TX-KEA: Why is Spanish TX-KEA blending section not done in syllables only?

 Answer

When developing TX-KEA, the Spanish tasks were piloted and validated by teachers in bilingual or Spanish-speaking classrooms across Texas. In our validity studies, we found that syllable blending items alone were relatively easy for Spanish speaking children. To measure the full range of phonological abilities, items were added that evaluate a child's ability to blend smaller units of sound - phonemes. This was not only useful from a test development perspective but was recommended by our national panel of bilingual experts because phoneme level blending is predictive of later English reading skills. In other words, although syllable manipulation is sufficient to learn to read in Spanish, a more complex sound manipulation is going to be helpful to Spanish speaking students at later grades when they transition into English literacy instruction. 

The blending task was designed to assess students’ ability to manipulate “sounds”, not necessarily “syllables”. Even though syllable manipulation might be enough to learn to read in Spanish, a more complex sound manipulation is going to be helpful to Spanish speaking students by the time they transition into English instruction, and that will be reflected in their spelling skills.

Blending expressive does not have picture support for English and Spanish.  For expressive tasks, the student verbally responds to the teacher after hearing test items that consist of words broken up at the syllable level, some at the phoneme level, and some combination of both phonemes and syllables.  Whereas, blending receptive provides picture support for both English and Spanish.

We appreciate your feedback on the assessment, as we continually evaluate the measures and benchmarks against statewide data to ensure appropriate implementation.

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