Introduction

Data is at the heart of everything I do in my class, because each of my students' IEP goals are based on specific process monitoring that can show even the most incremental growth. This growth is tracked both qualitatively through quarterly assessments and quantitatively through the use of various trackers related to both academics and physical access to gather observational data from students who are nonverbal and currently unable to write clearly due to physical limitations. 

Quantitative: The quantitative data you will see in this section relates to student growth on quarterly functional AbleNet math assessment and student data from the AbleNet is a math assessment created specifically for people with disabilities and relies heavily on manipulatives to allow students with varying abilities to demonstrate an understanding of foundational math concepts, including counting, color recognition, telling time, sorting, identifying numbers, and using money. During my three years in the classroom, students consistently met and often surpassed their individualized goals for this assessment. Additionally, I have included data from an adapted version of Kathy Staugler's literacy rubric. This rubric is used to track quarterly progress on pre-literacy objectives for students who are nonverbal and/or have limited mobility. Much like AbleNet, the accessibility adaptations to the literacy rubric have proven to increase students' annual growth. I believe this is a testament to the importance of representation and access in assessments for all students. Students succeed when they are given the proper tools to do so, and my school's choice to gather data from a test that was made for my students shows how much growth is possible for those in special education if their specific needs are taken into account. 

Qualitative: Qualitative data plays a huge role in my classroom, specifically for my students who have limited means of written and verbal communication. Every student in my class also receives services related to communication and physical access. The most dramatic growth I have seen from my students has been in these two domains. My team and I continuously work with our students' speech pathologist and physical therapist to ensure that each student's goals are integrated throughout the school day. In this section, I will highlight the dramatic communication growth of student 4, a student who went from saying five words verbally at the beginning of his freshman year and grew to say over 80 unique utterances. I will also the physical growth of student 5, a student who started her freshman year using a wheelchair consistently and who now only uses her wheelchair as a means of safety on the bus. Finally, I will show the tremendous growth student 6 has made in demonstrating literacy by identifying over 150 unique sight words. 

Quantitative Data

What is AbleNet?

The AbleNet curriculum that is used in the Essential Skills classroom is called Equals mathematics. Quarterly AbleNet assessments track progress in this curriculum. Through this curriculum, and aided by multi-sensory supports, my students have been learning functional and foundational math skills that can be generalized to support them in daily living skills such as cooking and shopping and employability skills such as sorting, telling time and following a schedule.

Tracking Growth on AbleNet

The AbleNet assessment has 350 questions that can be posed to students, broken down into 12 chapters from patterns and sorting to fractions. Within these 12 chapters, if a student gets more than five problems wrong in a row, the teacher will skip the remainder of the chapter and move on. Students' annual AbleNet goals are decided based on their level of relative independence. For example, the students in my class who are verbal and able to write independently are placed in level two, and they are expected to grow at least 70 points from their BOY score throughout a given school year. Students who are either nonverbal, have limited mobility, or are visually impaired are typically in level 1 and grow 45 points over the school year. Students who are nonverbal and have limited mobility or visual impairment generally are in level 0 and should grow 15 points on the assessment during a school year. 

Above is each student's data from all three AbleNet assessments given in the 2019-2020 school year. If the raw column is marked with a 1, the student could complete the problem correctly with no adaptations. A 1 in both the raw and adapted column indicates that the student could correctly complete the problem with a modification to how the question was posed. A 0 in the raw column means the student got the problem wrong. As you can see in the data above, every time my students were assessed using AbleNet; they grew! 

If I were to project my students' end of year scores on the AbleNet assessment using their average growth overtime, these would be the final scores: 

Student 1: 78.5

• This student would have grown a total of 46 points putting them one point above their annual goal of 45 points of growth from BOY! 

Student 2: 88.5 

• This student would have grown a total of 75.5 points putting them 30.5 points above their annual goal of 45 points of growth from BOY! 

Student 3: 113.5

• This student would have grown a total of 76.5 points putting them 31.5 points above their annual goal of 45 points of growth from BOY! 

