessments in the forms of interviews, observations, informal and curriculum-
based measure, and nonstandardized tests. By taking the time to learn about Claire, who she is,
where she came from, and what her interests are, I only created a more positive experience
overall for administering assessments.

Results

Woodcock-Johnson-IV (WJ-IV)
EasyCBM
On a reading comprehension measure, using a third grade reading level, Claire answered 13 out
of 20 reading comprehension questions correctly, resulting in 65% accuracy. On passage
fluency, Claire performed at 98% accuracy on both probes at the third grade reading level. On
word reading fluency, Claire performed at 96% and 94% accuracy on the two probes at the third
grade level.

Work Sample

Reasoning: I chose the following work sample because Claire’s ELA instructor described how
she has difficulty with writing conditions such as spelling, grammar and capitalization as well as
organizing her thoughts on paper. Claire does a great job of brainstorming and coming up with
ideas and details. However, from there she can have difficulty organizing her thoughts in a way
that it flows from one sentence to the next. This sample also shows the effort and great detail that
Claire is coming up with along with her understanding of an introduction and ending to writing a
short story.

Directions: Claire was asked to choose one happy time in her life to write about in greater detail
and to include an introduction, three supporting details, and an ending. We reviewed what a
strong introduction and ending includes before she began writing as well as a reminder to use
transition words between sentences.

Qualitative Observations
Claire seems to be very focused and interested in class until a peer distracts her (as per classroom
observation and teacher interview). Rarely does Claire initiate it herself, however, she can easily
be disrupted by classmates as overall she is a very social girl. In unstructured class time, Claire is
easily distracted and chatty with her classmates and often needs to be redirected to get back on
task. During assessments, Claire remained very on task. As passage comprehension became
more difficult on the WJ-IV, Claire became slightly frustrated and would respond “I don’t get it”
instead of attempting to answer. During calculation subtests, she would count on her fingers for
many of the problems. Claire solved initial problems quickly with no observed difficulties but
demonstrated less automaticity with the latter items. Throughout the easyCBM probes, Claire
remained extremely focused and completed them all efficiently without any distractions.

Strengths

One of Claire’s strengths is her letter-word identification. On the WJ-IV, she read words
like “sphere”, “contrary”, “thoroughfare”, and “rhetoric” quickly and easily. Also on the WJ-IV,
Claire’s RPI of 78/90 indicates on similar tasks, in which the average sixth-grade student would
demonstrate 90% proficiency, Claire would demonstrate 78% proficiency. Claire’s knowledge of
letter-word identification is average. The words she got wrong were words including letter
combinations that she was unfamiliar with such as “milieu”, “minuend”, “heuristic”, and
“silhouette”. There seems to be a pattern with words including the vowel pair “eu” that Claire is
unfamiliar with. Although she paused at one moment to say “these words are crazy!” she still
made a strong attempt. In the EasyCBM, Claire performed with 96% accuracy on the first probe
and 94% accuracy on the second probe.
Another one of her strengths is word attack. Claire received a standard score of 98 which
qualifies her as very superior in this subtest of the WJ-IV. Aside from a couple of words like
“wreet" and “quade,” where Claire instead sounded out “wret” and “cwad”, Claire did not start
missing many words until after she was reading words past her grade level. Claire’s RPI of 88/90
on the word attack indicates that on similar tasks, in which the average sixth-grade student would
demonstrate 90% proficiency, Clair would demonstrate 88% of proficiency. Claire’s knowledge
of word attack is average. In the EasyCBM, she received 98% accuracy on both reading fluency
probes. On the first probe she read “partner” instead of “parents” and on the second she read
“are” instead of “were”.
Claire was also able to stay extremely on task throughout the duration of the assessments.
She maintained focus throughout the subtests with the occasional tapping of the leg or pen which
still never seemed to take her off task. Even when she would make humorous remarks like “these
words are crazy!” she would continue with her best attempt. She made a strong effort and held a
great attitude from beginning to end even when the subtest was increasing in difficulty. In the
EasyCBM, Claire completed all probes efficiently with little to no distraction. I did not need to
redirect her once. In the writing sample, Claire was so quick to start brainstorming ideas and was
excited to begin writing about her chosen happy time.

