VALLSS

[Anonymous]

My second grader gota 694 and was low risk.

[Anonymous]

Third grader got 687 and was low risk

[Anonymous]

I’m a VALLSS tutor - also find it annoying we don’t receive the ranges for each band as a parent. The ranges vary depending upon grade. So 600 may be low risk in K, but high risk in 3rd grade. We as educators do get to see this information, yet I have no clue why parents aren’t afforded the same consideration. If you contact your teacher, she should be able to get you the information easily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My second grader got a 681 on it. The ranges the school gave me for him (in case it’s grade specific) are 593-646 high risk, 647-664, moderate risk, and 665-720 low risk. We also got his individual scores for each section of the test. He struggled the most with encoding (spelling) which makes sense because ACPS doesn’t really teach spelling from what I’ve seen. From what I understand this test is a screener and is only looking for kids that need intervention. So topping out or being low risk just means you don’t need intervention.

FWIW he did very well on MAP which does give percentiles and which covers academic knowledge and skills. ACPS sent a very detailed report on that too.

Where did you find the individual scores for each section?

It was on the same score report I got for ACPS. I didn’t get much explanation and some sub scores were blank which wasn’t explained. My MAP score report came with an explainer video which was very helpful. For that we also got a category breakdown. Also got a lexile range for reading. I found VALLSS fairly meaningless once I read about it since DS was low risk (would have been more meaningful otherwise)—MAP felt like a much better understanding of what does my kid know and how does he fare compared to others in ACPS and nationwide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My first grader got a 629 and that put her in the moderate risk category.

My first grader had 678 which was in the low risk band.

Has anyone seen the band ranges for first graders?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My second grader got a 681 on it. The ranges the school gave me for him (in case it’s grade specific) are 593-646 high risk, 647-664, moderate risk, and 665-720 low risk. We also got his individual scores for each section of the test. He struggled the most with encoding (spelling) which makes sense because ACPS doesn’t really teach spelling from what I’ve seen. From what I understand this test is a screener and is only looking for kids that need intervention. So topping out or being low risk just means you don’t need intervention.

FWIW he did very well on MAP which does give percentiles and which covers academic knowledge and skills. ACPS sent a very detailed report on that too.

Where did you find the individual scores for each section?

It was on the same score report I got for ACPS. I didn’t get much explanation and some sub scores were blank which wasn’t explained. My MAP score report came with an explainer video which was very helpful. For that we also got a category breakdown. Also got a lexile range for reading. I found VALLSS fairly meaningless once I read about it since DS was low risk (would have been more meaningful otherwise)—MAP felt like a much better understanding of what does my kid know and how does he fare compared to others in ACPS and nationwide.

Hi - can you share more of what the category breakdown looks like, maybe the title? My child's current school refuses to share more info than the score, even though as a teacher I know there is a lot more information available.

[Anonymous]

For MAP - I mean (above)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My first grader got a 629 and that put her in the moderate risk category.

My first grader had 678 which was in the low risk band.

Has anyone seen the band ranges for first graders?

630-711 is low risk for first grade. Our teacher sent home a report with the breakdown of the points and the score bands for high, moderate, and low risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For MAP - I mean (above)

For my second grader the MAP math categories are:
Numbers and number sense
Measurement and geometry
Computation and estimation
Probability and statistics: patterns functions and algebra

For language arts-reading
Literary text
Vocabulary word analysis
Informational text

We got our DS’s overall score, how that compares to other in district kids who took the test, and how it compares to kids nationally. We got his national percentile and range along with his predicted spring score.

Within the subgroups above, we didn’t receive a numerical score instead we received a designation of low, low average, average, high average, and high (with associated percentiles. For example getting “high” means >80%ile). We then got the lexile range.

Hope this helps!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a VALLSS tutor - also find it annoying we don’t receive the ranges for each band as a parent. The ranges vary depending upon grade. So 600 may be low risk in K, but high risk in 3rd grade. We as educators do get to see this information, yet I have no clue why parents aren’t afforded the same consideration. If you contact your teacher, she should be able to get you the information easily.

