Technical Manual - Renaissance Learning

STAR Early Literacy Enterprise in the ClassroomApproaches and Rationales for Recommended UsesThe month to month Scaled Scores for a student are unlikely to move upwardconsistently. Figure 15 shows the score trajectories for four different students foreighteen administrations of STAR Early Literacy. All of the students showed gainsfrom initial to final assessments, but the trajectory of growth was erratic. Thisgrowth pattern is to be expected and reflects the measurement error in tests andthe fluctuation in students’ test performance from one occasion to another. Adecline in Scaled Score from one test to the next is not a matter of concern unlessit is larger than two standard errors of measurement. Intermittent score declinesand erratic trajectories are not unique to STAR Early Literacy. They happen with allother tests that are administered at frequent intervals. A good example of this isthe progress graph reported in “Developments in Curriculum-BasedMeasurement” (Deno, S. Journal of Special Education, 37, 184–192).Figure 15: Four Trajectories of STAR Early Literacy Scaled ScoresAdequate Yearly ProgressEstablishing adequate yearly progress goals for students can also beaccomplished using data from STAR Early Literacy Enterprise. The processrequires several steps, but it is relatively straightforward.Establish a baseline. Use a recent STAR Early Literacy Enterprise ScaledScore as the baseline. A score from a single assessment may be used, but amore dependable baseline would be obtained by using the average of severalrecent administrations of STAR Early Literacy Enterprise or a ConsolidatedScaled Score.STAR Early LiteracyTechnical Manual128