Language and Literacy Test Analysis



Test Review: Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL)

|Name of Test: Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL) |

|Author(s): Lonigan, C., Wagner, R., Torgesen, J., & Rashotte, C. |

|Publisher/Year (Please provide original copyright as well as dates of revisions: not published yet |

|Forms: No Alternate Forms |

|Age Range: 3 - 5 years |

|Norming Sample: |

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|Total Number: 842 |

|Number and Age: 212 (3 yr olds); 313 (4 yr olds); 317 (5 yr olds) |

|Location: 2 states – 4 major US geographical areas to represent U.S. whole (TOPEL closely approximates the U.S. population). The manual provides details. |

|Demographics: Reported by gender, ethnicity, family income, parents’ education, exceptionality and age. |

|Rural/Urban: not stated |

|SES: SES was reported by parental income and parental education levels. |

|Other: Exceptionalities were reported: learning disorder, articulation disorder, emotional disturbance, hearing impairment, language disorder, Attention-Deficit/hyperactivity disorder, other |

|disability, or multiple disabilities. Although the percentage of the sample in some cases represents the estimated percentage of population from the census (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001) |

|figures, most of these exceptionalities represented less than 1% of the total sample for each exceptionality category (so 8 or fewer children in the sample). |

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|Norming samples were collected in 12 states in the spring, fall, and winter of 2004. Examiners were selected from the Pro-Ed customer base in various states as well as in four larger centers |

|that were selected by the examiners. |

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|Comments: The validity section says that Hispanic American children were either monolingual English or bilingual. When describing children who participated in criterion validity study, all were |

|described as typically developing. |

|Summary Prepared By: Denyse Hayward (15 January 2007) |

|Test Description/Overview: |

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|Purpose of Test: |

|This test has three principal uses: |

|Identify children who likely to have problems learning to read and write (Once identified, the examiner pursues the causes and extents of problems and designs an appropriate intervention). |

|Document progress in early literacy related skills as a result of intervention. |

|Measure early literacy skills in research studies. |

|Theoretical Model: |

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|There are key skills that represent developmental precursors to learning to read and write based on research literature. Consensus exists that oral language, phonological awareness (PA), and |

|print knowledge serve as cornerstones to learning to read and write. Identifying those children who lack the requisite language arts skills and providing appropriate instruction before they |

|begin formal reading instruction can prevent many reading problems. |

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|Research from NRC Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998) identifies three basic problems (a) understanding and using alphabetic principle to acquiring |

|fluent and accurate reading skills, (b) failure to acquire verbal knowledge and strategies needed for comprehension of written material, and (c) absence or loss of initial motivation to read. |

|The authors concluded that reducing the number of children who enter kindergarten or grade 1 and are deficient in vocabulary, PA, and print knowledge could prevent the majority of cases of early|

|reading failure. The authors cited other studies that agreed with this conclusion, in particular National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) (2006) meta-analysis which concluded that alphabet knowledge|

|and PA are consistently the strongest non-reading correlates for decoding, reading comprehension, and spelling. |

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|Oral language (definitional vocabulary) has substantial correlations with decoding and reading comprehension. |

|Areas Tested: |

|Oral Language Vocabulary Grammar Narratives Other (Please Specify) |

|Print Knowledge Environmental Print Alphabet Other (Please Specify) |

|Phonological Awareness Segmenting Blending Elision Rhyming Other (Please Specify) |

|Reading Single Word Reading/Decoding Comprehension |

|Spelling Other (Please Specify) |

|Writing Letter Formation Capitalization Punctuation Conventional Structures Word Choice Details Other (Please Specify) |

|Listening Lexical Syntactic Supralinguistic |

|The rationale for selecting Print Awareness and Phonological Awareness comes from research evidence of the test authors over the past decade. Thus, measure free of floor and ceiling effects + |

|adequate sampling of skills in domains. |

|The TOPEL is considered a downward extension of Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP). |

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|TOPEL has a broader assessment of print knowledge than is typically provided. It also has measures of alphabet knowledge. |

|It is unique in that it incorporates quantitative measures of skills reported to be precursors to reading as found in qualitative studies. |

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|The authors used multiple picture choice and free-response format so that knowledge was captured. Correct answers are all real words to make it relevant for young children. |

