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Teachers,

Murray County School will be using Easy CBM's for progress monitoring for RTI/MTSS purposes.  Below is an overview of Easy CBM that includes teacher guidance.   

EasyCBM® was designed by researchers at the University of Oregon as an integral part of an RTI (Response to Intervention) model. From the start, developers have emphasized the goal of the system: to help facilitate good instructional decision-making. . The assessments on the system are what is known as curriculum-based measures (CBMs). CBMs are standardized measures that sample from a year’s worth of curriculum to assess the degree to which students have mastered the skills and knowledge deemed critical at each grade level.   At each grade level, alternate forms of each measure type are designed to be of equivalent difficulty, so as teachers monitor student progress over time, changes in score reflect changes in student skill rather than changes in the test forms.

 

The reading tests include measures of Alphabetic Principle (Phoneme Segmenting, Letter Names), Phonics (Letter Sounds), Fluency (Word Reading Fluency, Passage Reading Fluency), Vocabulary, and Comprehension (Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension). These measures are based on the “Big Five” from the National Reading Panel. 

 

What if I Don’t See Student Growth?

A lack of growth could have several causes. Each of the different forms of each measure is designed to be of equivalent difficulty, so teachers would expect to see growth from one test administration to the next if students are, indeed, making growth. . For instance, for teachers looking at 3rd grade students, if the Word Reading Fluency tests are too easy, move to the Passage Reading Fluency measures. If the Passage Reading Fluency measures are too easy, teachers can move to the Comprehension measures. It's likely that the Comprehension measures are going to be pretty challenging – they're designed to be the most challenging of all the measures at each grade level. So, if teachers are specifically not seeing any growth on those measures, it's important to keep in mind that a jump of 1 or 2 points would actually be pretty significant on that particular test.  Sometimes, students have bad days/good days... sometimes students may be more interested in the passage being read, etc.  It may be that the students have not actually made any more progress in the skill area a particular test is designed to measure... they wouldn't really be expected to unless their classroom experiences were focusing on those skills. In the case of the Word and Passage Reading Fluency measures, classroom instruction/curriculum that emphasizes increasing students' oral reading fluency skills should result in increased scores on these measures. If, however, instruction has focused on building understanding of literary devices or elements of literature, a growth in fluency would not be expected. 

Why are the Reading Comprehension Measures so Long?

The comprehension measures on easyCBM represent the most challenging of the reading measures available on our system. They are intended to be used with students who are already reading at or above grade-level fluency standards. Students who are not yet fluent readers would be more appropriately assessed using the PRF measures. Because we wanted to go beyond literal comprehension (which is simple to assess with very short passages), we needed to make the stories long and complex enough to allow for the deeper thinking involved in inferential and evaluative comprehension. Shorter passages, although appealing to many teachers, would not allow for the depth of questions we needed to include so the measures would be useful for students working on higher order comprehension skills. Because of their length, however, we recommend that people limit the frequency with which they administer the comprehension measures to once every 3 to 4 weeks. 

 

How Often Should We Assess?

How often teachers assess students depends on two key questions: How quickly is it reasonable for teachers to expect to see growth in a particular skill area and how much actual intervention has the student received? Measures such as Letter Names, Phoneme Segmenting, and Letter Sounds can be given more frequently – perhaps as often as every week or two – because students are able to make rapid progress in these skill areas when they are receiving in-depth interventions to help accelerate their learning. easyCBM Teachers’ Manual 15 © 2015 University of Oregon Other measures, such as Word and Passage Reading Fluency, are assessing skill areas that take longer for students to improve. We recommend testing no more often than every other week with these measure types. 


SCHOOLinSITES
Murray County Schools
P. O. Box 40
1006 Green Road
Chatsworth, GA 30705
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