I don't know how much latitude you are given in your choice of a test, 
but this seems like a perfect opportunity create your own instrument 
that is criterion referenced, which would be so much more informative 
and useful in guiding instruction than a norm referenced test like TABE.

Let me guess and say that basically you want to know how much each 
student progresses as a result of instruction. You need to define the 
areas where you want to see progress. Hopefully they will be the same 
things you'll be working on during instruction. Maybe you will want to 
measure things like word identification, reading fluency, comprehension, 
and maybe grade level. You might choose to ask students to read a graded 
list of words before instruction and after instruction to see if they 
improved their word i.d. skills. You could time their reading of a 
passage to measure fluency. You could ask them questions about the 
passage to gauge their comprehension. For determining grade level, you 
might use an accepted method, such as the Fry Readability Table, to 
determine the grade level of a passage. Then you would ask the student 
to read the passage while you check for accuracy and comprehension. To 
measure progress, you could determine the highest level passage at which 
the reader is proficient, both before and after instruction. 
Alternatively, you could give the student a higher level passage and 
determine his or her proficiency with it. Often, proficiency is gauged 
as Independent, Instructional, or Frustrational. At the beginning of 
instruction your testing might say, "reads 4th grade material at the 
frustrational level." After instruction, your testing might say, "Reads 
4th grade material at the instructional level."

The problem with standardized tests used for this purpose is that they 
really are not able to show how a person progresses. They are designed 
to show how a person's performance compares to others in the same peer 
group. These tests don't answer the question, what can the student do, 
what does the student know? They are only a comparison (i.e. the student 
knows more than some percentage of his or her peers).

Creating your own test might be somewhat more work than the effort you 
place in choosing a standardized test. It is worth the investment, 
however, because you can target your measurements precisely at the 
things you teach your students. You will be more likely to show student 
gains because you're measuring exactly what you're teaching and what 
your students are learning. With a standardized test, it is the 
publisher who chooses what shall be measured, and you will need to 
target your instruction to the same material if you want to be able to 
show gains. If you're doing the teaching, then you should be the ones 
who have control over how you measure what is learned.

Tom Woods
Community High School of Vermont



PHCSJean.34425698 at bloglines.com wrote:


>Hi all.

>Does anyone out there have a test that can be used to measure improvement

>in the lowest literacy learners? I'm looking at a grant that wants to see

>learners move from one EFL (educational functioning level) to another in the

>course of a year. I'm working with pre-literate adult immigrants and I'm not

>sure that we'll be able to get from Beginning ABE Literacy (no reading) to

>Beginning Basic Education which is defined as "Individual can read simple

>material on familiar subjects and comprehend simple and compound sentences

>in single or linked paragraphs containing a familiar vocabulary; can write

>simple notes and messages on familiar situations but lacks clarity and focus."

>

>

>When I inquired about it, I was told that I should look to document grwoth

>with another assessment. TABE is below 367 at this level, CASAS is 200 and

>below and ABLE at 523. Are any of these granular enough to measure a difference

>at this level? I'm not super familiar with them.

>

>Is there anything else

>folks have used with pre-literate students to measure success objectively,

>yet not have the student "fail" 3/4 of the test to measure growth?

>Thanks!

>

>Jean Marrapodi

>Providence Assembly of God Learning Center

>----------------------------------------------------

>National Institute for Literacy

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>

>

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>