Subtest
Administration Grade Levels
Description
Listening Comprehension
(Grades PK–12)
2 subtest components:
Receptive Vocabulary: Measures a student’s listening vocabulary. The student points to the picture that best illustrates the meaning of each word he or she hears.
Oral Discourse Comprehension: Measures a student’s ability to make inferences about, and remember details from, oral sentences and discourse. The student listens to sentences and passages and orally responds to comprehension questions.
Early Reading Skills
(Grades PK–3)
Measures several areas deemed important for developing reading skills: naming letters, letter-sound correspondence (alphabetic principle), phonological awareness, and word reading comprehension. The student names letters of the alphabet, identifies and generates rhyming words, identifies words with the same beginning and ending sounds, blends sounds, matches sounds with letters and letter blends, and matches written words with pictures that illustrate their meaning.
Reading Comprehension
(Grades 1–12)
Measures untimed reading comprehension of various types of text, including fictional stories, informational text, advertisements, and how-to passages. The student may read passages aloud or silently. After each passage, the student orally responds to literal and inferential comprehension questions that are read aloud by the examiner. Select the value from the combo box indicating which item set the examinee completed.
The X's indicate which item sets are intended for which grades (i.e., The grade 1 item set is intended for 1st grade).
The yellow highlighting indicates which grades can take each item set. Generally, examinees can go three item sets below the item set intended for their grade. Examiners should not administer an item set above the one intended for the examinee's grade.
Math Problem Solving
(Grades PK–12)
Measures untimed math problem-solving skills in the following domains: basic concepts, everyday applications, geometry, and algebra. The student provides oral and pointing responses.
Alphabet Writing Fluency
(Grades PK–3)
Measures a student’s ability to write letters of the alphabet within a 30-second time limit. The student may write letters in any order, in cursive or print, in upper- or lower-case.
Sentence Composition
(Grades 1-12)
2 subtest components:
Sentence Combining: Measures sentence formulation skills and written syntactic maturity. The student combines two or three sentences into one sentence that preserves the meaning of the original sentences.
Sentence Building: Measures sentence formulation skills and written syntactic ability. For each item, the student is asked to write one sentence that uses a target word with appropriate context.
Word Reading
(Grades 1-12)
Measures speed and accuracy of de-contextualized word recognition. The student reads aloud from a list of words that increase in difficulty. The list of words is read without a time limit. The examiner records the student’s progress after 30 seconds and continues administration until the discontinue rule is met or the last item is administered.
Grammar and Mechanics
(Grades 3-12)
The Raw Score (CIWS) is calculated by subtracting the incorrect value from the correct value. This field may contain a negative value.
Essay Composition
(Theme Development and Text Organization)
(Grades 3–12)
Measures spontaneous, compositional writing skills within a 10-minute time limit.
Within the Essay Composition section, raw scores may be entered for each subtest component, or the Information icon to the right of the field can be clicked to open the Scoring Guide. The Information icon for each component is linked to the appropriate location within the Scoring Guide (e.g., if the Paragraphs Information icon is clicked, the Scoring Guide will open to the Paragraphs section). The Reasons Why score should always be higher than the Elaborations score.
Score display only fields are calculated by the Raw Scores entered for their component parts. For Correct/Incorrect Word Sequences (CIWS), the value is calculated by subtracting the incorrect value from the correct value. Negative values may display in this field.
Pseudoword Decoding
(Grades 1–12)
Measures a student’s ability to decode nonsense words. The student reads aloud from a list of pseudowords that increase in difficulty. The list of pseudowords is read without a time limit. The examiner records the student’s progress after 30 seconds and continues administration until the discontinue rule is met or the last item is administered.
Numerical Operations
(Grades K–12)
Measures untimed, written math calculation skills in the following domains: basic skills, basic operations with integers, geometry, algebra, and calculus.
Oral Expression
(Grades PK–12)
3 subtest components:
Expressive Vocabulary: Measures a student’s speaking vocabulary (and word retrieval ability). The student says the word that best corresponds to a given picture and definition.
