Assessments for ELL

Special Education Students

Assessments for ELL Special Education Students

Chelsea Garmon
University of Nevada Las Vegas
TESL 754

Assessments for ELL

Special Education Students

Assessments for ELL Special Education Students

When it came time to determine what topic to write about I began to think of the different
types of assessments psychologist give to determine if a student has a learning disability. I
wanted to gain a better understanding of the different kinds of assessments that are used and their
purpose. In the book we have been reading in class Psychological Assessment of Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse Children and Adolescents by Esther Geva and Judith Wierner , there is
consistent talk about the different forms of assessments that are given however they do not seem
to go to in-depth with the assessments. I wanted to gain a better understanding of what tests
were used specifically and what exactly they were used for. I set off to find articles that would
help me gain a better understanding of the different forms of assessments and what exactly they
are used for.
Dynamic Assessment of Word Learning Skills
The first article I chose was titled Dynamic Assessment of Word Learning Skills:
Identifying Language Impairment in Bilingual Children by Maria Kapentzoglou, Adelaida
Restrepo, and Marilyn Thompson. The purpose of this article is to conduct a study to see how
Dynamic Assessment of word learning skills can help bilingual students with or without a
primary language impairment. The study consisted of 26 students. All students were from public
schools in the southwest United States and qualified for free and reduced lunch. The students
parents and teacher first had to fill out questionnaires for each of the students. Then the students
were given a vocabulary test. This test was used to determine the students Spanish language
dominance. For example if a student used Spanish to answer the question or English. Finally, the
students were given a language assessment. Each student had to retell a story in English and

Assessments for ELL

Special Education Students

Spanish. The researchers determined that along with the students teachers that there were three
words that the students could not identify. The Dynamic Assessment task was given in Spanish.
Kapantzoglou, Restrepo, and Thompson (2012) followed a pretest-teach- posttest design. Each
session consisted of 30-40 min. The results of the study determined that students who received at
least nine exposures to the unknown words did improve, however, students who received up to
27 exposures did not improve. This is very interesting to me. When I refer back to the class
readings dynamic assessment is an approach that assesses weather students make significant
changes when they are provided with feedback on task that increase in difficulty (Swanson &
Lussier, 2001) Dynamic assessment always reminds me of the Response to Intervention (RTI)
process. In the schools we practice this every day. The study found that this type of assessment is
effective but for only a brief amount of time. I have personally seen students who are
consistently in RTI for years. After reading this article I wonder if this is very effective practice.
Assessment Practices with English Language Learners
The next article I came across was titled Bilingual School Psychologist Assessment
Practices with English Language Learners by Elisabeth OBryon and Margeret Rogers. This
study consisted of one thousand bilingual school psychologists. The study was part of a larger
investigation representing the first authors masters thesis research and contained 43 questions
designed to represent important issues and themes found in and extensive literature review about
psychologists and school psychologist assessment practices with ELL clients (OBryon &Rogers
2010). The authors go on to discuss that one of the major purposes of this study was to determine
the relationship between education and training while using best practices with ELL students.
What the study found was that psychologists use both native and second languages to assess

Assessments for ELL

Special Education Students

students. Psychologists had an above average knowledge of the process of acquiring a second
language. The final result the researchers concluded was the importance of the type of
assessment that is given. The psychologist were familiar with which assessment was needed for
each student. This was a very interesting article to read. Compared to the last article it discusses
more of the psychologist perspective. The articles also looks at bilingual psychologist. It is my
understanding that it is very hard to find a bilingual psychologist in the school district. I think
they would be very valuable for schools that have large ELL population. It is interesting because
the article on Dynamic Assessment focuses on the RTI process a bit and how to improve a
students vocabulary. If the process is unsuccessful then the student is referred to the school
psychologist. I did not realize it when I chose the articles but they are connected in a way. This
article also reminds me of a chapter in Geva and Wiener about understanding the individual and
family context. It is important for psychologist to take in consideration the students emotional
and physical wellbeing, along with the cultural costumes when assessing a student.
Implications for Response to Intervention
This next article has some very interesting points. The title is the Role of Bilingual
Education Teachers in Preventing Inappropriate Referrals of ELLs to Special Education:
Implications for Response to Intervention by Alba Ortiz, Phyllis Robertson, Cheryl Wilkinson,
Yi-Juin Liu, Belinda McGhee, and Millicent Kushner. One section of this article that really stuck
out to me was on the section titled Identification based on IQ Discrepancies the researchers
discuss how most schools have a varied discrepancy expectation for students depending on the
school. For example, in Texas a discrepancy is considered significant if there is a difference of 16
points or more between a students IQ and achievement scores using a scale with a mean of 100

