WestEd’s Standards, Assessment, and Accountability Services program, in partnership with Questar Assessment, is providing design and development services to Tennessee for innovative grade 2 English language arts and mathematics assessments.
The new Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) grade 2 assessments replace norm-referenced tests with criterion-referenced tests that are aligned to and measure students’ mastery of the revised Tennessee State Standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics.
Unique aspects of the Tennessee grade 2 assessments include the following:
- A test design for ELA that assesses the standards in reading and foundational literacy (phonics, vocabulary, and language) in an integrated manner, rather than in isolation, to better reflect authentic classroom experiences and the way students learn and process information
- An item type in ELA that measures silent reading fluency with ELA items that require students to decode words and demonstrate comprehension at the sentence level
- An integrated item type in mathematics that allows students to demonstrate their ability to connect topics across the grade-level domains
- An emphasis on the use of graphics, format, and word choice to facilitate students’ interaction with text and items