Norm scores/percentile rankings guide

What are norm scores and percentile rankings?

Based upon our easyCBM district users' nation-wide, we generate scores from students who've taken on-grade benchmark tests that are administered 3 times a year (fall, winter, and spring). Our progress monitoring scoring guidelines are derived from the number of students who score at or below a particular score on a test. These numbers are based on what is called a 'percentile rank' and indicate the proportion of students at a grade level that your students' scores are equal to or above. In essence, how does your student 'rank' among other students in the same grade?

To know how a student compares to other students in their grade (at one of three benchmark times of year) take a student's score from a measure and compare it to the same measure, grade, and time of year the test was taken. Ideally, a student score should fall at the 50th percentile for them to be considered performing on grade. If they are at the 50th percentile or above, no other testing in that area is needed until the next benchmark testing cycle. If they fall below the 50th percentile, then progress monitoring measures should be implemented.

Where do I find a student score

When students take a test, the program automatically scores and graphs the results in the Reports section under the Individual tab. Click on a student name, go to a graph, then scroll below to the list of CBM names. Here you will be able to view the student test and find the test score.

Rather you took a benchmark (Deluxe) or a progress monitoring test, you look at the total number your student got right and compare it to the scores other students in the same grade and at the same time of year, got in the Progress Monitoring Scoring Guidelines. These guidelines will provide you with a percentile score.

The percentile scores are generated from those students in a nation-wide sample who've taken on-grade measures that are administered 3 times a year (fall, winter, and spring). When you compare your student's total correct score to those students in this nation-wide sample in the Progress Monitoring Scoring Guidelines, you are given the percentage of scores in the national norm sample that are equal to or less than the score your student received.

Where are the progress monitoring scoring guidelines and how do I use them?

The Progress Monitoring Scoring Guidelines are found under the Reports tab on your account dashboard.

If you login to your account and go to the Reports tab you’ll notice two documents for download, located in the upper right hand corner of the gray Reports and Analysis box, called Progress Monitoring Scoring Guidelines and/or the Detailed Norms Table.

Looking at the Progress Monitor Scoring Guidelines, here is how you find the percentile rank ‘goes with’ a particular score:

1. Find the measure you are interested in
2. Find the grade you are interested in
3. Find the "benchmark" season you are interested in
4. Find the "score" you are interested in (4th column in) or the "Percentile" you are interested in and
5. Look up the ‘Percentile" (if you were trying to figure out what specific percentile rank goes with a particular score) or
6. Look up the ‘Score’ (if you were trying to figure out what specific score goes with a particular percentile rank).

In the case of 5th grade student example, who took a 5th grade benchmark Vocabulary measure in the Fall, we take their correct total (15) and compare it to the 5th grade Fall Vocabulary chart in the guidelines. Here our student's score of 15 falls on the cusp of the 50th percentile. Ideally, a student score should fall at the 50th percentile for them to be considered performing on grade. If they are at the 50th percentile or above, no other testing in that area is needed until the next benchmark testing cycle. If they fall below the 50th percentile, then progress monitoring measures should be implemented. In this case you can decide to wait or progress monitor.

How do I determine if a student needs progress monitoring?

To decide if a student needs progress monitoring you will first need to determine if a student is performing on-grade,

The goal of the program is for a student to take a test and receive a score at the 50th percentile or better. This would indicate the student is performing on-grade for the test taken. Students that are performing on or above the 50th percentile need no extra assistance and should not be receiving testing until the next benchmark testing period.

To establish if a student is functioning at grade level, first administer on-grade benchmark tests, or screeners, These tests are only given on-grade (grades K-8) and once during the fall, winter, and spring. If you already know a student is performing below their grade in school, then don't give a benchmark test but instead administer progress monitoring measures.

Scoring at the 50th percentile, or better, at a given time of year, indicates a student is performing on-grade.and needs no extra assistance and should not be receiving testing until the next benchmark testing period. Those students performing below grade should be given progress monitoring measures, along with guided instruction, in order to assist their growth in a given subject area.