Assessments for ELL

Special Education Students

and a standard deviation of 15 (Ortiz, Robertson, Liu, McGhee, Kushner, & Wilkinson 2011)
This can create a lot of problems because it is not fair to ELL students. If the test is only given in
English does it really measure a students IQ if they can only read in their first language? The
researchers go on to describe the RTI process which is used to help determine if students need to
be referred to special education. However no matter what process is used to get a student special
education assistance, there is no doubt the referrals are growing. The research discusses that one
problem is that teachers do not have the proper skills to teach an ELL student.
The authors conducted a study of 44 elementary school students who were identified as
ELL and participated in a bilingual education program. The study looked at these students to
determine if they were properly referred to special education services. The researchers found
several problems in the referral process. The first problem was the students grade at the time of
the referral. The majority of the students were in second and third grade. One of the groups had
special education used as an early intervention. When it came to the reason for a student to be
referred, there was almost always no reason stated for the concern. For the ones that had a reason
for referral it stated general academic reason or speech reasons. The researchers also found that
the majority of students had been retained or socially promoted to the next grade. One big
problem that the research stated that I found very interesting was that the majority of participants
were given nonverbal IQ test or norm referenced test. However, most of the test were only given
in English. This is where a students proficiency can be a factor again. The final results
concluded that 18 of the 44 students were qualified for special education services. The majority
of the students did not have sufficient evidence or reasoning for special education or speech
services. This article was fascinating for me to read. I knew that there was a problem with the
amount of ELL students being referred to special education. This just proves that the process

Assessments for ELL

Special Education Students

needs to change. I also noticed that this article was with bilingual psychologist. The majority of
psychologists in the Clark County School District are not bilingual. It would have been
beneficial to read what a non-bilingual psychologist would have suggested.
Issues in the Identification and Ongoing Assessment of ESL Students
The final article that I would like to discuss is titled Issues in the Identification and
Ongoing Assessment of ESL Students with Reading Difficulties for Reading Intervention by
Gary Woolley. This article is not like the previous ones. This one is not about a study that is
conducted it takes a look at five areas of improvement of academic outcomes for ESL students.
The first outcome is early identification of reading difficulties. Early identification is the key to
any students success. Hahn-Howitz, Shimron and Sparks (2006) found that by fourth grade a
wait-and-see strategy often resulted in bilingual learners becoming less skilled readers compared
to their more experienced counterparts in a variety of language-related areas such as
phonological, orthographic, morphological, syntactic, and verbal memory in their L2. The next
component the research looks at is word-level difficulties. Word-level difficulties discusses the
importance of phonological awareness. The ability to isolate sounds and to correlate them to the
orthographic system is an essential step toward developing the ability to effortlessly retrieve the
meaning of the printed words from their oral lexicon (Carlo 2007). The third outcome that is
mentioned is dyslexia. This can be hard to identify but it is good to keep in mind. Next Woolley
discusses vocabulary. Vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension have been
demonstrated to have an increasing reciprocal relationship (Cunningham & Stanovich 1997;
Hunchinson et al. 2003; Lesaux, Geva, Koda, Siegal, & Shanahan 2008). Poor comprehension,
specific language impairments, and metacognition were also mentioned as academic outcomes

Assessments for ELL

Special Education Students

for ESL students. One topic that is mentioned that I completely agree with is ongoing
assessments for at risk students to make sure they do not fall behind. In order to keep up with
students needs the teacher must be constantly assessing. Just like the previous article the
researchers discuss the importance of preventing inappropriate special education referrals. The
last two outcomes that are discussed is effective instruction and positive school climates. I
enjoyed reading this article. It discusses very important outcomes that are critical to an ELL
classroom.
This has been a very interesting assignment to research. I have always wondered what
exactly specific assessments psychologists give were for. I do not think I received a better
understanding of what the purpose for each assessment was, but I have more of an appreciation
for assessing ELL students for special education. I did not realize that so many components went
into properly assessing a student. I think there is still a lot of research to be conducted and I have
just begun to scratch the surface.

Assessments for ELL

Special Education Students

References
Geva, E., & Wiener, J. (2015). Psychological Assessment of Culturally and Lingustically Diverse
Children and Adolecents. New York, New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Kapantzoglou, M., & Restrepo, A. (2012). Dynamic Assessment of Word Learning Skills:
Identifying Language Impairment in Billingual Children. Language, Speech and Hearing
Services in Schools, 43(1), 81-96.
O'byron, E., & Rogers, M. (2010). Bilingual School Psychologist Assessment Practices with
English Language Learners. Psychology in Schools, 47(10), 1018-1034.
Ortiz, A., Robertson, P., Wilkinson, C., Liu, Y.-J., McGhee, B., & Kushner, M. (2011). The Role
of Bilingual Education Teachers in Preventing Inappropriate Refferals of ELLs to Special
Education: Implications for Response to Education. Bilingual Research Journal: The
Journal of National Association of Bilingual Education, 34(3 ), 316-333.
Woolley, G. (2010). Issues in the Identification and ongoing assessment of ESL students with
Reading Difficulties for Reading Intervention. Australian Journal of Learning
Difficulties, 15(1), 81-98.