Assessment Updates

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Dear Families,

We are committed to providing your children with high-quality instruction, anchored in evidenced based practices, that lead to academic progress and success.

One way we monitor progress is through a universal assessment in both literacy and mathematics. The Framingham Public Schools uses the tool "i-Ready" as this Universal Assessment to benchmark student progress in grades 1-8 three times per year, and in Kindergarten two times per year.

Fall Assessments

• Grades 1-8: September 18 - October 20
• Kindergarten: October 23- November 17

Winter Assessments

• Grades 1-8: January 15 - February 14

Spring Assessments

• Kindergarten-Grade 8: May 12 - June 12

Each school determines the testing schedule within the designated window.

Our teachers have many ways to check your child’s reading development and growth, including an early literacy universal screening assessment. These assessments are brief tests that provide information about your child’s early reading skills.

Screening makes it possible to see if a student is at risk of developing reading difficulties, including risk of dyslexia. Screening does not diagnose dyslexia or other disabilities, but it does help us understand which students may need additional support to be successful readers. We are required to assess students in grades K-3 at least twice per year consistent with Massachusetts regulation 603 CMR 28.03(1)(f). The goal of early universal literacy screening in Massachusetts is to determine if a student is significantly below relevant benchmarks for age-typical development in specific literacy skills. The regulation requires action steps by the school when students have a screening result that is significantly below relevant benchmarks for age typical development.

Our district uses a screening assessment called iReady. It is one of several screening assessments approved by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Your child will be assessed two or three times during the school year, depending on grade level. It typically takes 30-60 minutes to complete this assessment, and the tentative schedule for this school year is shown above.

Following the screening assessment, a team at each school will review all students’ results. If your child scores “significantly below benchmarks,” we will contact you within 30 school days of testing, to outline how we can support your child.

Please reach out if you would like additional information.

• For questions about the early literacy universal screening, contact the Office of Teaching and Learning.
• For questions about your child’s testing results, contact your child’s teacher.

Screening is another step that helps students at our school become proficient readers, and we are grateful for the continued support and partnership.

What is i-Ready?

i-Ready is an online program that will help us determine your child’s strengths and areas for growth, personalize their learning, and monitor their progress throughout the school year. i-Ready allows us to meet your child where they are and provides us with data to inform instruction.

The i-Ready Diagnostic is an adaptive assessment that adjusts its questions based on student responses. Each item a student receives is based on their answer to the previous question. For example, a series of correct answers will result in slightly harder questions, while a series of incorrect answers will yield slightly easier ones. The purpose of this is not to give your child a score or grade but to determine how to best support their learning.

When will my child take the i-Ready Diagnostic?

Each grade and school has a planned schedule within the Assessment timeframes listed above. To best support your student following the tips below, please feel free to talk with your child(ren) or reach out to their teachers to find out their scheduled Assessment dates.

What can I do to help?

To help prepare your child for the i-Ready Diagnostic, encourage them to:

• Get a good night’s sleep and eat a full breakfast the day of the assessment.
• Try their best on each question and try not to rush.
• Try not to worry about questions to which they do not know the answers—remind them to try their best as this is an assessment that tests on the end of year grade level standards.
• Be respectful of other students who take longer to finish.

What is the Istation ISIP and why is my student taking it?

Istation ISIP Español is an adaptive Spanish language arts assessment designed to accurately reflect the reading level of each student and to measure growth over time. Students in Spanish-English Dual Language Bilingual Education programs take the assessment three times per year to measure their Spanish literacy performance and growth.

Test questions range from easy to hard for each reading domain, as shown in the table below, based on pre-K through grade 6 Spanish reading language arts standards. To identify the student's overall reading ability and individual skill ability, the difficulty of the test questions presented changes with every response. If a student answers questions correctly, ISIP Español presents more challenging questions until the student shows mastery or responds with an incorrect answer. When a student answers a question incorrectly, ISIP Español will present less difficult questions until the student begins answering correctly again. The ability score shows how a student is doing compared to their previous performance and to other students at the same grade level.

Once ISIP Español determines the difficulty level at which the student is able to perform, the test ends and the student is assigned an overall reading ability index, as well as ability indices for individual subtests. Since ISIP is adaptive and the test questions are displayed based on student performance, not age or grade, identical ability indices across grades mean the same thing. For example, a first grader who receives a score of 215 and a third grader who receives a score of 215 are performing at the same level. Like measuring a child’s height, measurements are added together to get class, school, and district averages. Ability indices make it possible to track a student’s growth from year to year. This ability index can be used by teachers to inform instruction around their students' strengths and weaknesses. Targeted instruction leads to better performance and maximum growth.

The ISIP Español assessment will be administered during the month of February.

Grades K-5 complete a reading comprehension assessment and a writing assessment using Elefante Letrado. Based on the assessments, students are assigned a letter as a score. Each letter corresponds to a grade-based proficiency level, which are described in the table below.

Level 1:

1st year (aa A B C)

Reader is in the appropriation process of the alphabetical system but requires support from a literate person to be able to understand short texts of familiar genre with simple vocabulary and carry out the proposed tasks. Reader is able to do pseudo-readings, guided by illustrations or global form of words or text. Knows how to identify the subject, explicit information and the purpose of familiar textual genres.

Level 2:

1st and 2nd years (D E F G H I J)

Readers demonstrate a certain autonomy in reading by having already mastered the alphabetical system and being able to carry out individualized readings of familiar genre texts, with understanding beyond identifying the subject, the explicit statements, and the purpose of the text. Makes some inferences and establishes relationships between parties, text (beginning and end), or illustrations.

Level 3:

2nd and 3rd years (K L M N O P Q R)

Reader with greater autonomy for reading longer texts of different genres. AND is able to understand the text beyond the aspects found on the textual surface. Does more complex inferences, which allow a more global understanding of the text. Infers meanings of words and expressions in context. Establishes causal relationships and

consequences.

Level 4:

4th and 5th years (S T U V W X)

Reader with more reading experience that allows the mobilization of strategies for a more complex understanding of text in order to establish relationships between the different parts. The reader is capable of identifying effects on mood, distinguish a fact from an opinion, recognize speaker, the interlocutor of the text, and highlight the different ways of treating the

information in comparison with texts of the same theme.

Level 5:

5th year (Y Z)

Considered an advanced level of proficiency in reading in the case of students up to 11 years old. Includes a reader with abilities and competence that are less common to the age group

focused on the platform. Some children in however, can demonstrate a more

dynamic reading process – reader/text/author –, with regard to production of meaningful texts with much greater complexity, whether in terms of theme, genre and the vocabulary used.