This work presents a protocol to administrate Spanish Curriculum-Based Measures for the early detection of reading, math, and writing difficulties. These tools could help practitioners and applied researchers working in the context of the Response to Intervention model.
The purpose of this study was to describe a Spanish protocol that includes reading, writing, and math Curriculum-Based Measures (CBMs) aimed at early detection of students at risk of presenting learning disabilities (LD). Early identification of LD is a critical component of the Response to Intervention (RtI) model. In early grades, the screening of foundational skills mentioned above can provide a data-based guideline for identifying students requiring a more intensive response-based intervention before starting elementary school. We designed different CBMs based on indicators of basic early reading, writing, and math skills [Indicadores de Progreso de Aprendizaje en Lectura, Escritura y Matemáticas, IPAL, IPAE, and IPAM respectively] that aim to fulfill the twofold objective of universal screening and evaluation of the Spanish students’ progress. For reading, IPAL includes alphabetic principle, phonological awareness, concepts about print, and riddles in kindergarten. In first and second grades, IPAL includes alphabetic principle, nonsense words fluency, maze sentences, and oral reading fluency. In addition, it includes phonemic segmentation for first grade and prosody for second grade. For writing, IPAE includes copying letters, writing allographs, dictated letters, dictated words with arbitrary spelling, dictated words with rule-based spelling, dictated nonsense words, dictated sentences, writing sentences, and writing a story for first-third grades. Finally, for math, IPAM includes number comparison, missing number, number identification, quantity array, and counting aloud for kindergarten, and number comparison, multi-digit computation, missing number, single-digit computation, and place value for first-third grades.
Response to Intervention (RtI) model is a multi-tier method for preventing and identifying learning disabilities (LD). The National Center on Response to Intervention1 defined the four essential components of RtI: a) multi-level instructional and behavioral system for preventing school failure; b) universal screening; c) progress monitoring; and d) data-based decisions. The first step in the multi-level process is the identification of children at risk for LD using universal screening with all students. Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) is the most commonly used assessment tool, both for universal screening and progress monitoring of foundational skills (i.e., reading, writing, and math), tracking student’s performance academic areas in which the student does not reach the basic goals established in the school curriculum2. Universal screening is defined as a systematic assessment of a population to identify those individuals who are at risk3.
In the context of the RtI model, universal screening is performed in the general classroom as a first step in identifying students at risk of not meeting the standards of performance required in one or more academic areas4. Universal screening is generally conducted three times per school year (e.g., fall, winter, and spring)5,6. Different classification criteria have been used to select the best cut-off score to identify low performance and at-risk students for reading, math, and writing, ranging from 10th percentile to 35th percentile7,8 or 40th percentile9. However, the most commonly used to detect at-risk students have been the 20th and 25th percentiles10,11.
Students detected at risk for learning problems or students not showing an adequate response to the core instruction are selected to receive more intense instruction in subsequent tiers12. According to Deno13, the use of CBM allows teachers and other education professionals to determine whether students benefit adequately from the intervention program that is received in the ordinary classroom.
An ideal screener should be practical; in other words, it must be low-cost, brief, easy to administrate, score, and interpret and be tied to the instruction14. Due to the need for CBMs to be repeatedly administered to the students, they must include alternate forms, which should be easily and rapidly administered by teachers. CBMs are designed based on literature evidence and the local curriculum and must be standardized, reliable, and valid13,15 , providing teachers with an efficient and brief tool in order to determine students’ risk status16,17, and assess intervention effectiveness18,19. In this regard, CBMs must meet several technical features: reliability, criterion validity, classification accuracy, and growth rate detention. To meet the need for screening critical reading, writing, and math abilities of Spanish monolingual-children within the context of the RtI model, the following CBMs were designed.
The protocol follows the guidelines of the Ethics Committee of the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL). To be able to participate in the study, parents were required to sign a consent form. Both schools and families were informed about the purpose of the study.
NOTE: We designed a set of CBMs based on indicators of basic early reading, writing, and math skills (Indicadores del Progreso de Aprendizaje en Lectura, Escritura y Matemáticas, IPAL20, IPAE21, and IPAM22 respectively) that aims to fulfill the twofold objective of universal screening and progress monitoring of Spanish students. Each CBM has three parallel or alternate forms administered each three months (i.e., fall, winter, and spring) to establish students’ risk status. In addition, there are four alternate forms of equivalent difficulty for assessing students’ monthly progress (i.e., December, January, March, and April). In order to avoid ceiling effects, most tasks measure fluency and include more items than needed.
