Caution
This article does not apply to students taking the Imagine Galileo ELA Benchmark or the NWEA™ MAP® Growth Assessment. It only applies to students taking the default embedded assessments in Imagine Language & Literacy (IL&L). If you aren't sure which assessment your school is using, read Checking which assessment option your organization is using.
The content below provides more detail about the Placement and the Benchmark assessments in IL&L and highlights the similarities and differences between the two assessments.
What is the purpose of each test?
Both tests are adaptive assessments that provide estimates of student-specific point-in-time skill level. The results of the test give a Literacy score and an Oral Vocabulary score for each student up to 3 times per year.
The Placement test:
- Is a one-time test for new students that determines students’ proficiency in key skill areas and then places students in their personalized starting points across several literacy and language development curricula in the Imagine Language & Literacy curriculum. It ensures that students receive the "just-right" sequence of instructional content and activities to match their skill level.
The Benchmark tests:
- Are a series of 3 assessments per year designed to show evidence of student growth over time. Administrators and Teachers can compare the latest student Benchmark test results with other Benchmark test results within the same school year.
-
Determine or refine students' placement in their learning paths throughout the year.
- The BOY directly determines returning students' entry point in the program for the new school year and can place them forward or backward in certain strands of the content.
- The MOY and EOY scores do not immediately change a student's position in their learning path. Instead, they can eventually contribute to a change in activities given to the students when students encounter predictive checkpoints later in their sequence. MOY and EOY scores only influence a student to be moved forward, not backward, in certain strands of the content.
When the tests are administered
Provided that their account is never deleted and then recreated with a new student ID, students take the Placement test only once throughout their entire tenure using IL&L. After the Placement, all further assessments the students take in that first year of usage and in all subsequent school years are called Benchmarks.
The Placement test is always available and is automatically administered to eligible students upon their very first login to the program. No action is needed on the part of a teacher or administrator to enable it, and it cannot be turned off or disabled.
All three Benchmarks are enabled by default and are administered during 3 different testing windows throughout the school year. The Test Window dates are firm and cannot be edited.
The following table describes the testing windows in more detail:
Assessment | Test Window Dates | Time Limitations |
---|---|---|
Placement |
There are no test window dates for the Placement since it is always available. However, in reports and exports, the Placement test score displays in the BOY, MOY, or EOY filters or columns based on the following logic:
Placement test scores from previous years are not included in the current year's Growth report. |
no time limit |
Beginning-of-Year (BOY) Benchmark Test |
August 1–October 31 | Once a student begins a Benchmark test they have 28 days to complete it, even if they begin the test on the last day of the test window. After 28 days, the student's testing status changes to Expired. However, if the student logs in again during the same testing window after the 28 days have passed, they will automatically restart their Benchmark and the 28-day timer resets. |
Middle-of-Year (MOY) Benchmark Test |
December 1–February 28 | |
End-of-Year (EOY) Benchmark Test |
April 1–June 30 |
- Students will not receive a Benchmark test during the same testing window when they took the Placement Test.
- Students who take the BOY Benchmark before their school is reset for the new school year should not be assessed again, as long as their student account is reactivated with the same username and/or student ID.
- The MOY and EOY Benchmarks can be disabled by a School or District Administrator, but we don't recommend this because multiple Benchmark scores are needed in order to track student growth.
- Disabling the Benchmark does not disable the Placement test. The Placement test can never be disabled.
How the tests are structured
The overall Literacy and Oral Vocabulary scores the test provides are scaled scores statistically derived from the scores of various subtests. The results of the different subtests are placed on the same scale, which allows for meaningful comparison of student scores, no matter which subtests students take. Each assessment contains a series of possible subtests in the areas indicated in the table below. Due to the adaptive nature of the program, no student will receive all of the available subtests; they only receive enough subtests as necessary to collect sufficient data for program placement or to show point-in-time skill level.
Placement test | BOY, MOY, and EOY Benchmarks | |
---|---|---|
# of available subtests | 13 | 10 |
Subtest Domains |
|
|
Initial subtest given to students |
Literacy:
Students receive Basic and/or Academic vocabulary at the strand correlated to their Literacy score. If they have a high Word Recognition score, they'll skip Basic Vocabulary. Grammar: Given to students at Grade 1 or higher in the Literacy strand. |
Literacy: Varies based on grade level as well as performance on previously administered Placement and Benchmark tests Oral Vocabulary: Students receive Basic and/or Academic vocabulary at the strand correlated to their Literacy score. If they have a high Word Recognition score, they'll skip Basic Vocabulary. Grammar: N/A. The Grammar subtest is given in the Placement test only. |
- The proficiency level demonstrated within each sub-test is displayed as the student’s percent of correct responses.
- Subtests for the Benchmarks are alternate forms of the Placement subtest in design, content, depth of knowledge, item type, number of items, and statistical characteristics.
- Each subtest in a Benchmark has four equivalent forms. Students rotate through these tests so that they don't take the exact same test three times a year. This also helps prevent cheating—since different students take different forms of the same subtest, they can't copy answers by looking over their peers' shoulders.
- Of all the available subtests, some are pilots, so results are not reported on the Benchmark report for all subtests that a student takes.
- After the initial subtest, subsequent subtests are determined by student performance on the initial subtest and all other preceding subtests. Students receive different sub-tests until Imagine Language & Literacy has enough assessment data to determine a student’s current skill level.
- Students in lower grades receive fewer subtests than students in higher grades.
- Basic Vocabulary includes basic nouns (animals, food, people, things in a house, etc.) and adjectives (smooth, narrow, dark, light, etc.) and verbs (crawl, look, draw, etc.). Basic Vocabulary is available to students working at the PreK and K level.
- Academic Vocabulary is available to students who are working in Grade 1 content and above. The words taught in Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced vocabulary are Tier 2 academic vocabulary words that were selected from Marzano word lists and the Cunningham reading model, modified slightly to adjust for reading versus oral vocabulary.
How scores display in the educator portal
Both assessments provide a scaled score for two areas—Literacy and Oral Vocabulary. For Literacy, you can see the grade level at which the students are performing. For Oral Vocabulary, each student will be classified as Basic, Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced. As the year progresses, scores will be available for all 3 testing windows—BOY, MOY, and EOY—and you can choose to view data for a single assessment or data from multiple assessments simultaneously.
Read Overview of the Growth report in Imagine Language & Literacy to learn more about your students' scores. The screenshot below shows how scores display for a student who has completed the BOY and MOY assessments.