What is appropriate instruction for a 42nd percentile student? Test results that merely provide a rank order are not very informative when making instructional decisions. That's why NWEA creates tests designed to provide results that teachers can use.

Within hours of testing, a teacher can access a student's overall RIT score for the subject area. In addition, more specificity is available with scores at the goal-area. These scores represent the instructional level of a student. A classroom resource, DesCartes, translates test scores into the skills and concepts a student may be ready to learn.

Aligned to Standards

Because the tests and DesCartes are aligned to the content and structure of state standards, the learning statements in DesCartes provide relevant information about where a student is performing in the curriculum.

Use for Placement Screening

Survey tests quickly assess a student's achievement level within a subject area. Results from these tests can be used to place students in appropriate instructional programs, such as gifted and talented, special needs, and upper mathematics courses.

Guide Reading Selections

A key aspect of guiding appropriate instruction is providing students with reading materials they can understand. Teachers can use a student's Reading RIT score and DesCartes to determine what reading skills the student is developing.

For example, a RIT score of 206 might indicate that the student is learning to distinguish between different types of reference materials, identify the sequence of events in a passage, and locate main ideas and supporting statements.

In addition to guiding appropriate reading instruction, NWEA reports a Lexile score, a measurement of text difficulty. With a Lexile score, teachers know if the science textbooks their classes use are appropriate for all students. Teachers also use Lexile tools to identify appropriately challenging reading materials at the media center.

Facilitate Communication with Parents

When communicating with parents, translating test scores into skills and concepts their child is learning helps encourage at-home learning emphasis. Simply telling parents that their child scored 197 in measurement has little instructional meaning.

Telling parents that their child is learning how to read thermometers, understand what a foot in length is, determine elapsed time, and do simple conversions of units of time provides a better indication of the learning activities that might be reinforced at home.

Learn how to:

Guide appropriate instruction using classroom resources. Group students with similar instructional levels. Help students become more responsible for setting their own academic goals.