This article provides information on how to administer PAT Early Years Reading tests to your students.
The following topics are covered here:
- Delivery
- Time allowed
- The practice program
- The role of audio
- Students with additional needs
- Supporting documents
Delivery
PAT Early Years Reading is designed to be administered on a tablet where young students can touch the screen to respond, rather than having to operate the ‘moving and clicking’ of a mouse. If only desktop computers are available, teachers should monitor and support young students to record their responses using a mouse. There are two ways to respond to different questions – by ‘touching’ (or ‘clicking’) on an image or text or ‘dragging and dropping’ letters into the correct order. Questions can be standalone or part of a unit that involves a narrative or information text. Listening and reading comprehension units include richly illustrated books with a maximum of four page tabs to mimic a picture book. It is crucial that all students complete the practice program to understand how to navigate and interact with these items and online picture books.
Time allowed
These times are only a guideline provided for teacher scheduling. The assessments are not timed and students are encouraged to go through them carefully and at their own pace.
- Reading practice program: 5–10 minutes
- Reading assessment: approximately 30–45 minutes
Students need to complete one assessment in one sitting. The time students spend on the test may vary considerably depending on their level of skill and the pace they prefer. Once logged in, students can complete the assessment independently. Students with no previous computer experience will likely require some ongoing support. ACER recommends small group administration of 6–10 students who can be supervised by a teacher aide.
The practice program
All students (even the very tech savvy) should complete the practice program prior to sitting a PAT Early Years Reading assessment for the first time. This can be assigned to students in the same way the tests themselves can be assigned.
It is strongly recommended that the teacher first models the practice program for students and then gives students the opportunity to complete the practice program by themselves. In particular, students need enough practice to ensure that they understand how to navigate the digital stories within the tests.
Students are not able to return to previous questions once they have clicked Next. The test questions are designed to be attempted in sequential order, so students should practise clicking Next only once to avoid accidentally skipping questions.
The practice program can be done at any time in the year and is recommended to be done at least twice in the week leading up to the assessment, but not immediately before the assessment itself, as this makes for an overall longer test time for very young students.
The practice program is designed to model all the navigation and question formats that appear in the test. The practice questions are intentionally easy, so that students are not distracted by the content and are able to focus on becoming familiar with the navigation.
Students can have unlimited teacher support for the practice program. Response data is not part of the final score.
The role of audio
Audio support is embedded in the PAT Early Years Reading tests and so headphones or a quiet space is needed for each student, but it is important to note that the students do not all need to complete the assessment at the same time. The audio ‘button’ that appears onscreen is used to listen to instructions as well as to assess what letter sounds and words students can or cannot yet recognise. This means that once a student has worked through the practice program and is confident with navigation, the teacher is not required to read out instructions or questions for the student. In the most difficult assessment, two reading texts appear without audio support to measure students’ independent reading levels prior to moving up to Year 2. It is crucial that students are given time to work through the practice program to make sure they understand how to activate the audio and navigate through the assessment correctly.
Students with additional needs
Teachers are able to support students with additional needs by providing help with operating the device/desktop to record responses. The embedded audio feature already provides an extra level of support for a number of needs including some levels of visual impairment. Any significant changes to the testing conditions should be recorded for future reference and consideration when looking at test results.