Student 4: 96

• This student would have grown a total of 61 points putting them 16 points above their annual goal of 45 points of growth from BOY! 

Student 5: 53.5 

• This student would have grown a total of 35.5 points putting them 20.5 points above their annual goal of 15 points of growth from BOY! 

Student 6: 90

• This student would have grown a total of 50 points putting them 10 points above their annual goal of 45 points of growth from BOY. 

Student 7: 234

• This student would have grown a total of 113 points putting them 43 points above their annual goal of 70 point of growth from BOY. *noticing the huge amount of growth in this student in all subjects, she was moved to a less restrictive special education classroom at the end of quarter 2, but the AbleNet assessment was still given to track progress*

Based on this data, growth goals for AbleNet for the 21-22 school year will be increase from 15, 45 and 70 to 25, 55 and 80! This shift will did not happen during the 20-21 school year due to the testing limitations of virtual learning.  

Types of Questions and Approved Adaptations

What is the Literacy Rubric?

The literacy rubric is used in my classroom to tracks student progress in foundational ELA skills from early emerging literacy to emerging transitional literacy to early conventional literacy. This rubric is used informally as a weekly assessment tool to track incremental progress before the formal quarterly assessment. Once students have demonstrated mastery of this rubric, they move to be assessed using the STEP. The literary subcategories of phonemic awareness, concepts of print, word recognition, fluency, and comprehension are an excellent on-ramp towards future success on the STEP assessment for my students. 

Over time, my team and I realized that we used this assessment predominately with our students in level 0, nonverbal students, and students with limited mobility or visual impairment. The original version of the rubric was created in 2007 by Kathy Staugler, and the Louisiana Department of Education has approved it as a credible assessment tool for tracking literacy progress for a student with moderate to profound disabilities.  Although this rubric is a clear and concise way to track students' progress from early emerging literacy to early conventional literacy, it is not written in a way that takes into account that many students who have moderate to profound disabilities are nonverbal and/or have limited motor control. So, after seeing years of student success with AbleNet, I decided to ask my network if I could give this tool an update to more accurately track the progress of all students in Essential Skills. 

Accessibility Updates

This is the updated version of Kathy Staugler's Literacy Rubric that I developed for the Collegiate Academies network in 2019. In this updated version, instead of the rubric being out of 25 points, it is out of 100 to account for students' progress through the least invasive prompting. For students with communication and motor barriers, growth can be a slow and steady process, and this update accounts for that. In addition to this, I added more inclusive language that allows for various communication forms to be used. And finally, I provided a clear example of what mastery of each section could be. Also, the Pre-Reading STEP skill that this rubric is preparing students for is in the far right column. 

Analyzing Student Data

Above is the quarterly progress tracking of three different students use the literacy rubric during the 19-20 school year  The goal for all three of these students was to grow 25% on the rubric over the course of the school year, and each of these students was either able to achieve that goal or would have if EOY assessments had been completed. 

• Student 1 is a young adult who is nonverbal and has significant cerebral palsy which requires him to be wheelchair-bound and limits his gross motor skills. His huge growth in quarter two was due to my team and my gaining a greater understanding of how he communicates. After a lot of trial and error we realized that this student communicates best when presented with a binary question presented on two small white boards so that he can swing his arms and hit the correct answer. Once we discovered this, we began using the method to have him identify sight words and rhyming words which lead to the five point increase respectively. 

• Student 2 is also a young adult who is nonverbal and has significant cerebral palsy which requires her to be wheelchair-bound. However, her fine and gross motor skills are not as affected as those of student 1. So, she is able to answer questions with three or more options. Due to her increased fine-motor control, student 2 was able to show steady growth in concepts of print and fluency. For example, she was able to repeat-read stories using a voice-output system on an iPad.

• Student 3 is a young adult who is nonverbal and has a severe intellectual disability. This student has excellent fine and gross motor skills, which like student 2 aided her in demonstrating growth in both concepts of print and fluency. She also does a great job identifying objects and pictures that demonstrate comprehension of stories that are being read to her. 

