Students with disabilities will be able to use read-aloud accommodations on the English/language arts portion of the common core tests, with no requirement that they be virtually unable to read printed text or be at the beginning stages of learning to decode, according an accommodations manual approved today by the governing board of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers.
In addition to read-aloud accommodations, the manual will also allow students who use American Sign Language to have the English/language arts portion of the test interpreted for them.
However, in the case of the read-aloud and ASL accommodations, students will have a notation on their score report indicating that no claims can be made about the student's ability to demonstrate foundational print skills such as decoding and fluency. Some students with disabilities will also be allowed to dictate their responses. As with the read-aloud accommodation, a notation will be made on their score report that no claims can be made about that student's written language skills.
