Darrell Sabers and Amy Olson reviewed the Wide Rage Achievement Test 4th edition (WRAT-4) in the Mental Measurements Yearbook eighteen edition. In their review Sabers and Olson mentioned differences and similarities between the WRAT-4 and the previous three editions of the WRAT. The WRAT was created to assess “basic academic skills necessary for effective learning, communication and thinking” in addition it evaluates people age 5 to 94 years old that have learning, behavioral, and vocational struggles. The test is separated into four subtests which measure reading, spelling, math computation, and sentence computation. The sentence comprehension subtest is recently added to the WRAT-4 due to previous criticism about the reading subtest, which …show more content…
Both tests were administered to 49 children with severe learning disabilities upon entering a regional center for learning disabled children. They were re-tested again two years later with the same tests for follow-up testing. The average age of the children was 11 years old and had a 2nd grade reading level. The results showed minor differences in mean test scores from the original testing of the WRAT and the PIAT. Follow-up test scores showed a change in test scores which were higher than the original testing scores. In follow-up reading scores were higher than spelling or math on the WRAT. On the PIAT reading and math were higher than spelling. When both tests were assessed there was no difference in the WRAT and PIAT reading or spelling scores but on the math subtest the PIAT had higher scores than the WRAT. Many have tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for the difference in math score of the WRAT and the PIAT. Scull and Brand propose that the math subtest of the PIAT may be measuring skills that students with disabilities are not limited in. The WRAT on the other hand tends to measure areas where students are weakest and may cause previous emotional and behavioral responses to having a learning disability. The author addresses the shift of spelling scores being lower than reading as a result of a student’s individual treatment program and has evidence to support the trend as common among learning disabled children. The PIAT is more consistent with grade placement and word recognition level. The WRAT is better at measuring skills with specific learning disabilities. Scull and Brand do not recommend either test for placement in teaching programs or detailed diagnostic work but say the
The Wilson Reading System (WRS) is the chief program of Wilson Language Training and the foundation of all other Wilson Programs. WRS is an intensive Tier 3 program for students in grades 2-12 and adults with word-level deficits who are not making adequate progress in their current intervention; have been unable to learn with other teaching strategies and require multisensory language instruction; or who require more intensive structured literacy instruction due to a language-based learning disability like dyslexia. As WRS is a structured literacy program founded on phonological-coding research and Orton-Gillingham principles, it directly and systematically teaches the structure of the English
The home and educational rating scales are the same 36-item forms having a 4-point Likert scale depending on how frequently the kid exhibits each behavior or characteristic. The P...
Along with the already clear and precise guidelines for the Woodcock-Johnson III NU Tests of Cognitive Abilities, seven new features have been added to the tests (Woodcock & Johnson, 1989). In the Woodcock-Johnson III NU: Tests of Cognitive Abilities, it includes eight new tests, which measure information-processing abilities (Keith, Kranzler, & Flanagan, 2001). These tests include ones which measure working memory, planning, naming speed, and attention (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001b). Also included in this version are five new cognitive clusters (McGrew, Werder, & Woodcock, 1991). Of these five clusters, there are also two additional clusters that are available when cognitive and achievement batteries are used together (Ramos, Alfonso, & Schermerhorn, 2009). Included in the tests that is helpful are interception plans and modified organization; the interception plans and modified organization increase the depth and breadth of coverage (Benner, Ralston, & Feuerborn, 2012). New features of the Woodcock-Johnson III NU: Tests of Cognitive Abilities also includes expanded cognitive factor structure, developing comparison between the tests; in the expanded cognitive factor structure, two to three tests measure different aspects of a broader ability more clearly (Jones et al., 2008). Another change is the fact that clusters and tests are now grouped into three broad cognitive areas (Ritchey & Coker, 2013). The three cognitive areas include Verbal Ability, Thinking Ability, and Cognitive Efficiency (Floyd et al., 2010). Expanded procedures for evaluating ability and achievement discrepancies is another new feature as well (Kranzler, Flores, & Coady, 2010). Also in the list of new features is a Diagnostic Supplement to the W...
Achievement First (AF) is a charter network that began its work at a single charter middle school in New Haven, CT in 1998. In 2003, the founders created a 501(c) non-profit: Achievement First with the intention of having a broader impact on learning that just one middle school intended to serve students in grades 5-8: Amistad Academy. Over the next twenty years the network grew to encompass 34 schools in three states and serve over 11,000 students. The intention of the AF non-profit is to develop and implement programs that are on par with public school district spending in the towns where they are located as stated in their yearly reports. The financial records for Achievement First were located through the use of a GuideStar database search (GuideStar, 2017).
The Achievement Gap in America has separated and divided America's youth into more or less, two different cultures of socioeconomic placement. The first being the predominantly Caucasian students at American elementary schools, high schools, and colleges that excel greatly in their education. Most of the time earning them middle to upper class jobs in the economy, the aforementioned group contrasts significantly with its opposite culture of American youth. The second culture, the population that is mostly made up of the minority races, takes it's place in the American education system as the population of students who are less interested in getting a decent education and taking advantage of the resources that are offered, for various underlying reasons. This in turn manufactures less people of this type of culture to be readily available for higher paying jobs, and often times unemployable for a job at all. The Achievement Gap in America is influenced by many cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic factors that separate lower and higher achieving students based on these factors, and leave a high amount of unemployed Americans as a result, if not incarcerated or deceased.
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Past analysis have shown that word learning gains were only stronger for English only students that despite summer loss in the treatment and control groups the program still had an effect. The quasi-experimental study showed small but significant effects (Lawrence, Crossen, Pare-Blagoev, & Snow, 2015). Within this study 28 schools were part of the randomized trail. Treatment was specified as participating in the word generation program. Again, we see in this particular study that the school itself was randomized in the treatment group rather than than the classrooms within schools. Note this is not a concern, but just a limitation. The effect sizes were as followed; Math d=1.13, Science d=.47, Social Studies d=.38, English d=.44, averaged together with an overall effect size of d=.62 (Lawrence et al., 2015). The main concern here is within the effect size for English which is the specific area they are testing with the Word Generation program and it is reported with an effect size of d=.44. Looking at the difference of means between the pre-test and the post-test vocabulary was reported having an average pre test of 18.57 and an average post test of 19.89, the difference is .71 (Lawrence et al., 2015). The effect size calculated from raw scores is .17. Traditionally in psychological research we would like to effect sizes ranging from .20=small, .50=medium, and .80=large (Cohen, 1992). According to Lipsey (1998)
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Louis Terman (professor at Stanford University) attempted to use Binet's test, but realized that items developed for Parisians did not provide a satisfactory standard for evaluating American children and he revised and standardized the new version of the test (he establi...
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