Assessment & Research

Overview

There are two types of Acadience assessments: Acadience Literacy, which measures early reading skills, and Acadience Math, which measures early numeracy skills. Acadience consists of short individual subtests. Each subtest focuses on a specific early reading or math skill, and it takes only a few minutes to complete. The number of subtests students take depends on grade level. Students in the primary grades (kindergarten, first grade, second grade) may take as many as nine short subtests across both reading and math. Students in the intermediate grades (third, fourth, fifth, sixth) will have five or fewer subtests.

 Acadience Literacy - Early Reading Skills

Phonemic Awareness: Hearing and distinguishing sounds in spoken words

Alphabetic Principle: Knowing the sounds of the letters and sounding out written words

Accurate and Fluent Reading: Reading stories and other materials easily and quickly with few mistakes

Vocabulary: Understanding and using a variety of words

Comprehension: Understanding what is spoken or read

 Acadience Math - Early Math Skills

Early Numeracy: Identifying numbers, discriminate between quantities, and counting skills.

Computation: Demonstrating fluency in addition and subtraction in primary grade levels and addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in later grade levels.

Concepts and Applications: Applying numeracy skills to realistic or cross-curricular situations and combining multiple numeracy skills to exhibit higher-level math skills.

Use of Acadience Results

Each Acadience subtest is an indicator of how well a child is doing in learning a particular early reading skill. It is like taking a person’s temperature and blood pressure to evaluate his or her overall health. A child’s score on a subtest tells us whether the child is likely to be “on track” for reading at grade level, or whether that child may need some help in learning important reading skills. For example, the results may indicate to the teacher that they need to spend more time teaching your child how to “sound out” unknown words. Along with the Acadience score, students may have one of three performance levels: Benchmark (on track), Below Benchmark, or Well Below Benchmark.

Early identification of students needing additional help and monitoring their progress toward becoming successful readers is the primary purpose of the DIBELS assessments.

Additional information: https://acadiencelearning.org.

myIGDIs are similar to the Acadience measures in that they consist of a series of short assessments for early literacy and early math skills. myIGDIs are administered only at the PreK level two to three times per year.

Overview

The MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) is a computerized adaptive assessment measures a student’s instructional level in the areas of reading and mathematics. The MAP is computer-adaptive, which means that it adjusts the difficulty of the questions to the student’s level. For instance, if a student answers a question correctly, the next question will be more difficult. If the student answers incorrectly, the next question will be easier. The MAP continues in this manner to find student’s instructional level. The test is designed so that every student will answer approximately half the items correctly and half incorrectly by the time they reach the end of the test.

The MAP contains an immense bank of items so that a student may never see a question more than one time, and students seated in the same room will each see a unique test. Each item is linked to a specific concept or skill and to an instructional level. The items range in difficulty from early elementary to the college level. The NWEA MAP typically takes approximately 60 minutes to complete per subject.

Understanding the Results

NWEA MAP provides a national percentile rank and a score called RIT. On some reports, NWEA provides additional information to teachers including information regarding whether a student is on track to meeting the Readiness Benchmarks on the ACT and whether a student is on track to meeting a certain performance level on the Kansas Assessment. The reading results include a Lexile score, which can be used to help parents and teachers choose appropriate level of reading materials for their students.

Students may take a slightly different version of the MAP depending on grade level as each version access a different portion of NWEA’s test banks. For instance, students in Grade 1 take the Growth K-2 test, which includes many items that utilize a computerized voice for students who are not reading independently yet. The RIT score and percentile rankings have the same meaning across all versions of MAP.

RIT - The RIT is a scale that links skills and concepts to a difficulty level. The scale ranges from 100 to 300. Skills at the RIT level of 200 are more difficult than skills associated with the RIT level of 195. Similarly, students with the same RIT score have the same instructional level regardless of their grade levels. This means that the RIT is well suited for measuring student growth across multiple years.

 Percentile – The percentile given by the MAP report shows how a student’s RIT score compares to all other students in the nation who completed the MAP at that grade level. A student at the 70^th percentile in grade 4 in the spring scored higher than 70% of all 4^th grade students in the nation who completed MAP in the spring.

Additional information: www.nwea.org

Additional information about Lexile: www.lexile.com

Like NWEA MAP, the iReady Diagnostic Assessment is a computerized adaptive assessment that measures a student’s instructional level. iReady is integrated into the district's core resource for mathematics in grades K-8. Many of the online components of this resource are customized based on the student's iReady assessment scores.