Based on the observational qualitative data gathered from this rubric, it is clear that while these students hit or nearly hit their annual goal, they also leveraged their own personal strengths to demonstrate growth.

Qualitative Data

In my class, it is not only dramatic academic growth that is visible but also communicative and physical growth. In this section, I will highlight two students that have shown extraordinary growth in my class thanks to their determination and the support of an excellent team of related service providers, paraprofessionals, and family members in addition to myself.  

5 to 85: Learning to Communicate Verbally

Student 4 joined my class during the 18-19 school year, and when my team and I met him, we were told that he was nonverbal. However, as he left the room after orientation, he said, "bye, boy!" This was enough to convince me that student 4 could say many more words. So, I began to make a list of all the one-syllable words I could think of that started with 'b.' Then, I sat down with my team and asked them to prompt him to say other 'b' words such as ball, bat, bus, etc. During this meeting, we also agreed that we would all prompt student 4 to speak as often as possible by having him put his finger on his chin to show everyone that he had something he wanted to say. By the middle of the first week of school, we learned that student 4 had about five words he would say consistently (boy, bye, no, go, away). Although we didn't love that some of these words were slightly negative, we were excited to try and introduce words with new beginning sounds into lessons for student 4 to try and say.

Student 4 Counting to 11 (link disabled)

Above is a link to a video from a lesson that took place in quarter 3 of 2019-2020 during which student 4 demonstrates verbally counting from 1 to 11. This shows not only mastery of the AbleNet skill of identifying numbers 1-11, but also adds to the students' total number of verbal words! 

We used the data tracker above to count how many words student 5 said each day and track what they were. After a while, we noticed that most of the words he was saying verbally had one main thing in common: they expressed what he wanted at the time. (Ex: go away, ice cream, bye boy, get away, give it here, etc.)

Wheelchair to Stairs: Journey to Graduation Stage

When student 5 started in my class, she consistently used a wheelchair and needed to be pushed from place to place throughout the school building. It wasn't until the following school year when NAME, her 1:1 paraprofessional, brought her outside to her mom's car to go to a doctor's appointment that we realized she could walk. Once her wheelchair was situated beside the car, her mom unbuckled her and student 5 stood up and got into the back seat. NAME came back into the classroom and said that we needed to make a goal to have student 5 walks across the stage at graduation. So, I checked in with the school's physical therapist to make sure it was safe to have student 5 walks throughout the day, and once she approved it, I bought a pedometer and began tracking her daily steps. 

The tracker above shows how many steps student 5 took daily, according to her pedometer. She started taking 73 steps a day, and by the time of the COVID-19 closing on March 15, she was walking 847 steps a day. There is subtle regression after weekends and more substantial regression over breaks, but I am so excited to have her back on campus, and to have the opportunity to build her stamina back up throughout the school day. 

Sight Words: The Path to Literacy

Student 6 is a scholar who is nonverbal and has significant cerebral palsy that effects both his fine and gross motor skills. The 19-20 school year was his freshmen year and when he started with us I incorrectly gave him growth goals that were far too low for him, due to my perception of his independence. Over the course of the year, my team and I spent a lot of time observing this student to try to identify how to best present information to him. We soon discovered that he responds well to binary choice questions and answers by swinging his arm to make a choice. (See the video below to see an example of this). Once we figured out how to present information to him, we began to assess what lessons needed to be taught. He quickly demonstrated that he knew all the letters in the alphabet and their sounds, so we next moved on to sight words. On the first day of tracking his ability to identify sight words, he correctly identified 12 out of 15 words. That is 80% mastery! From there we began tracking weekly growth, and the trend continued. He was correctly identifying more and more sight words each week. By week 3, we were convinced this student could read and until now, based on the severity of his physical disability and nonverbal communication, not even his mom knew. 

Student 6 identifying sight words (link disabled)

Above is the data tracker we used during the 19-20 school year to track the growth in sight word identification of student 6. By the end of quarter 3, he was able to identify 178 words!