State Testing, IEP, Accommodations – Concerns

At the end of the school last year, I went on a research frenzy about standardized testing in my state. One of my concerns was that the teachers implied that Daniel would be retained based on their view of whether he would be able to do the standardized testing for this year. After researching more on the topic, I felt that Daniel should not be retained. He did his work at level with the IEP accommodations, became more independent in several areas of his work, and he became more communicative. Daniel definitely comprehends a lot more than what he vocalizes and can write – he always has. We were supposed to have a meeting with all of his support and teachers at the end of April.

That did not happen.

I can only assume that it was because Daniel had shown so much progress that we agreed to move him to the third grade without a meeting. One of their major concerns was his reading level. At the beginning of the year, Daniel was assessed at reading three words per minute, by fall he was at six, by spring he had gone to 25 words. I knew Daniel could read more than that. However, the one-minute reading assessments did not indicate that, even when he was given an extra 20 seconds his word count did not improve by much.

I do not understand why these assessments are used with children who have reading/processing/learning challenges.

Continued ... State Testing, IEP, Accommodations – Concerns