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|Who can administer: Early school educators, special educators, psychologists, and other diagnosticians may administer the test. |

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|Administration Time: Test administration time is 30 minutes (total test). The authors recommend not using TOPEL more than twice a year. |

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|Comment: There is nothing that evaluates writing in this test even though they say this is a purpose. The research literature used to support the test relates to reading. |

|Test Administration – General: |

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|The authors recommend five trial administrations by examiner(s) before using the test. The test is administered individually, and uses picture-book style items that child must respond to by |

|pointing or providing oral responses (usually one-word or short phrases). |

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|Test Administration – Subtests: There are 98 items across three subtests: |

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|Subtest 1: Print Knowledge (36 items) |

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|This subtest uses multiple item sets: Set A (items 1-12); Set B (items 13-22); and Set C (items 23-36). Testing begins with Item 1 of each set until ceiling (3 consecutive errors) or until the |

|last item in each set is reached. All sets are administered no manner how poorly a child may do on one set. This subtest is designed to assess knowledge of written language conventions and forms|

|and alphabet knowledge. The child must point to aspects of print and letters, name letters, say sounds associated with letters, and identify letters associated with specific letters. |

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|Subtest 2: Definitional Vocabulary (35 items) |

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|This subtest is a single item set. Examiners begin testing at item 1 and ceiling is reached when the child cannot name the object nor answer questions on 3 consecutive items of last item |

|successfully answered. This subtest assesses single word vocabulary and definitional vocabulary (surface and deep vocabulary knowledge). The child first labels the picture (e.g., What’s this?) |

|then describes one of its important features or attributes (e.g., What do you do with it? What’s it for?). |

|Definitional Vocabulary fills the gap in available measures of emergent literacy skills. |

|Vocabulary knowledge of words that students would likely encounter in print when learning to read is assessed. |

|The subtest format uses single word vocabulary typically used with preschool children and deep vocabulary more strongly associated with later reading skills. Word choice selections are based on|

|high frequency words in early print. |

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|Subtest 3: Phonological Awareness (27 items) |

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|This subtest uses multiple item sets: Set A (items 1-6); Set B (items 7-12); Set C (items 13-18); and Set D (items 19-27). Across both tasks (12 items elision; 15 items blending) a developmental|

|continuum of PA is sampled based on research literature. |

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|Comment: I found the administration of the phonological awareness subtests awkward and also practice items didn’t always match what the child had to do. There is no mention of looking at how |

|children did on multiple-choice versus free-response in manual was given even though they designed items in this manner. |

|Test Interpretation: |

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|For all ages, examiners can use scores to identify children at risk for literacy problems. The 3 to 4 year olds’ subtest and composite can only be used to identify children performing below |

|peers but not for establishing specific levels below average. For 5 year olds, examiners can use scores to identify specific levels below average. |

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|Comment: This is never discussed again in manual so we are left not certain what they mean by specific levels. |

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|Kids who score above average (> 110) are not likely have problems learning to read and write. Kids who score in the average range (90 – 110) perform like most kids their age. Kids who score |

|below average (< 90) are below the developmental trajectory that predicts success in learning to read and write. Not all children will have problems. The authors gave a list of reasons: limited |

|exposure to printed materials, ESL, intellectual factors, vision, hearing, TBI, and examiner error etc. This test cannot differentiate difference from disorder. The authors gave some examples of|

|the sorts of interventions that could or could not be done for each of the three classifications. |

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|Comment: The authors give a strongly worded warning about test interpretation. Tests may not have good reliability or errors may be made in interpretation. In addition, tests alone should never |

|be used for diagnostic purposes or to plan clinical programs. Other sources of data, such as observation, are also needed for these purposes. |

|Standardization: |

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|Roids’ continuous norming procedure was used to compute standard scores (Roids is used to fit skewed distributions and to generate percentile norms suggesting skewed or kurtotic distributions |

|for TOPEL). Age-based norms values were estimated at 3 month intervals. The raw scores, percentiles, and standard scores for each subtest composite score combines all 3 subtests into the ‘Early |

|Literacy Index.’ |

|Age equivalent scores Grade equivalent scores Percentiles Standard scores Stanines Other |

|Reliability: |

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|Internal consistency of Items: |

