There are four literacy assessments used at Bullimbal School to determine literacy goals and progress.
Bridge Observational Schedule for Students with Complex Needs
Bridge observational Schedule for Students with Complex Needs, (Adapted by Erin Sheldon, M Ed, from The BRIDGE, an observational portfolio rating scale by Pierce, Summer, O’DeKirk, 2005). The Bridge is used as part of the emergent literacy assessment tools. It is only used when the emergent literacy assessment has been attempted and no useful data was gathered or the student did not respond.
Emergent Literacy Assessment
This assessment consists of three assessment tools: This assessment consists of three assessment tools:
1. Concepts About Print (Clay, 2000)
2. Letter Identification task (Clendon & Erickson, 2004)
3. Writing sample assessed using the Developmental Writing Scale (Sturm, Cali, Nelson & Staskowski, 2012)
Transitional Literacy Assessment
This assessment consists of 9 tasks:
1. Letter Sound Identification (from Clendon & Erickson, 2004)
2. Concept of Word with the Katie book
3. Word recognition of basal words via reading
4. Concept of Word with My Home book
5. Phonological Awareness in Rhyme Detection & Phoneme Matching (Gillon, 2005)
6. Phoneme Awareness via spelling
7. Word recognition of decodable words via reading
8. Comprehension with I like animals and I want (Farrall 2015)
9. Developmental Writing Scale (Sturm et al 2012)
These tasks are from different sources:
* Concept of Word tasks, word recognition tasks and phoneme awareness task from Morris, D. (1998) Assessing printed word knowledge in beginning readers: The Early Reading Screening Instrument (ERSI). Illinois Reading Council Journal, 26(2), 30 – 39.
* The Letter Sound task is from Clendon & Erickson (2004), Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds
* The Phonological Awareness Probes are from Gillon, G. (2005). Phonological Awareness Assessment Probes. Retrieved from http://www.education.canterbury.ac.nz/people/gillon/PA%20Assessment%20probe%20instructions.pdf
* The Comprehension tasks were written by Farrall (2015) Jane Farrall Consulting www.janefarrall.com
* The writing task uses Sturm, J., Cali, K., Nelson, N.W., & Staskowski, M. (2012). The Developmental Writing Scale: A new progress monitoring tool for beginning writers. Topics in Language Disorders, 32(4), 297 – 318.
Conventional Literacy Assessment
This assessment uses the Whole-To-Part model to determine what is holding each student back from reading with comprehension at one grade level higher. The assessment is developed by the Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies and consists of four tasks. The first three tasks use the Basic Reading Inventory (Johns, 2012) as the source for word lists and passages.
The four tasks are:
1. Word Identification
2. Listening Comprehension
3. Reading Comprehension
* Writing sample. The writing task uses Sturm, J., Cali, K., Nelson, N.W., & Staskowski, M. (2012). The Developmental Writing Scale: A new progress monitoring tool for beginning writers. Topics in Language Disorders, 32(4), 297 – 318.
Individual Student Assessments
The students’ assessments enable the setting of appropriate goals, which need to be added to the each student’s Personalised Learning and Support Plan.
Overall School Literacy Data
Individual and whole school data is captured throughout the school year to inform teaching and learning programs.