Assessment can be a scary word that means different things to different groups of people, even in the same field. At the end of the day, an assessment should check on what a person is able to complete independently. The reason for assessment should drive what type of tests should be given. Individualized Educational Services offers two categories for families to consider: informal and normed assessments.
Informal Assessments
Families that want to “know where there child is at” may consider an informal assessment. These assessments are teacher led, 1:1 discussions. This lets the assessment become adaptable and hone in on a child’s needs.
BADER Reading & Language Inventory
This inventory tool uses word lists to quickly gauge grade level reading ability, grade level comprehension, and basic decoding skills through fluency. It shows how well students can read short passages by themselves and understand what was read. There are optional sections to see how well students can used phonics, process sounds, use visual discrimination skills and more.
Spelling Inventories
Encoding a complicated task that requires us to break apart the word we want into individual sounds, determine the letter(s) of the sound, and write those letters in the correct order. This is demanding! Spelling can help identify the difficulties within in sensory and cognitive processing. Many times, students with developmental vision needs struggle with spelling as they memorize the words in an all or nothing approach.
Writing & Math
Our staff are able to guide your students through an informal writing prompt to understand how sophisticated of a writer they are- kindergarten through college!
Our informal math process is highly interactive- focusing on “the hardest problem they know” how to solve. Conversations are held on concepts above and below their grade level to know what they can do, and areas for future instruction.
SCERTS
SCERTS stands for Social Communication, Emotional Regulation, and Transactional Supports. This is the core of our support strategies! Rather than use ABA to punish and extinguish behaviors that are communicating, SCERTS helps us identify areas to support. Since the items are development for all humans, the authors do no want this tool become normed. Nonetheless, it is a wonderful tool to program plan with for long term success!
Normed Assessments
These assessments give us psychometric data on top of skills. That is, they used statistics to compare test results to a norming sample. Reporting normed scores can be helpful in communicating how children perform to their schools and other professionals.
Test of Reading Comprehension
If you’re concerned about how well your child can comprehend, the Test of Reading Comprehension can assess what aspects of reading are causing the difficulty. The test is not just choose the answer that came from the story. It looks at how fluently students can find words, how well they can create associations, and sequence events together in a logical order. By breaking down these individual needs, we can target instruction to make reading more successful!
Test of Silent Contextual Reading Fluency
Of course you know the TOSCRF! Everything in education must be an acronym… This quick little assessment lets students go on a word hunt to find individual words that have been stuck together. How does this help? We can see what words patterns your child knows, like inflectional endings, polysyllabic words, and more. It is quick, and can be used over time to track progress.
Key Math Diagnostic Assessment
Need to know how well your child knows math? This is your assessment! The Key Math test is well rounded, breaking apart math skills by the state standards threads to see both areas of strength and areas for reteaching. Computation, fluency, and problem solving are all reported out!
Vineland-3 Adaptive Behavior Scales
This assessment is part of our wrap-around social-emotional approach. Many times, children will experience anxiety when they do not know expectations of them. The Vineland 3 consists of a list of developmental activities that humans partake in. Results help find areas of need, including recreational, to build a successful plan for home and school.
What happens after an assessment?
After an assessment, you will receive a written report that can be shared with other specialists involved in your child’s education. Our reports are different in that we focus on the child and what their next steps need to be. Our reports go above and beyond just the numbers! They describe what questions they were able to answer correctly and which items were incorrect to empower your family with knowledge! We’ll take the time to go over the report and answer questions during and after the meeting. We know how hard it is to try and take everything in at once! We will also be happy to meet your child’s teacher and / or special education team to collaborate.
Should your child need referrals, we will happy to point you to the right people. We have good connections with developmental optometrists, speech pathologists, and therapists in the area. It takes a village!
Many students stay with us fro BRAIN tutoring to target their specific needs and remediate quickly. Our best success stories have students move up three grade levels in mathematics!
What about billing and insurance?
Sadly, educational needs are not considered billable to medical insurance nor regional center. We wish we knew why! Our assessments are billed at our BRAIN tutoring rate, currently $120 an hour. Most assessments will take an hour each, except for the Key Math taking 3 hours. You will be billed for the actual time spent working with your child. Report writing and reviewing the report are included in the fees.
Need more information?
Due to the personal nature of assessments, we ask to email us directly with any questions you may have.
