Family & Community Adult Education Adult & Community Learning Services
Adult and Community Learning Services

Procedures for Administering the REEP Writing Assessment to Individuals or Small Groups of Students

Since programs admit students through open enrollment, there will be times when a student enters a class after a REEP test has already been administered in the classroom. These tips are based on experiences gained through consultation with researchers, through pre- and post-test administrations conducted at the REEP Program in Arlington Virginia, and through staff experiences in administering the REEP test in Massachusetts ESOL programs in 2002.

Individual Testing should be done with students at SPL 4 and above
REEP does not recommend administering the test individually below SPL 4 because the intense oral work involved in the warm-up is more difficult for an individual than for a group of students working together. A test administered individually to students at SPL 2-3 might not accurately reflect what a student knows and is able to do.

Materials Needed
Program staff trained to administer the REEP must have on hand the REEP Writing Rubric, Test and Activities Guide, the scoring Rubric, anchor essay papers, and the practice essays used to gain your REEP training certificate. These materials are supplied at the REEP trainings.

For more information on administering and scoring the REEP writing assessment, please refer to Procedures for Practitioners Administering and Scoring the REEP Writing Assessment, (also supplied at your training). Also, refer to Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's Policies for Using the REEP Test, found on the ESE's website under Assessment News, "Policies for Using the REEP Writing Assessment" at http://www.doe.mass.edu/acls/news.html. Before you administer the REEP test to individual or small groups of students, you must be familiar with the procedures in these two documents.

Make sure individual students are tested within a couple of weeks of class placement:
Don't wait until you have a number of individual students to test (either from one class or other classes in your program), as you should test each student within a couple weeks of class placement (up to a month after class placement, but no longer). This is important, because if you wait much longer than this to test the student, her/his initial score will not be accurate or valid for capturing what the student knows at the outset of their time in your program. Furthermore, it will be more difficult to capture educational gain.

Use the warm-up activities before you administer the test:
With the following slight modifications, you must use the same introduction to the test and warm-up activities that are ordinarily given to the students. Adhere to the time limit of 30 minutes set for the introduction to the test, warm-up activities, etc. as described in the REEP Writing Rubric, Test and Activities Guide:

1. Introducing the test (5 minutes): Complete as described in the REEP Writing Rubric, Test and Activities Guide.

2. Brainstorming (10-15 Minutes): Ask individual students the questions as stated in the REEP Writing Rubric, Test and Activities Guide. If you use a blackboard or chart pad to note brainstorming ideas or warm-up activities, erase them before you administer the test.

3. Conversation Activity (10-15 Minutes): Use Option A (Oral Practice) in the REEP Writing Rubric, Test and Activities Guide because it is better suited to individual students, or to small groups. (Option B is designed to work with a class-sized group, and is not recommended to use in this setting. The individual student will be at a disadvantage in using Option B, and her/his work might not reflect what the student is capable of doing.) Ask the individual student the questions as stated in the REEP Writing Rubric, Test and Activities Guide.

   The goal of the warm-up activities is to make students feel comfortable with completing the test, so steps 1-4 must also take place for individuals or small groups. Brainstorming about a topic related to the writing task and the conversation activity are designed to stimulate the thinking process and ensure that students comprehend the writing task. You should do all of the activities listed above even if students are not in a classroom setting. You can do the brainstorm activity with the student, where you would interview the student. (The student shouldn't interview you).

   Before you begin the warm-up activity part of the test, make sure that students have already participated in these types of activities in the classroom. Students should be concentrating on preparing to take the test, not on learning how to do warm-up activity that may be unfamiliar to them. If you can, use these types of warm-up activities frequently in your class, so students are familiar with them before they participate in the warm-up activities for the writing test.

4. Writing test instructions: (5-10 minutes) Complete as described in the REEP Writing Rubric, Test and Activities Guide. Adhere to time limits for the test. Tell students they have 30 minutes to complete the test (this is usually more than enough time for a beginning level student). Students who require additional time may be given an additional 15 minutes. REEP staff found that students being tested generally spend more time on their writing if they know they will be there the full 30 minutes. Do not tell students at the outset that they have 45 minutes, as this was found by the REEP staff to scare students at beginning levels. Intermediate and advanced level students, on the other hand, often need the full 45 minutes.

Remember, students may NOT:

• Use dictionaries during the test
• Receive assistance from the test administrator or from other students during the test
• Use notes taken during the warm-up activities

Ideally, pre- and post-tests should be administered to individual students by the classroom teacher. This is done to lower student anxiety about the test. (However, the students' teacher may not score the tests.)

Individual students should be given the same REEP test Form at the beginning of the year that was given to class-sized groups. For example, begin with Form A, then use Form B at the next assessment, and then use Form C or D again if you administer a third assessment. The scoring process will be smoother for scorers if all are scoring the same Form of the test.

Scoring the Tests:
The directions for scoring the test remain the same for individual students or classes. Refer to the REEP Writing Rubric, Test and Activities Guide.

Questions? Comments?
If you have any questions, please contact your SABES Curriculum and Assessment Coordinator, or Jane Schwerdtfeger, Curriculum and Assessment Development Specialist at ACLS, at janes@doe.mass.edu or Carey Reid, SABES Staff Developer for Licensure and Assessment. If you have comments regarding administering the REEP to individual students or small groups, please contact both Jane Schwerdtfeger and your SABES Coordinator.