The Read Aloud assessment accommodation for special education students in the United States

Recent federal legislation including IDEA 1997, NCLB (2001) and IDEA (2004) mandated that states include the majority of special education students in the annual statewide assessments programs used for federal accountability purposes and that appropriate accommodations be provided for those who need them to access the test (McKevitt, 2002). Research (Thurlow, 2005) revealed inconsistency across the United States of America as to which accommodations are allowed in different states and how use is guided. Read Aloud is reading external and/or internal sections of a test to a student who needs that accommodation to access the exam and fully demonstrate knowledge. Even though Read Aloud is frequently employed to administer statewide annual assessments to students in special education, researchers and educators have not yet come to complete agreement on that accommodations\u27 validity. This study explored some of the ways that Read Aloud is guided and used across the United States with students who have disabilities during statewide large-scale testing. The population studies included all fifty official state education agencies plus Washington DC. Seventy five percent (n=38) of the states participated in the study. The instrument used to collect data was the Read Aloud Assessment Accommodation Survey. Data was gathered, analyzed and reported using descriptive statistics. Chi Square tests were employed at the 0.05 level of significance to compare subjects administered using Read Aloud and the number of states that conducted research on effects. Results showed inconsistent use across the country and that policies guiding the different ways that Read Aloud is used in various states do not appear to be based on research done at the state level. A significant relationship was found between the number of states that conducted research on Read Aloud and the number that used multiple factors when determining eligibility to qualify for that accommodation