Innovative Foundation Literacy and Language Assessments

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Millions of children in Lower and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) are learning to read in languages they may not speak or use at home or in their communities, and will also eventually learn to read new additional languages (World Bank, 2021). Addressing the linguistic contexts and language-learning needs of these students is crucial for ensuring that literacy interventions are effective. While different assessments have been widely used across LMICs to track and measure early-grade reading skills, there is a gap in the ability of these assessments to measure students’ language skills. Without a strong empirical understanding of language abilities in such multilingual contexts, it is difficult to understand the reasons for low literacy rates and to inform which language of instruction is most likely to reach most students. Thus, it is nearly impossible to solve the learning poverty crisis.

Innovative foundational literacy and language assessments are essential to understanding student reading and language skills, conducting language mapping, and bolstering evidence-based policy aimed at improving literacy levels. Language assessments can provide education programmers and policy makers with a valuable tool to comprehensively grasp language needs, enabling them to adopt an informed approach in designing interventions and policies. Contextually relevant, culturally and age-appropriate assessments that follow principles of universal design have the potential to improve access to assessments for all students and create more reliable, valid, and fair assessments.

A global push toward inclusive education, specifically targeting Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH), and Blind and low-vision (BLV) student populations, has also increased researchers' and practitioners' awareness of the need to adapt and create inclusive assessments. Researchers have recently expanded the reach of literacy and language assessments to historically marginalized student populations. Innovative assessments targeting these populations have the potential to decolonize the research process by engaging the participation of students historically excluded from data collection and reflecting their needs in relevant policy.

This panel will explore designs, methods, and findings from innovative foundational literacy and language assessments. Panelists will discuss principles for universally designed assessments as well as adaptive assessments designed for DHH learners. Panelists will discuss learnings from early pilots of assessments focused on measuring receptive and expressive language skills and learnings from country-level adaptations. Discussants will explore questions of data validity and reliability and dissemination of findings to influence decision-making.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Organizer

• Caroline Freeman, University of Notre Dame

Chair

• Hetal Thukral, DDI Center for Education, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Individual Presentations

• Receptive and Expressive Language Module (RELM): Design, Contextualization and Validation - Fernanda Soares, University of Notre Dame; Pooja Nakamura, American Institutes for Research; Caroline Freeman, University of Notre Dame

• Developing Sign Language Assessments: Exploring Language Assessment Options for Students Who Are Deaf - Kristina Solum, School-to-School International; Aimee Reeves, School-To-School International

• Universal Design for Assessment (UDA): Considerations for Increasing Assessment Access Among Learners in General Education Classrooms - Emily Kochetkova, Inclusive Development Partners; Valerie Karr, Inclusive Development Partners

• Semantic Fluency: Measuring Oral Language Proficiency to Enable Informed Decision-making on Language of Instruction - Pooja Nakamura, American Institutes for Research; Chinmaya Holla, American Institutes for Research

Discussant

• Paul S Frank, SIL International