Special Kids Edu

Chapter 4 starts with how general teachers help assessing special kids from observation, diagnosis, decisions, and evaluations (p.100-104). And there are many resources, a bunch of tests and assessments included. High-stake test: a criterion referenced test that compares students’ performance to a benchmark; standardized achievement test that compares one’s performance to the average; psychological tests and other assessments (p.105-111). And before we move on to a thorough discussion on curriculum-base assessment, something interesting about the test is that they require accommodations. In respect of their various needs, the tests should have special design, settings, timing, and presentation. So we get a sense that the purpose is not to prove their disabilities but to find out what they can do as well as to drive as more of their potent as possible. The philosophy is excellent; we actually test their abilities rather than disabilities.
Now the question is what we can do about the curriculum-based assessment. Two kinds of assessments are introduced, “probes of basic academic skills & probes of content-area knowledge and learning strategies” (p.112). About the basic academic skills, there might be a quick test in four types (see-say, see-write, hear-write, & think-write) and the teacher will record the rate of correctness. And the following few pages provide a good reference of how to test a variety of skills in different content areas. Then with all the text results, we have to make decision through peer comparison or measuring software. Further analysis of their answers is needed as to find out exactly what they lack: not knowing the fact, slowness, computational skill, or whatever.
This chapter gives us a clue of the possible contributions we can do to help the special kids and it is a good reference of the information resources, how to create curriculum-based assessment, and how to make decisions with all the text results.
Chapter 5 begins with the