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|The entire sample, consisting of 3 age groups (3-, 4-, and 5 year olds), was used. Coefficient alphas all round were reported to be .90 or above (range .86 to .96) for subtests and composite |

|scores. SEM was low (range 3-6). The authors therefore conclude that there is a high degree of reliability. |

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|Subgroups identified in the testing were based on gender and ethnicity (European American (EA); African American (AA); and Hispanic American (HA). Coefficient alphas across the three age ranges |

|showed large alphas (range .84 - .97) and were equally reliable across all subgroups so little bias relative to those groups was found. |

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|The authors used Pearson coefficient correlation between item and total score. Their finding was: the test was acceptable with median discriminating power across three age groups and three |

|subtests (range .38 - .66) [.35 or higher are being acceptable] and |

|median difficulty across three age groups and three subtests (range .20 - .84) [.15 - .85 being acceptable]. |

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|Test-retest: |

|A sample of 45 kids from North Dakota were tested twice within a two week time period (71% female, 95% European American, 5% Hispanic American). There was no detectable practice effect except |

|for the PA subtest (range for all subtest and composite r = .81 - .91). |

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|Inter-rater: |

|ProEd staff independently scored 30 completed protocols randomly selected from the normative sample across 3 age groups and |

|reliability was found to be all above .90 (range .96 -. 98) for subtest and composite scores. |

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|Reliability (Other): none |

|Validity: |

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|Content: |

|Research indicated that the 3 areas assessed in TOPEL (Print Knowledge, Definitional Vocabulary, and Phonological Awareness) provided unique aspects of early literacy important to predicting |

|later reading skills. The authors used the entire normative sample in testing validity. |

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|Criterion Prediction Validity: |

|The authors examined correlations between TOPEL means and standard deviation with TERA –3 Alphabet subtest and reading quotient measures; Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT); |

|Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP) elision & blending; and Get Ready to Read. A total of 154 kids were tested, and all but one correlation was large or very large. The TOPEL |

|PA and TERA-3 reading quotient correlation was moderate. |

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|Construct Identification Validity: |

|The authors examined three areas: |

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|Age differentiation: early literacy skills are related to experience. Performance on TOPEL should be highly correlated with age. Raw score means were calculated along with SD for TOPEL at three |

|ages, and this was used to calculate correlation with age. Raw scores went up with age on all subtests, with a large-moderate effect size. Comment: Could there be a floor effect for print |

|knowledge for 3 and 4 year olds? |

|(2) The authors looked at gender and ethnicity. Logistical regression of all items on the test between three dichotomous groups male-female AA (African American), non-AA, HA (Hispanic American),|

|non-HA and effect sizes were calculated. Only 27 comparisons were found to be statistically significant: 20 had negligible effect sizes, 3 had moderate and 4 large effect sizes. The authors |

|concluded that the test was non-biased with regard to gender and ethnicity. |

|(3) TOPEL should differentiate groups (average or below average) on language skills. Bilingual children would do less well than students who speak English only. |

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|Differential Item Functioning: |

|HA children categorized into those who were monolingual English speakers (Hispanic American-English) and those who were bilingual (Hispanic American- Bilingual). TOPEL mean scores for each |

|subtest and Composite were within the average range for all groups (male, female, EA, AA, HA-E) but children in HA-B homes performed below average. |

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|Other: none |

|Summary/Clinical/Diagnostic Usefulness: The usefulness of TOPEL is questionable because tasks are too complex. This test does not measure what it claims to measure. |

References

Lonigan, C., Wagner, R., & Torgeson, J. (2007). Test of preschool early literacy. Greenville, SC: Super Duper Publications.

National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) (2006). Report on a synthesis of early predictors of reading. Louisville, KY: National Center for Family Literacy.

Snow, C.E., Burns, M.S., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

U.S. Bureau of the Census, (2001). The Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, DC: Author.

To cite this document:

Hayward, D. V., Stewart, G. E., Phillips, L. M., Norris, S. P., & Lovell, M. A. (2008). Test review: Test of preschool early literacy (TOPEL). Language, Phonological Awareness, and Reading Test Directory (pp. 1-8). Edmonton, AB: Canadian Centre for Research on Literacy. Retrieved [insert date] from .

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