Test Administration

Our system is set-up as a tool to test a student's knowledge in a given area and then help to determine areas of weakness where a student needs further assistance. A student is considered on-grade when they are performing at the 50th percentile. Those students functioning above the 50th percentile should only be tested 3 times a year during the benchmark testing periods.

Once a test is given, and a deficit is determined, then we suggest teachers give guided instruction in those weak areas in order to help build and reinforce a student's knowledge base.

The easyCBM system only lets a student take a test once because the retaking of a test will likely give an artificially-inflated score due to familiarity with the material. This is likely to result in a higher score that is based more on practice than on actual actual improvement in knowledge and skill.

When taking a test a student can start, leave, and even come back and finish an online test later. Once a student logs back on, the test will pick up where the student left off.

Progress Monitoring

The Progress Monitoring Basic Math tests usually take about 13-15 minutes for students to complete though the timing of math tests is left up to the teacher. Timing of the test is whatever the teacher decides, it’s just important that the teacher be consistent. For Basic Reading tests, timing of the test is also whatever the teacher decides, but in general students are able to finish in about 20 minutes. The Proficient Reading tests normally require about 25-30 minutes for second graders and 30-45 minutes for 3rd-8th graders to complete.

Benchmark Tests

We recommend that the Benchmark assessments be administered following a standardized timing protocol, such that all students taking the tests have approximately the same amount of time to complete them. Of course, if a student’s IEP stipulates that they should receive extended time for testing, they should be granted that extra time to complete their easyCBM tests as well.

Generally speaking, we recommend allotting 15 minutes for the Vocabulary tests, 20-30 minutes for the Basic Reading tests, 45 minutes for the Proficient Reading tests, and 30 minutes for the Basic and Proficient Math tests.

Reading;

Letter Names, Phoneme Segmenting, and Letter Sounds can be given 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

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.

Vocabulary and both Basic and Proficient Reading, we recommend testing no more frequently than every 3 to 4 weeks.

Math:

Math Measures, we recommend testing no more frequently than every 3 to 4 weeks.