About Spanish measures

The Spanish measures for grades K-8 are available through the Teacher Deluxe and District versions of easyCBM. For math, there are Spanish translations and read aloud items for all grades. For reading, the measures available on easyCBM are as follows:

The Spanish measures were developed specifically to be appropriate for assessing students receiving literacy instruction in Spanish and are authentic Spanish literacy measures rather than translations of English measures. They represent unique measures developed and edited specifically by native Spanish speakers.

The easyCBM Spanish language measures (with the exception of the Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) measures are not simply translations of the easyCBM English language measures, but rather tested a variety of Spanish language early literacy measure types to determine which would be the most predictive of later reading proficiency and found that -- unlike in English language measures -- Letter Names, Letter Sounds, and Phoneme Segmenting did not predict later reading. However, Syllable Sounds and Syllable Segmenting DID predict later reading (as did Spanish Word and Sentence Reading fluency). For the upper grades, we offer a Spanish language vocabulary assessment which -- by design -- is a test of students' reading comprehension as well as their vocabulary knowledge.

We also offer all our math tests in both English and Spanish language, with both English and Spanish audio read-aloud for all math items that require reading. The Spanish language measures are not included on the free Teacher Lite Edition simply because they were developed several years after the grant funding that underwrote the cost of developing that version of easyCBM ended. Although we applied for a number of grants to allow us to expand the system to include Spanish language assessments, no federal funds were ever granted for that purpose. Because we believed strongly that it was important to provide Spanish language assessments, we personally (as in from personal bank accounts, not university, state, or federal funds) underwrote the cost of developing and piloting the Spanish language measures. We're excited to be able to offer them to all easyCBM users with a Teacher Deluxe or District account and always appreciate it when they are used.

All the math measures are automatically available in Spanish or English language versions. Once you activate the Spanish literacy measures, you'll have Spanish Syllable Segmenting, Spanish Syllable Sounds, Spanish Word Reading Fluency, and Spanish Sentence Reading Fluency (these last two are both Oral Reading Fluency measures) for the primary grades (K-2). In addition, for grades 2-8, you'll have access to Spanish vocabulary measures (which also assess reading comprehension due to the way they were designed).

These measures are components of both the Benchmark and Progress Monitoring assessments. Each of the Spanish literacy measure types includes three Benchmark and ten progress-monitoring forms for kindergarten through grade 8. The specific test types offered are based on three years of research at the University of Oregon to identify and develop CBMs specifically addressing the ways in which Spanish literacy develops.