Cummings 1

SPED 311 Curriculum Based Assessment I

Name: Ashlyn Cummings

Date: 2/25/16

School/Setting: ELA Resource Classroom

How does this project contribute to your skills as an educator?

This project has allowed me to experience how to asses students progresses in different
areas. The project opened my eyes to how an assessment works, and how it can be effective in
gauging students understanding. Due to this, I have grown in how I administer tests and how I
create checklist. It has also shown me how to appropriately create checklists, hybrids, or rubrics,
and when to use them. I have grown in how I write directions and how to explain the CBM to the
student. This process has been great in my understanding of the job that I will have to do in the
near future with the students I work with. Due to this, I have now added another tool to the
toolbox when administering and creating CBMs for my future students.

On my honor, as an Aggie, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this
academic work.

Signature____________________________________________

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Curriculum Based Measurement:

Description of Student:
The student that I am working with is in 1st grade at Forrest Ridge Elementary
school. She is 6 years old and has Down syndrome. She is placed under Other Health
Impairment for her primary disability, but also has an Intellectual Disability and Speech
Impairment all under IDEA. She is currently housed in the resource classroom for both
ELA and Math. Currently this student is below grade level in both ELA and Math. In
ELA this student is strong in identifying basic story elements and letter sounds, has
strong phonetic skills and letter identification skills. She struggles with understanding
vocabulary, answering basic comprehension questions, identifying complex story
elements, phonetic skills (medial sounds, ending sounds, word endings in ing or ed,
as well as long vowels), and finally phonics skills such as irregular vowel patterns and
consonants. She is also reading at a level A independently according to Fountas and
Pinnell, whereas, for her grade level, she should be reading at a level F. For writing, she
is strong in grade-appropriate handwriting, and generating ideas and topics for
compositions. She struggles in grade-appropriate spelling, grade-appropriate grammar,
and in writing complete sentences. Additionally, this student has a few behavioral issues
such as; she is easily discouraged, disruptive to the classroom environment, and harmful
to herself and others by hitting, pinching, or kicking desks. Although the student does
have some behavioral challenges, she is very sweet and happy when behavior is not
occurring.

Objective:
IEP Goal 8.1- Adaptive Behavior:

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By the end of 36 instructional weeks, using visuals and/or behavior chart,

the student will reduce unsafe behaviors (hitting, kicking desk, pinching, etc.) to 0
instances per marking period. Mastery will be reached when the student has 100%
safety for two consecutive marking periods.
My Objective:
Given 10 picture cards of examples and non-examples numbered 1
through 10, the student will be able to identify socially acceptable behavior
choices, getting 9 out of 10 correct in 3 trials.

Measurement:
Directions: The teacher will present each card to the student in order from 1 to
10. The teacher will tell the student Im going to show you some pictures and
you are going to tell me if they are making good choices or bad choices.
Key:
(+) - Correct without any help, self-correction, and appropriate response within
5 seconds.
(~) - Self-correction, verbal cue, with correct response
(-) - Complete guided instruction, and completely wrong answer

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Total

Trial 1
+
+
+
+
+
~
+
+
+
8/10

Trial 2
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
9/10

Trial 3
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
9/10

Total
3/3
3/3
2/3
3/3
3/3
3/3
2/3
2/3
3/3
3/3

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Administration Discussion:
The administration process was easy since the teacher was very willing to allow me to

conduct the CBM. The student was also very cooperative and listened well to the directions that
were provided. The processes strengths were found in the use of pictures that were provided to
the student and the plain language used in giving the directions. The weaknesses fall in where the
student could chose not to answer depending upon mood of the day. The CBM did not take into
account the fact that the student could choose to give other answers aside from good or bad
choices, since the student actually stated happy instead, due to the picture showing a student
smiling. The administration process also should have more cards to choose from so that the
student could see different pictures. This way there could be more variety, and see what the
student actually knows rather than what they memorize. To improve the administration of the
CBM, I would take into account different things that could affect the validity of the measure. I
will make sure that the directions could be a little clearer and that there are more variety in the
pictures.

Mentor Discussion:
The results from the CBM were what both my mentor and I were expecting. My mentor
stated before starting the CBM that this student depending upon her mood will choose to
not answer correctly on problems on purpose. She stated, if she is non-compliant she
will tend to give the wrong answer on purpose. Due to this, it was expected for this
student to have given wrong answers on purpose. My mentor teacher did think that the
CBM showed promising results since she did do a little better than what my mentor
teacher originally thought she would, due to behavior. During our discussion, my mentor

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teacher brought to my attention that it might have been a good idea to take into account
that different pictures could be interpreted in different ways. I thought this was very
important for the fact that some pictures could be a little harder to define. My mentor
teacher also mentioned that it might be smart to put the ones that are more troubling to
the student in a array to apply errorless learning strategies to help alleviate any
misconceptions that could happen. One thing that stood out to me was making sure to
keep in mind that if given more time, I would make sure to go back and model each

scenario to see if that helps with any confusion.

Future Teaching Direction:
To continue the growth in this students behavior there would need to be more
opportunities for the student to be reminded of what good and bad behavior looks like.
This should be done with modeling by the teacher with different scenarios, asking the
student questions of why this would be an example of good or bad behavior. There would
also need to be a correlation between the modeling and pictures so that the student has an
understanding about how the pictures relate to real life examples. During this time, the
teacher would need to be making sure that they check for understanding, by asking
comprehension questions that are relevant to the classes they are in. The best method for
teaching this objective would be to have direct instruction of the expectations the student
is held to during their classes. This would be seen in explicitly demonstrating what is
good and bad behavior during class, in the hallways, when talking to people, and any
other area the student is struggling with.