Top 3 things educators love about this ETS-Developed Reading Assessment
Spoiler Alert: besides the insightful diagnostic data for each skill, educators care the most about the ease of use and saved time.
Over the past year, most students experienced at least some learning loss in reading. There is a broad consensus among educators that 2021–22SY will be crucial to making up for the losses. And it is undeniable that we will need reliable diagnostic assessment data to inform effective instruction and intervention.
We reached out to teachers and administrators to find out what made them choose Capti Assess (with ETS ReadBasix™) to be their reading assessment. We were surprised to find out that, besides the obvious insight that they got from this ETS-developed diagnostic reading assessment, it was all about the ease of use and saved time both for teachers and students. Here’s what we found.
1. The ability to choose which skills to assess to reduce time
There is no shortage of assessments that help evaluate foundational reading skills. Even though Capti Assess with ETS ReadBasix may be the most sensitive and comprehensive reading assessment for grades 3–12, what makes it really stand out is the ability to choose the specific skills that will be assessed.
Most assessments try to maximize the number of skills, while minimizing the time it takes to assess them. As a result, these assessments compromise on their measurement accuracy, and still take more time to administer than students have the patience to endure, which leads to inconsistent results.
Most interventions focus on one or two skills at a time. So why spend valuable instructional time on lengthy assessments? Why assess all foundational skills?
Capti Assess empowers teachers to select one or more specific skills, each taking 7–10 minutes to assess. In this way, it enables teachers to implement the assessment as a short activity that can be administered periodically to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Teachers can also administer the entire battery over a period of a week without causing testing fatigue.
“…I love how the skills were broken down!… Students could stop and start assessments at any time. This helped with some students who don’t have the stamina for the whole test…” — Study Skills Teacher, Seattle Academy, WA
2. The speed of set up and the ease of administration
Most assessments take thorough preparation, which makes it hard to assess students on the spur of the moment. With some, plan to spend the first 10 minutes of the class (or your break) making sure your students are logged in.
Capti Assess will literally take you at most three steps to set up: 1) select 1 to 6 skills you want to assess, 2) select your students, and 3) schedule or launch now!
It’s even easier for students: they can log in to Capti with Google or Clever and start right away. You can give them a link or post directly to Google Classroom.
If you use Canvas or Schoology, it is even easier than that! Set up the assessment as an assignment in Schoology or Canvas and you can skip Step 2 — the students are already selected; and your students will be able to start the assessment from the LMS.
“…Best part of this test is the comprehensive data it provides in such a short amount of time, we were able to identify which students were struggling and in which specific areas…” — Literacy Coach, Boston Public Schools
3. The ease of reading the reports to make instructional decisions
Some assessments require a Ph.D. or a long training session to learn to read the results. They provide numerous filters and report screens where you can get lost for an hour and still not find the data points that you were looking for.
Capti Assess keeps reports simple — you get your grade levels, percentiles with RTI Tiers, raw scores for each skill, and the overall profile for your entire class.
You can also drill down into each student to see the profile summary detailing what you can expect of them at their level, as well as see all the metrics and the interpretation for each skill. Here you will also be able to track their progress. From there, you can go to the instructional recommendations with list the activities that will help develop each of the skills; grouping, etc.
“…[ReadBasix] allowed us to find where students were struggling, group them, and provide targeted instruction…” — Teacher, Baltimore City Public Schools
When choosing the assessment that will drive your instruction in 2021–22SY, you can do a feature-by-feature comparison, study the research behind each assessment, do multiple pilots, etc. But in the end, what will matter the most are accuracy, insight, ease of use, and time —time being the most critical resource that educators chronically lack both in and out of class.
If you want to learn more about Capti Assess, watch this demo. Visit our website to see the research behind the assessment. Learn more about the subtests and the foundational skills they are designed to assess. Hear what educators like you had to say about this assessment.
Do you have more questions or want to see a demo with Google Classroom, Schoology, or Canvas, Email us: info@captivoice.com
