VALLSS (Virginia Language & Literacy Screening System)

[Anonymous]

Apparently this replaced the Reading iReady this year. Looking for insights in how to interpret the results. There are no percentiles and no comparison with prior year so it is hard to know what to make of it. It seems like it is just designed to drop kids into three buckets (low, moderate, high risk of developing a reading difficulty). High risk are supposed to get extra attention and moderate, low risk get what?

[Anonymous]

Less attention!

[Anonymous]

I think it's just a screener. Nobody is going to do anything extra for a low risk kid.

[Anonymous]

FCPS administrator here: Honestly, we have the same question, OP. Yes, we know who we have to create a reading plan for and what instruction to give for the students who scored high risk. But we’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to measure growth across the year. What’s not evident is where kids—high risk, moderate risk, low risk—are supposed to be by the end of the year based on the score they have now. Neither our literacy specialist nor I can tell you what the score ranges will be.

The only score where we can tease out some way to measure growth is the oral reading fluency (ORF). It’s complicated, but it can be done. I can look at any student’s current ORF and determine where the student should be (how many words per minute they should be reading) by the end of the year.

[Anonymous]

Another issue with VALLSS is that iReady helped spot kids who were working above grade level. VALLSS just chucks everyone who doesn’t need intervention into “low risk.”

[Anonymous]

It has not replaced i-Ready in all grades.

[Anonymous]

The moderate risk kids get regular classroom instruction focused on their areas of need. In kindergarten the area of need can be blending CVC words together which is a kindergarten objective for the end of the year. How can a kid know all letters and letter sounds in the fall of kindergarten but be at moderate risk because they aren’t at the end of the year goal yet? No one knows. The VALLS office says it is like medical insurance groups. I say that is a poor model.

[Anonymous]

Is this similar to DIBELS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this similar to DIBELS?

It was virginias attempt to make their own Dibels. It measures similar things (RAN, ORF, blending, phoneme segmentation) it is better in a few ways but worse in others. Most notably as teachers we aren’t given bands of “risk” for sub tests, only overall. We have no way of knowing which sub score is weighted in the overall score. We also don’t know if the risk levels or the sub tests will change throughout the year, or if they will stay the same. It seems like we have been given half the information and are trying to make it work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It has not replaced i-Ready in all grades.

OP here: you are correct. I should have mentioned that my student is a 2nd grader. The older children are still taking iReady, SOLs etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this similar to DIBELS?

It was virginias attempt to make their own Dibels. It measures similar things (RAN, ORF, blending, phoneme segmentation) it is better in a few ways but worse in others. Most notably as teachers we aren’t given bands of “risk” for sub tests, only overall. We have no way of knowing which sub score is weighted in the overall score. We also don’t know if the risk levels or the sub tests will change throughout the year, or if they will stay the same. It seems like we have been given half the information and are trying to make it work.

Why not use DIBELS? It’s free, easy, and is great information to share with parents.

[Anonymous]

Both of my children have taken the reading iReady this year. What grades is this for and is it only for children that require intervention (one of mine does, the other does not).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both of my children have taken the reading iReady this year. What grades is this for and is it only for children that require intervention (one of mine does, the other does not).

Answered already:
VALLSS is a K-2 screener for reading
iReady is used at 3-6 for reading

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this similar to DIBELS?

It was virginias attempt to make their own Dibels. It measures similar things (RAN, ORF, blending, phoneme segmentation) it is better in a few ways but worse in others. Most notably as teachers we aren’t given bands of “risk” for sub tests, only overall. We have no way of knowing which sub score is weighted in the overall score. We also don’t know if the risk levels or the sub tests will change throughout the year, or if they will stay the same. It seems like we have been given half the information and are trying to make it work.

Why not use DIBELS? It’s free, easy, and is great information to share with parents.

I have no idea. The cynical side of me thinks because it keeps UVA school of education in business when there aren’t many students taking education classes anymore. The idealistic side thinks maybe given a little time, they can make a tool that fills in some of the holes of DIBELS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The moderate risk kids get regular classroom instruction focused on their areas of need. In kindergarten the area of need can be blending CVC words together which is a kindergarten objective for the end of the year. How can a kid know all letters and letter sounds in the fall of kindergarten but be at moderate risk because they aren’t at the end of the year goal yet? No one knows. The VALLS office says it is like medical insurance groups. I say that is a poor model.

I teach K and it seems they have to know several sounds and get a few points in the other coding sections to not be high risk.

I’m in a high MLL school and have 15 high risk/reading plans.