The percentile scores are generated from those students, in a nation-wide sample, who've taken on-grade benchmark tests during the fall, winter, and spring. Rather you took a benchmark test (Deluxe) or a progress monitoring one, you look at the total number your student got right and compare it to the scores other students in the same grade, and at the same time of year (Progress Monitoring Scoring Guidelines) received, this will provide you with a percentile score.

How do I know what progress monitoring test to give?

We don’t have one test you can give a student to determine what grade to start progress monitoring, but where to start depends to a great extent on what information you already have on a student.

For instance, if you have a 4th grade student, and you know they are functioning below that grade level, start testing them at the third grade level and go up or down in grades until you find the level of test where a student scores at the 50th percentile. You may have to play around with various tests but eventually you will be able to determine where a student's skill and grade level aptitudes are.

Reading

For reading, there are added considerations in deciding which test to administer. Reading measures have skill sets that stair-step up in difficulty beginning with the fundamentals of reading: Letter Names, Phoneme Segmenting, Letter Sounds, and progressing up to the more difficult skills of Word Reading Fluency, Passage Reading Fluency, and the hardest of all, Basic and Proficient Reading. A student might possibly do better in higher grades of basic reading skills but need to drop down to lower grades on the more difficult skill sets. You are not only trying to determine where their knowledge lies but also their ability to read and understand words and sentences.

In literacy, if the upper skills sets of proficient and basic reading, vocabulary, and passage reading fluency are proving to be too difficult for a student, drop down not only the grade but also the skill set difficulty to word reading fluency and if reading words is too difficult, then go to the building blocks of phoneme segmenting, letter names and letter sounds.

The goal is twofold, to determine what underlying skill deficit might be leading to the student’s “not proficient” score and to identify the appropriate measure to use to monitor the student’s improving skill as they receives targeted intervention/instruction aimed at addressing those skill deficits.

In all cases, the teacher needs to assist the student in moving up to the most challenging grade-level tests they can, as quickly as they can, but each student’s trajectory is likely to be slightly different (it will depend on their level of initial skill/underlying skill deficits; the intensity of intervention provided to him/her; his/her ability to benefit from that particular intervention [as well as motivation to improve]; attendance [a student must be present to benefit from instruction, etc.).

How to interpret student performance

Both the raw score and percentile rank are important when interpreting students’ performance.

While student growth can be observed by increases in raw scores over time, and this would demonstrate improvement, other students are also growing their knowledge and skills.

Raw scores usually go up over time. But much of this growth is usually due to students learning with their teachers. Thus, if raw scores are going up (improving) for a given student, but their performances relative to their peers (i.e., their percentile ranks) remain low or nearly flat then they are falling further and further behind their grade-level peers who are continuing to grow.

In other words, raw scores can often go up giving the appearance of meaningful growth, when we “know” that the growth is not enough because it is quite low relative to their grade-level peers. Raw scores don’t really tell you that much unless you also look at the percentile ranks.  Some growth over the course of the year is expected, but you need to check the percentile ranks to see if the growth that students made was actually steeper than the growth made by same-grade peers over that time period.

This is the reason that both raw scores and percentile ranks must be considered to interpret student performance.

Additional Information: In general, the goal is to have students performing at the 50th percentile (or gray line on graph) in their given grade at a given time of the year (Fall, Winter, Spring benchmarks). Students who score at or above the 50th percentile do not need further testing until the next benchmark testing period. Those that score below the 50th percentile are indicating further testing, along with guided instruction from the teacher, in order to improve their raw/percentile scores.

Raw scores show an individual students' growth over time. For students performing below their peers both raw and percentile scores, their rate of growth needs to be higher in order to catch up to the average, or 50th percentile (which is the goal).

For significant student growth, a more intensive progress monitoring approach is necessary:

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