Curriculum-based Assessment

Written Expression

Purposes of Assessment

• Convention mastery

• Expressive mastery

• Functional mastery

Conventional Mastery

• Knowledge and application– Types– Writing conventions– Grammar– Spelling

• Function of Accuracy

Expressive Mastery

• Conveying ideas– Some to many

• Conveying complete ideas– Cohesion and organization

• Flexibility of conveyance– Multiple ways to say the same thing– Extended vocabulary– Use of specific genres

• Function of fluency

Functional Mastery

• Writing for specifically useful purposes– E.G., Letters of application

• Descriptive sequence– Steps to instruction– Recipes

• Technology skill– Word processing– Spell/grammar checking– Formatting/use of templates

Scope and Sequence

Different sequences convey different perspectives

Expressive Conventional Functional

Conventional Expressive Conventional

Functional Functional Expressive

Curriculum-based Measures of Written Expression (Shinn, 1989)

• Story starters– Read one-sentence story starter

– Student thinks about what to write for one minute

– Student continuously writes a story for three minutes

• Scoring options– Total words written (correct or incorrect spelling, no

numbers not spelled, title, names)

– Words spelled correctly

– Total letters written (spelled correct or incorrect)

– Correct word sequences (information units): connected words = one sequence, numbers next to words are not

CBM for Spelling (Shinn, 1989)

• 2 – minute spelling probes of curriculum-based words at 10-second (grade 1-3) or 7-second intervals (grade 4-8)– 12-13 words for 10-second probes

– 17-18 words for 7-second probes

– No new words in last 3 seconds, allow student to finish the last word

• Scoring– Words spelled correctly as a probe percentage

CBA for Written Expression

• Writing samples on curriculum taught– Identify type and level of mastery

– Scoring• As in CBM

• Administer to all students in class

• Compare target student to students in class

• Note taking samples– Identify learning task (e.G., Lecture, group work)

– Compare to other students in class

Scoring of Note Taking Samples

• Identify notes organization– Outline, free write, other structure (matrix)

• Legibility– Number of recognizable words

– Teacher ranking (e.G., Which would you give to another student for study?)

• Information units– Complete thought = one information unit

• T- unit– Subject verb combinations