Oral Word Fluency: Measures a student’s efficiency of word retrieval (how easily he or she can produce words) and flexibility of thought processes. The student names as many things as possible belonging to a given category (i.e., animals, colors) within 60 seconds.
Sentence Repetition: Measures oral syntactic knowledge and short-term memory. The student listens to sentences that increase in length and complexity and repeats each sentence verbatim.
Oral Reading Fluency
(Grades 1–12)
Measures speed, accuracy, fluency, and prosody of contextualized oral reading. The student reads passages aloud, and then orally responds to comprehension questions after each passage to encourage reading for meaning (comprehension performance is not scored quantitatively). Fluency is calculated as the average number of words read correctly per minute. A qualitative scale is completed by the examiner to assess the student’s reading prosody.
The X's indicate which item sets are intended for which grades (i.e., A-B is intended for 1st grade).
The yellow highlighting indicates which grades can take each item set. Generally, examinees can go 2 item sets below the item set intended for their grade. They can never do an item set above the one intended for their grade.
Passage 1: The Passage 1 section is enabled once a value is selected from the Oral Reading Fluency combo box. The values in Passage 1 are determined by the selected Item Set. If Item Set G-H is selected, the section text will apply to Passage G. Completion Time [also referred to as Oral Reading Time (ORT)] is entered in seconds.
Passage 2: The Passage 2 section is enabled once a value is selected from the Oral Reading Fluency combo box. The values in Passage 1 are determined by the selected Item Set. If Item Set G-H is selected, the section text will apply to Passage H. Completion Time [also referred to as Oral Reading Time (ORT)] is entered in seconds.
Fluency, Accuracy, and Rate Raw Scores: These fields are calculated and displayed from the Passage (Completion Time, Addition Errors, and Other Errors) groups of the Oral Reading Fluency sections. These fields may contain a negative value.
Formula for calculating scores for Fluency and Accuracy:
OROEtot = OROE (passage 1) + OROE (passage 2) |
Other Errors |
ORAEtot = ORAE (passage 1) + ORAE (passage 2) |
Addition Errors |
ORTtot = ORT (passage 1) + ORT (passage 2) |
Time/Rate |
ORWtot = ORW (passage 1) + ORW (passage 2) |
Word Count/Constant |
ORF = [(ORWtot - OROEtot)/ORTtot]*60 |
Oral Reading Fluency |
ACC = [ORWtot - (ORAEtot + OROEtot)] |
Accuracy |
Rates are calculated in seconds. Minimums and maximums are listed below:
Grade |
Oral Reading Time (ORT) |
Rate |
1 |
A 1-1500 B 1-1500 |
A-B 2 to 3000 |
2 |
C 1-1500 D 1-1500 |
C-D 2 to 3000 |
3 |
E 1-1500 F 1-1500 |
E-F 2 to 3000 |
4 |
G 1-1500 H 1-1500 |
G-H 2 to 3000 |
5 |
I 1-1500 J 1-1500 |
I-J 2 to 3000 |
6 |
K 1-1500 L 1-1500 |
K-L 2 to 3000 |
7-8 |
M 1-1500 N 1-1500 |
M-N 2 to 3000 |
9-12 |
O 1-1500 P 1-1500 |
O-P 2 to 3000 |
Spelling
(Grades K–12)
Measures written spelling of letter sounds and single words. The student hears each letter sound within the context of a word, and each word within the context of a sentence, and then the student writes the target letter sound or word.
Math Fluency—Addition
(Grades 1–12)
Measures the speed and accuracy of a student’s math (addition) calculations. The student solves written addition problems within a 60-second time limit.
Math Fluency—Subtraction
(Grades 1–12)
Measures the speed and accuracy of a student’s math (subtraction) calculations. The student solves written subtraction problems within a 60-second time limit.
Math Fluency—Multiplication
(Grades 3–12)
Measures the speed and accuracy of a student’s math (multiplication) calculations. The student solves written multiplication problems within a 60-second time limit.