Testing Tuesday - Pre-Primer words and e-tran board

It's Tuesday again and time for another testing tip.

Last week was about letters.

This week I thought I would show you how I test my non-verbal students that use eye gaze.

This is a home made e-tran board.

  You can buy commercial ones but they can be expensive.  If you don't need a large one, you can make one quite easily.  I decided to make a simple one out of laminating pouches.

Once the laminating pouches were heated, I cut a square out of the middle.

I added Velcro to each of the corners and on the back of the words.  You can put Velcro wherever you need too.  Some children make better choices along the top, or along the bottom, or one side or the other.  Put Velcro where you need to or put Velcro along the whole square, if you are still trying out locations to determine the best spots.

Once you have your words where you want them, hold the board up in front of your face.  My son volunteered to be the model for this demonstration.  The hole in the middle is important so that the child can hear what you are asking.  The board needs to be clear so that you can see where they are looking.

Here is an example of what I would say to a child that is just beginning to scan and use eye gaze.

"I have 4 words here.  I want you to show me with your eyes the word I ask you for.  I'm going to point to each one first to make sure you look at each one before picking.  I want to look for the word "big"."

"Look at this one"

"Look at this one"

"Look at this one"

 "Look at this one"

"Now look at the word "big"."

Because the board is clear, I can easily see where the child is looking.

Depending on how experienced your child is with eye-gaze will depend on how you accept an answer.

More experienced users may be able to hold their eyes on a choice while other children may only quickly glance at their answer.

Some children may be able to confirm their answer with a "yes"/"no" if they have that skill.

For my children that have the ability to point and can handle a larger number of choices, I use a full page of words and a highlighter.  As they demonstrate knowledge of the word, I have them highlight the word.  The goal is to have the whole page highlighted.

I keep track of both types of assessment on my recording page.  I can easily see what words they know and what words we still need to work on.

You can grab me Pre-Primer pack here for free.  I comes with instructions for assessing non-verbal children.