Areas of Growth

One area of growth for Claire is passage comprehension. Claire had some difficulty in the
passage comprehension section of the Woodcock Johnson IV. Claire’s RPI of 21/90 on the
passage comprehension indicates on similar tasks, in which the average sixth-grade student
would demonstrate 90% proficiency, Claire would demonstrate 21% proficiency. Claire’s
knowledge of passage comprehension is very limited. After the problems became noticeably
more difficult, Claire would stop attempting to answer and respond “I don’t get it”. Claire
seemed to have very limited understanding of age-appropriate comprehension questions. Claire’s
score of 65% on the easyCBM reading comprehension also demonstrated a lack of understanding
of the passage read. Claire seems to have trouble with literal questions. For example, she
struggled with questions like, “How did the story end” and “What was the first thing chrissy did
when she knew there was a cat in the yard”. These are both questions where she could have
pulled the answers directly from the text.
Another area of growth for Claire is calculation. On the calculation section of the
Woodcock Johnson IV, Claire’s RPI of 26/90 indicates on similar tasks, in which the average
sixth-grade student would demonstrate 90% proficiency, Claire would demonstrate 26%
proficiency. Claire’s knowledge of calculation is very limited. As the problems grew
increasingly difficult, Claire stopped and said “I don’t understand”. It was when the problems
started including fractions that she became slightly frustrated and unwilling to continue with the
subtest.
A final area of growth for Claire is spelling. Claire had some difficulty in the spelling
section of the Woodcock Johnson IV. Claire’s RPI of 46/90 on the spelling section indicates that
on similar tasks, in which the average sixth-grade student would demonstrate 90% proficiency,
Claire would demonstrate 46% proficiency. Claire’s knowledge of spelling is limited. Claire’s
work sample also demonstrated a lack of spelling, capitalization and grammar knowledge. Most
of her sentences did not begin with a capital letter, and the letter “I” was spelled as “i”
throughout the entire page. Claire also had one to two spelling errors per sentence. For example
she spelled “waching” instead of “watching”, “granpa” instead of “grandpa”, and “allways”
instead of “always”.

Suggested IEP Goals

Reading Comprehension Goal: By March 12, 2019 when given a sixth grade level reading
passage, Claire will be able to correctly locate, in text, information to support and answer 10
reading comprehension questions with 80% accuracy with support from a teacher or
paraprofessional as measured by teacher created assessments. (RI.6.1)

Calculation Goal: By March 12, 2019 when given a sixth grade level, teacher made calculation
worksheet containing 15 problems with a combination of adding, subtracting, and multiplication
of fractions, Claire will be able to correctly answer all questions using only paper and pencil,
with 80% accuracy with support from a teacher or paraprofessional. (6.NS.A.1)

Spelling Goal: By March 12, 2019 when given a sixth grade level narrative writing assignment,
Claire will be able to write 8-10 sentences including correct spelling, grammar, and
capitalization accurately with two or fewer errors with support from a teacher or
paraprofessional, as measured by teacher created assessments. (W.6.5)

Progress Monitoring

For monitoring Claire’s progress I will use curriculum-based measurement tools to

collect and analyze data to help towards creating her educational goals. For her reading
comprehension goal, Claire will work weekly to read and answer questions in English using
grade level text. Claire’s instructor will give weekly probes, created by the teacher, on the text
using the three levels of comprehension questions, literal, inferential and evaluative. The
instructor will be responsible for transferring Claire’s answers onto a google doc, which is shared
with the members of the IEP team, at the end of every week. Claire’s responses will be graphed
in the google doc to indicate how well she answers each type of question. Members of the IEP
team will analyze the document monthly to decipher if there needs to be any edits to the goals.
For her calculation goal, Claire will work weekly to solve problems in Math using grade
level fraction problems. Claire’s instructor will provide weekly worksheets, created by the
teacher, on the addition, subtraction, and multiplication of fractions. The math instructor will be
responsible for documenting Claire’s answers onto a google doc. The responses will be graphed
in the google doc, to indicate how well she is answering the different types of fraction problems.
The results will be updated onto the google doc weekly and shared with all members of the IEP
team. Once a month the team will meet to analyze the document and decipher if there needs to be
any edits to the goal.
 For her spelling goal, Claire will submit one written paragraph (5-7 sentences) weekly in
her English class. Claire’s ELA instructor will provide the weekly prompt for Claire to base her
paragraph around. The instructor will be responsible for analyzing her writing sample in the
areas of correct spelling, grammar, and capitalization at the current grade level. The ELA
instructor is responsible for taking notes on Claire’s work sample each week and adding into the
dedicated student writing file, located in the instructor’s locked filing cabinet in the classroom.
Once a month the members of the IEP team will come together to analyze the month’s worth of
writing samples and instructor’s notes to analyze Claire’s work and decipher if there needs to be
any edits to the goal.