1. General Procedures for Spanish Curriculum-Based Measures (CBM)
2. Indicator of Basic Early Reading Skills
Figure 1: Indicators of Basic Early Reading Skills for kindergarten. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 2: Indicators of Basic Early Reading Skills for first grade. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 3: Indicators of Basic Early Reading Skills for second grade. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
3. Indicator of Basic Early Writing Skills
Figure 4: Indicators of Basic Early Writing Skills for Grades 1-3. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
4. Indicator of Basic Early Math Skills
Figure 5: Indicators of Basic Early Math Skills for kindergarten. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 6: Indicators of Basic Early Math Skills for Grades 1-3. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
In this study, the students were classified following these criteria: at-risk ≤20th (i.e., math and writing) or ≤25th (i.e., reading), low-performance ≤40th, average performance ≤60th, and optimal performance >60th. For all the parallel forms of each CBM described above, a composite score was created in order to classify students at risk in reading (IPAL), writing (IPAE), and math (IPAM). These composite scores were calculated by averaging unweighted standardized subtest scores27, and have shown adequate indexes of classification accuracy (i.e., Area Under the Curve [AUC], sensitivity, and specificity), parallel form reliability, and criterion validity for the CBM IPAM28,29 , IPAL30, and IPAE31. These results allowed the design of the ULL RtI Data System (WebRtI.ull.es), from Universidad de La Laguna. It enables schools to enter and monitor student scores from CBMs (i.e., IPAL, IPAE, and IPAM) (see Figure 7).
Figure 7: The ULL RtI Data System (http://webrti.ull.es). Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Teachers are commonly expected to collect, score, and use much of the associated student’s performance data. For each basic skill, normative data and growth rate trajectories corresponding to the beginning-middle-end (i.e., fall, winter, and spring) of the school year are available (see Figure 8, Figure 9).
Figure 8: IPAL, IPAM, and IPAE screening for each skill corresponding to the Beginning-Middle-End of the school year. Note. LSF = letter-sound fluency; LNF = letter-name fluency; PA = phonemic awareness; RID =riddles; CPQ =concepts about print: questions; CPI = concepts about print: images NC = number comparison; MC = multi-digit computation; MN = missing number; SC = single-digit computation; PV = place value; A = allographs; DWAS = dictated words with arbitrary spelling; DWRS = dictated words with regular spelling; DNW =dictated nonsense words; DS = dictated sentences; Red = at risk; Yellow = low performance; Blue = average performance; Green = optimal performance. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 9: Example of students’ letter-sound fluency, number comparison, and dictated nonsense words progress-monitoring data charted in the line graph. Red = at risk; Yellow = low performance; Blue = average performance; Green = optimal performance; Black line= student’s progress throughout the year. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
With these data, we are able to compare the rate of growth or progress of students who learn reading, writing, and math without any difficulty. This information is crucial to detect those students who are already at risk and monitoring their performance throughout the school year. Furthermore, these data allow educators to know if students are reaching a learning curve similar to the normative population or, on the contrary, the degree of deviation that would be determining if the risk is high, medium, or low. In this way, teachers can adapt and modify their strategies through the instructional materials that would be available once they receive online and face-to-face training.
Over the last years, the Spanish government has been placing the main emphasis on a prevention system32, allowing the design of new proposals orientated to the early detection and intervention of students at risk for LD. Nevertheless, there is a lack of screening and progress monitoring tools adapted to the Spanish curriculum and which can be used by Spanish-speaking teachers. The design and standardization of the CBMs above mentioned in the Canary Islands have permitted the pilot testing of the RtI Model as an alternative to the wait to fail model in the community33,34.
Although CBMs have shown to be a reliable tool for screening purposes and progress monitoring, it is crucial to highlight the fact that these tools are not intended to replace diagnostic evaluation. While CBMs may provide additional information concerning basic learning skills achievement, when formalizing the identification of LD, it is necessary to employ evaluation tools designed and validated for this purpose.
However, when employing CBMs as screening tools, it is advisable to use multiple measures that evaluate all the components that support mastering reading, writing, or math. However, while most studies defend the use of multiple measures for universal screening, in the context of a school, the investment of resources and time required to assess the entire classroom individually should not be ignored. Future projects aim to explore the two-stage screening system proposed by some authors35 and the creation of computerized tests that automatically perform the scoring.
The authors have nothing to disclose.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Spanish government through its Plan Nacional I+D+i (R+D+i National Research Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness), project ref. PSI2009-11662; ref. EDU2012-35098, and PSI2015-65009-R with first author as principal investigator. We also thank the ULLMedia team and Bárbara Carolina de León Pérez for their participation in the production of the video. Finally, we would like to express our very great appreciation to Sally Frances Burgues and Vijuni Ashok Melwani for lending us their voices to the recordings.
Indicadores de Progreso de Aprendizaje en Escritura (IPAE) [Indicators of Basic Early Writing Skills]. | Ediciones Pirámide | 978-84-368-3981-4 | Curriculum-Based Measure |
Indicadores de Progreso de Aprendizaje en Lectura (IPAL) [Indicators of Basic Early Reading Skills] | Ediciones Pirámide | 978-84-368-3981-4 | Curriculum-Based Measure |
Indicadores de Progreso de Aprendizaje en Matemáticas (IPAM) [Indicators of Basic Early Math Skills]. | Ediciones Pirámide | 978-84-368-3981-4 | Curriculum-Based Measure |
Stopwatch 1/1005 Kalenji 100 | OXYLANE | 02.314.041/001-88 | 1/100 Stopwatch with 1 lap times |