AIMSweb Benchmarking this Week

This Thursday and Friday, all Eastlawn students will be given the Beginning of the Year (BOY) reading and math assessments.  Most of these are done individually and are very quick.  First graders will be given one minute each to do 4 reading assessments and 4 math assessments.  The reading assessments are:
Letter Naming Fluency (LNF): upper case and lower case letters are presented on a paper in random order and the student must name as many as he can in one minute.

Letter Sound Fluency (LSF): same idea as LNF except all the letters are lower case and students must name the sound of the letter.

Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF): The assessor gives the student a word and the student must identify, or "chop," all the sounds in that word.  Student performs as many words in a minute as he can.

Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF): 2 and 3 letter "nonsense" words (ex: mib, kiv, et) are presented to student and he must read as many words in a minute as he can.  Students get points for each correct sound, so students do not necessarily have to blend the word together (he can just say sounds).

The math assessments are:

Oral Counting Measure (OCM): Students are given one minute to count as high as they can

Number Identification Measure (NIM): Similar to LNF, but with numbers 0-20.

Quantity Discrimination Measure (QDM): Students are shown boxes with 2 numbers (0-20) and are asked to identify the larger number.  They do as many as they can in one minute.

Missing Number Measure (MNM): Students are shown boxes with a series of 3 numbers, in which one is missing.  Students need to identify which number is missing.

There is another assessment that is given whole group.  This is called the M-COMP.  It is a written test of addition and subtraction facts.  Students are given 8 minutes to complete as many problems as they can.

We use these assessments as a quick screener to help us identify those students who might need additional help from our Reading Specialist, Title I aide, or Academic Interventionist, as well as students who might benefit from extra enrichment or other classroom interventions.

I will be able to go over your child's performance on these assessments with you when we meet for Parent-Teacher Conferences in a few weeks.
-Mrs. Willis