Testing Frequency

Our system is set-up to test a student's knowledge, in a given subject, to help determine areas of weakness where a student needs further assistance. Once a deficit is identified (performing below the 50th percentile), we suggest teachers give that student guided instruction in order to improve growth in that area. The number of measures, and frequency of testing, was established to provide for what is a best practice timeline for growth and improvement to occur.

Along with a set number of tests, which align to the frequency of testing, our system only lets a student take a measure once. This is due to re-taking a test likely giving an artificially-inflated score due to familiarity with the material. This results in a higher score based more on practice than on actual improvement in knowledge and skill).

Because of certain testing needs, we understand some schools and states may require more frequent testing than we recommend. Below we list our testing recommendations followed by how to do repeat testing.

Testing recommendations

How often teachers assess students depends on two key questions:

1. How quickly is it reasonable for teachers to expect to see growth in a particular skill area and
2. How much actual intervention has the student received?

In all cases, of course, it is important that the student is actually receiving focused instruction to address their skill deficits if teachers hope to see an improvement in their performance over time. The more difficult the skill being tested, the longer the time should be between testing as students need to receive targeted instruction in order to help them improve their skills.

READING

1. 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
2. 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.
3. Vocabulary and both Basic and Proficient Reading, we recommend testing no more frequently than every 3 to 4 weeks.

MATH

For all math measures, we recommend testing no more frequently than every 3 to 4 weeks.