Woodcock Johnson Assessment Experience

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine practiced administering one of the Woodcock Johnson assessment tests. I played the student, and she practiced giving and scoring the test. Initially I really had no idea what to expect or what this assessment was all about. When I met with my friend and sat down to actually start taking the test, I was definitely feeling some anxiety. The whole situation is a little intimidating. We went into a quiet study room at the library and sat across from each other. She began by explaining to me that she is not allowed to give me any answers or tips and that she wouldn’t be telling me my score at the end. The test that she administered to me was the Woodcock Johnson Reading Mastery Test. There were four main sections that I could recall: word recognition, word attack, word comprehension, and passage comprehension. When taking the test, even though I knew my score was irrelevant, I still felt pressure to do well. The test is set up like a flipbook. There is roughly one question per page. The pages at the beginning of each section have easier words and concepts. Then as the test continues the difficulty increases.
A few days after taking the assessment, I met with my friend and she explained a little bit more about the test and how it is used in schools. Basically, the reading mastery test exemplifies the language and reading skill capabilities of the student being assessed. It can be seen as a predictor of how that student will perform in the future. As a future teacher, I learned that this test would most likely be administered during the referral process. The scores can work as “evidence” to support teacher or parent observations. It is a concrete way of illustrating the areas in which the student is struggling. If the scores are extremely low, then you know there is an issue. The scoring seemed a little bit difficult because there are not concrete rules. It seems that although there may be a system for scoring consistently, in the end it comes down to the administrator and how he or she hears and records the answers. It is obvious that in order to administer an assessment like this in an effective manner, it takes a lot of practice and repetition. As a result of participating in this assessment, I was able to sit in the shoes of one of my future students. I think it was an interesting experience to be on the receiving end of one of these aptitude tests. It is important to understand how a child might feel in a similar testing situation. It helped that my friend was very talkative and made the whole situation very comfortable. Overall, I enjoyed this activity and I think it will be helpful in the future as a teacher to understand these types of assessments so that I can more accurately and effectively observe, refer, and evaluate my students.