Education Week - March 26, 2014 - 15

Read-Aloud Option Boosts NAEP Achievement, Study Finds
WEIGHING AN ACCOMMODATION'S IMPACT
Testing supports are
subject of debate
By Christina A. Samuels
Having teachers read aloud a read-
ing-comprehension test to students
with disabilities and English-language
learners offers a boost in scores
without altering what the test is trying
to measure, according to a study
of about 2,000 California 4th and 8th
graders who were given the National
Assessment of Educational Progress,
or NAEP, in 2013.
The most significant difference was
seen among 4th graders with specific
learning disabilities who had the entire
test read aloud to them: Their
scores were an average of 5.8 points
higher than those of students in that
disability category who did not get any
accommodation. The highest potential
score on the test was 33.
But at the 8th grade level, the
score differences were smaller and
more mixed. In that grade, the
largest difference was seen among
students with disabilities who had
everything on the reading test read
aloud except for text passages. Their
scores were an average of 1.9 points
higher than those of students with
disabilities who received no accommodation.

Native English-speakers without
disabilities also saw their scores go up
when they were given a read-aloud
accommodation. But English-learners
and students with disabilities saw
their scores rise more, an indication of
a "differential boost" that still allows
the accommodation to be valid, said
Jamal Abedi, a professor of education
at the University of California, Davis.
He is the lead author of the research
report, which was commissioned by
the National Center for Education
Statistics, which administers NAEP.
"In general, we make a distinction
between features that make a system
more accessible, and features that
alter the construct," he said. "When
[read-aloud] improves assessment for
all, that is an accessibility feature."
Common-Core Implications
The findings, presented at a Feb.
28 committee meeting of the group
that oversees policy for NAEP, do not
foretell any upcoming changes to the
test, often known as "the nation's report
card." Read-aloud accommodations
are not currently allowed on
NAEP, and no changes to that policy
are imminent.
But the results add to the research
surrounding read-aloud accommodations,
a topic of controversy that the
two testing groups that are creating
general assessments based on the
Common Core State Standards have
recently grappled with.
Mr. Abedi, who also serves as an
adviser on English-learners to the
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium,
one of the two groups, said
the findings suggest that read-aloud
accommodations on reading-comprehension
tests could be useful for students
with disabilities and for Eng-
Researchers included more than 2,000 California 4th and 8th graders in a study of the effectiveness of
read-aloud accommodations on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. The
students-English-language learners, students with disabilities, and students in neither subgroup-
either were allowed to have the entire reading test read aloud to them, to have everything but the
reading passages read aloud, or to have no read-aloud accommodation. Researchers found that:
lish-language learners, and feasible to
implement.
"We don't see any harm with this,
and we don't see any validity concerns,"
Mr. Abedi said in an interview.
Mr. Abedi noted, however, that the
findings were limited to examining
the use of read-aloud accommodations
for reading-comprehension tests, not
for language arts tests that measure
other skills.
Currently, read-aloud accommoda-
tions are not allowed on NAEP, which
is given to a sample of U.S. students
every two years.
Unlike other large-scale tests, NAEP
does not assign scores to individual
students. Instead, the test uses its representative
sample of students to derive
its results. It's also not a test that
students are required to take, which
afforded some latitude to researchers
on offering a given accommodation.
Key Student Groups
The study was conducted on 1,061
4th graders and 1,083 8th graders in
California, which has a large enough
sample of English-language learners
and students with disabilities to analyze.
The sample also allowed students
with specific learning disabilities, such
as dyslexia, to be studied separately
from students with other types of disabilities.

Students were divided into three
groups. One group had no part of
the reading-comprehension test
read aloud to them. The second
group was allowed to have the entire
reading test read aloud, including
text passages, questions, and
responses. The third group had all
parts of the test read aloud except
the text passages.
All 4th graders, including those
without disabilities, saw a boost in
their scores when the entire readingcomprehension
test was read aloud to
them. A similar effect was seen when
every part of the test except the reading
passages was read aloud.
For 8th graders, the score boosts
for some groups of student were not
statistically significant. For example,
students with learning disabilities
who had the entire reading test read
aloud showed an improvement of less
than a point over students who did not
have that accommodation.
The findings were presented to the
assessment-development committee
of the National Assessment Governing
Board, an independent body that sets
policy for NAEP.
Cary Sneider, the vice chairman
of the committee and an associate
professor of research methodology at
Portland State University in Oregon,
said the committee favors read-aloud
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accommodations on other portions of
the test, such as in math. But reading
aloud the reading test shifts it to a listening
test, he said.
"The test is on the ability to read
written language," he said.
The Smarter Balanced consortium
has said that reading aloud reading
passages will not be allowed for English/language
arts tests in grades 3-5,
but will be permitted in middle and
high school, because the tests for older
students are considered to be measuring
more than just the ability to independently
access text.
PARCC will allow a read-aloud accommodation
of text passages on its
English/language arts tests. A notation
will be made on a student's results
indicating that the accommodation
was used, and that no claims can
be made about the student's ability to
demonstrate foundational print skills,
such as decoding and fluency.
● All 4th-grade reading scores
improved when the entire test was
read aloud to the students. However, ELLs and students with
disabilities saw a greater level of increase.
● Fourth graders with specific learning disabilities saw
the greatest improvement in their scores, with an average
5.8 point increase when the entire test was read
aloud compared to no read-aloud accommodation.
● Eighth graders generally showed some benefit from having
the reading test read aloud to them, but the results were
not as strong as for 4th graders.
● The strongest results for 8th graders were for students
with disabilities who had everything but reading
passages read to them. They showed a
1.9 point increase in scores compared to students
who did not have the read-aloud accommodation.
● For 8th graders with disabilities, having the entire test,
including passages, read aloud produced score increases
that were not statisically significant.
SOURCE: University
of California, Davis
Jamie Farrant/iStockphoto

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Education Week - March 26, 2014

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