Collaboration

In efforts to maintain successful collaboration with Claire’s family, there will be a digital
progress report emailed to them every Friday by Claire’s instructor. This will provide her family
with an update on what Claire has worked on over the week and any progress that has been
made. It will also include areas of concern, if any. Claire’s family will be able fill in the
comments/questions section of this report and email back to CLaire’s instructor if they find
necessary.
To ensure that collaboration is being maintained with the school speech pathologist and
occupational therapist, they will send an agenda for what they will be working on with Claire at
the beginning of every month. This way all members of the IEP team are on the same page and
we can figure out how to help each other throughout the weeks in order to meet the needs of
Claire. Once a month, the IEP team is to review Claire’s progress and decide if there is a need to
alter any goals.
To best support Claire’s academic, behavioral and functional success, Claire’s instructor
will meet with Claire’s general education teacher once a week to make sure Claire is on track
with her educational goals, as well as behaving appropriately in class. Claire’s instructor will
also provide Claire with a self survey every Friday, asking her to rate her own performance in
school that week in regards to her academic effort and behavior. This will provide the instructor
a chance to touch base and connect with Claire while holding her accountable at the same time.
Once a month the IEP team will review progress and voice any questions and/or concerns the
team may have about Claire to ensure everyone stays on the same page.

Reflection on the Assessment Process

Reflecting on my assessment process with Claire, I feel good about the work that was
accomplished. The area I felt particularly confident in was my relationship with Claire. Through
our classroom interactions and interview, I feel we built a strong foundation where she trusted
me and felt comfortable throughout all of the assessments that were administered. I also felt that
I allowed myself a good amount of time to practice the WJ-IV prior to administering it to Claire.
I felt this helped me get the flow of the test down, as well as familiarize myself with the
instructions. Although I felt quite comfortable for my first time administering, I think I could
continue to look this over in effort to perfect the process so it flows smoothly between each
subtest.
I did make the mistake of printing out the test scoring booklet and stapling together only
after quickly skimming through. I did not catch that the last two scoring pages for the oral
reading subtest did not print and therefore that threw me off a bit and I had to quickly refocus on
Claire’s responses and record it on the blank page. Moving forward, I will make sure to confirm
all of my scoring and testing booklets are completely accurate and in order, and that I have all
the materials necessary before administering the test. Looking back, I also could have focused on
different EasyCBM assessments that would better help support Claire’s area of growth. I had
trouble supporting a couple of her areas of growth because I did not have enough data outside of
her WJ-IV results. In the future I need to dedicate more time to analyzing the student’s areas of
strength and growth so I can better determine which assessment categories will be most
beneficial and useful in figuring out ways to support the child’s needs.
In the future, I would like to build more of a connection with the child’s family. I was
only able to have Claire’s parent fill out a survey that was sent home. Moving forward I would
like to do my best to meet with her family in person or at least speak with them on the phone. I
felt I had built a strong connection with Claire, but I think it would have been beneficial to learn
more about her through her family as well as make them feel as they are a big part in this
process, as they truly are.
For support in the future, I would like to speak with the speech pathologist to confirm
what is being done on their end and make sure we are a true team on the same page. I also think
we would be able to help each other out in different ways. For example, if I ran out of time to
administer an EasyCBM probe one week, maybe the speech pathologist would have time in their
session with Claire that week.
Overall, I am glad I put in the time to practice the WJ-IV on friends and family as I feel
this was extremely helpful and gave me confidence going into it. With that being said, I think
there is always room for improvement and to become more and more familiar with the testing
process to ensure it is a relaxed and smooth experience for the child. I feel there is a lot of
pressure on the teacher to be prepared and to perform each assessment with fidelity as that is our
job, therefore we must always do the work on our end to keep up to date and comfortable with
the assessments we are administering. I also learned how important and helpful it is to build that
foundation with the student as that seemed to have made such a positive impact on this
assessment process overall. I look forward to build on what I have learned thus far and to
continue to grow into a better assessor and teacher!