The iReady is computer-adaptive, which means that it adjusts the difficulty of the questions to the student’s level. For instance, if a student answers a question correctly, the next question will be more difficult. If the student answers incorrectly, the next question will be easier. The assessment continues in this manner to find student’s instructional level. The test is designed so that every student will answer approximately half the items correctly and half incorrectly by the time they reach the end of the test.

iReady contains an immense bank of items so that a student may never see a question more than one time, and students seated in the same room will each see a unique test. The iReady Diagnostic Assessment typically takes approximately 60 minutes to complete.

Overview

The Kansas Assessment Program (KAP) consist of computerized tests in English language arts (ELA), mathematics, and science. The test content aligns with the Kansas Curricular Standards. The tests are designed by the Achievement and Assessment Institute housed at the University of Kansas. The Kansas Assessment Program meets federal and state requirements for accreditation and accountability. All schools in the state are required to administer the Kansas Assessments as a condition for being fully accredited.

Results from the Kansas State Assessments inform students, their schools, and their guardians whether students are meeting the standards set by the Kansas State Board of Education.  The results serve as one of multiple measures that may indicate whether students are on track for future academic or work-ready success.

Additional information can be found HERE.

Additional KAP Assessments

The Kansas Assessment Program also includes the Kansas English Language Proficiency Assessment (KELPA). The KELPA is used to measure English language acquisition for students whose first language is something other than English. When students score at the Fluent level on the KELPA in the areas of Speaking, Reading, Listening, and Writing, they are exited from English Language Learner supports and monitoring.

The ACT is a standardized test used by college admissions officers and scholarship-granting organizations to compare applicants from different schools and different states.  The test is offered several times throughout the school year.  Typically, high school juniors and seniors take the ACT. However, students at other grade levels and even adult students can register.

Students must designate their high school as a score recipient when registering for the scores to be reported back to the school. 70-80% of SMSD graduates take the ACT at least once.

Beginning in 2019, the Kansas State Legislature voted to provide a state-funded opportunity for 11th grade students to take the ACT at no cost. This opportunity is offered in late February or first week in March. Sign-up for this opportunity begins in November. Please check with your high school counselor for more information.

 

 

Shawnee Mission students may participate in a number of other assessments that provide academic feedback. Most are offered at the high school level and are selected or recommended based on a student’s postsecondary plans. For most of the assessments listed below, students are responsible for registering and paying the registration fee.**  Fee waiver and fee reduction programs are available for most of these tests, and specific details are available on their respective websites.

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The PSAT/NMSQT is standardized test created by the College Board.  The test is offered annually on a single day in mid-October.  The PSAT provides feedback to students, parents, and teachers on a student’s academic progress toward post-secondary success.  One aspect of that feedback includes recommendations for which Advanced Placement courses a student is likely to be successful.  The PSAT is an excellent primer for the SAT and ACT. 

Juniors can sign up to take the PSAT for a small fee.  Juniors who participate in the PSAT also compete for National Merit Scholar honors. Sophomores are also invited to participate in the PSAT.

Shawnee Mission School District does not send PSAT scores to colleges.  Colleges will receive PSAT scores only when students opt-in to the college search services when they register for the PSAT.

PSAT – Preliminary SAT / NMSQT – National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test

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Like with the ACT, the SAT is a standardized test used by college admissions officers and scholarship-granting organizations to compare applicants from different schools and different states.

Students must designate their high school as a score recipient when registering for the scores to be reported back to the school. Fewer than 5% of SMSD graduates take the SAT.

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Advanced Placement (AP) Exams

The CollegeBoard® oversees and maintains the Advanced Placement (AP) program. Students have opportunities to participate in AP examinations at the culmination of AP coursework in May. Colleges and universities award credit based on student scores. Details regarding minimum scores and amount of credit earned varies by college and tested subject. The CollegeBoard website includes information regarding the score needed to earn credit for coursework at various colleges and universities.

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International Baccalaureate (IB) Exams

The International Baccalaureate program provides high school students the option to engage in IB courses individually with the certificate candidate option or through enrollment in the full IB Diploma Programme.  Students in the IB program complete internal examinations embedded within the course curriculum and external examinations completed at the culmination of the coursework in May.

Colleges and universities award college credit based on student scores. Details regarding minimum scores and amount of credit earned varies by college and tested subject.  Some universities award a block of credit or advanced standing for completion of the IB Diploma. Visit the registrar’s page for the college or university of interest to gather information regarding the score needed to earn credit for coursework at various colleges/universities.

                                           IB SM Northwest HS                                  IB SM East HS