Great that you saw that, but as a teacher, we see the raw score for the sub test, and an overall band score. We have no idea what cut off scores for each subtest are or how the overall risk is calculated. They are keeping that a secret. They also aren’t able to put percentages on the test for how each child scored overall because they don’t have enough data to make percentages.

https://static.literacy.virginia.edu/resources/VALLSS_Family_Brochure_English.pdf

If you want even more information about why they won’t tell us how the bands of risks are calculated or why they won’t give cut off scores for each band, contact them! They have more time and information than your child’s teacher.

[e-mail]
Phone [phone]

[Anonymous]

It would be nice if the Youngkin admin could spend more time on this and put out actual useful info instead of focusing on teacher tip lines and other things in his political agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's the point of giving a numerical score at all?

Everything is data driven. If your child was placed in high risk you'd want to know what she scored. Additionally, the hope is for students and children to make progress and be on grade level, so the numerical score is important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a VALLSS tutor - also find it annoying we don’t receive the ranges for each band as a parent. The ranges vary depending upon grade. So 600 may be low risk in K, but high risk in 3rd grade. We as educators do get to see this information, yet I have no clue why parents aren’t afforded the same consideration. If you contact your teacher, she should be able to get you the information easily.

Great that you saw that, but as a teacher, we see the raw score for the sub test, and an overall band score. We have no idea what cut off scores for each subtest are or how the overall risk is calculated. They are keeping that a secret. They also aren’t able to put percentages on the test for how each child scored overall because they don’t have enough data to make percentages.

https://static.literacy.virginia.edu/resources/VALLSS_Family_Brochure_English.pdf

If you want even more information about why they won’t tell us how the bands of risks are calculated or why they won’t give cut off scores for each band, contact them! They have more time and information than your child’s teacher.

[e-mail]
Phone [phone]

Agree with this, as a teacher too. First grade teacher here, and when I pressed for more information on how the scaled score is calculated/how each subtest is weighted I was met with a "VDOE is not sharing that info." Our old assessment was not SOR aligned but it at least had benchmarks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a VALLSS tutor - also find it annoying we don’t receive the ranges for each band as a parent. The ranges vary depending upon grade. So 600 may be low risk in K, but high risk in 3rd grade. We as educators do get to see this information, yet I have no clue why parents aren’t afforded the same consideration. If you contact your teacher, she should be able to get you the information easily.

Great that you saw that, but as a teacher, we see the raw score for the sub test, and an overall band score. We have no idea what cut off scores for each subtest are or how the overall risk is calculated. They are keeping that a secret. They also aren’t able to put percentages on the test for how each child scored overall because they don’t have enough data to make percentages.

https://static.literacy.virginia.edu/resources/VALLSS_Family_Brochure_English.pdf

If you want even more information about why they won’t tell us how the bands of risks are calculated or why they won’t give cut off scores for each band, contact them! They have more time and information than your child’s teacher.

[e-mail]
Phone [phone]

Agree with this, as a teacher too. First grade teacher here, and when I pressed for more information on how the scaled score is calculated/how each subtest is weighted I was met with a "VDOE is not sharing that info." Our old assessment was not SOR aligned but it at least had benchmarks!

np. Agree that this info would be helpful. From what I've seen, the decoding categories and ORF are heavily weighted in the risk calculation.

That makes sense as ORF is directly measuring decoding as opposed to measuring things that help with decoding like the encoding/segmenting/blending categories, or are correlated with comprehension--as is the auditory testing portion--but not actually a direct measurement of reading comprehension.

Would be nice to have an actual breakdown for every subtest, however.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a VALLSS tutor - also find it annoying we don’t receive the ranges for each band as a parent. The ranges vary depending upon grade. So 600 may be low risk in K, but high risk in 3rd grade. We as educators do get to see this information, yet I have no clue why parents aren’t afforded the same consideration. If you contact your teacher, she should be able to get you the information easily.

Great that you saw that, but as a teacher, we see the raw score for the sub test, and an overall band score. We have no idea what cut off scores for each subtest are or how the overall risk is calculated. They are keeping that a secret. They also aren’t able to put percentages on the test for how each child scored overall because they don’t have enough data to make percentages.

https://static.literacy.virginia.edu/resources/VALLSS_Family_Brochure_English.pdf

If you want even more information about why they won’t tell us how the bands of risks are calculated or why they won’t give cut off scores for each band, contact them! They have more time and information than your child’s teacher.

[e-mail]
Phone [phone]

and the Youngkin admin was supposed to be pro parents' rights. Sure.