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Assessments » Assessments

Assessments

  • Teachers need ongoing information regarding student progress to enable them to adjust their instructional plans to meet the needs of every child. Parents need to know if their child is moving toward mastery of the academic standards on pace and at grade level. Principals and other administrators need to know how the schools and the district are progressing toward academic excellence.
  • To provide such information, the Portage Township Schools' assessment program identifies student needs and any appropriate curricular or instructional modifications necessary, based upon the skills, content, and concepts tested. The program consists of state-required, district-mandated, and on-going classroom assessments. The totality of this information helps to assess the overall achievement of our students and our schools.  
  • The most important component of our program is the daily assessment of students by our teachers, which provides the most authentic information about current learning performance. Standardized, state-wide testing provides a yearly opportunity to compare the achievement level of our students with others across the state and nation. District-wide assessments provide valuable information about the student's yearly growth and progress. 

    District-Wide Assessments

    Kindergarten Readiness Assessments

    A Kindergarten readiness assessment is given to each incoming Kindergarten student prior to the start of the school year.  This test, administered and scored by classroom teachers, measures skills such as oral language, social readiness, concepts in print, letter and word recognition, number sense, and letter naming and initial sound fluency. 
     
    DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills)
     
    The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of standardized, individually administered measures of early literacy development. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of pre-reading and early reading skills.
     
    This test is administered in Grades K-2, three times each year, at Entrance, Mid-Year, and Exit.  The test is administered and scored by faculty. 
     
    NWEA MAP TEST

    MAP Testing is provided for all students from Kindergarten through 9th grade. MAP, or Measures of Academic Progress, is a computerized adaptive test which helps teachers, parents, and administrators improve learning for all students and make informed decisions to promote a child's academic growth.