A common question about the Numeral Identification subtest and progress monitoring measure is regarding the presence of a score when the discontinue rule is applied. This article explains a bit more about the discontinue rule and prorated score result.
The first part of the discontinue rule is to stop if the student doesn’t get any items correct in the first row of numbers. This isn’t impacted by prorating because 0 in 30 seconds prorates to 0 in 60 seconds.
The second way the discontinue rule works is to discontinue if the student gets 10 consecutive numbers incorrect later in the test. This is where prorating comes into play. To meet this discontinue rule a student has to get at least 1 item correct and respond to a minimum of 11 items (e.g., first number correct, next 10 items incorrect). A student struggling with numeral identification will generally take longer to respond to each item, and if they’re attempting at a minimum of 11 items, that uses up a considerable amount of the one minute allotted for this subtest - especially when students are struggling to identify numbers. The more time they take, the less prorating impacts their score.
For example, if a student meets the discontinue rule after 11 items (1 correct, 10 incorrect) and the timer is stopped at 20 seconds, then the student's score will be reported as 3 (1 correct in 20 seconds prorates 3 correct in 60 seconds). If the student needs 30 seconds to respond to these 11 items, their score will be reported as 2 (1 correct in 30 seconds prorates to 2 correct in 60 seconds).
When talking about screening, based on the benchmarks for Kindergarten and Grade 1 students for this subtest, it appears in most cases this prorating the score wouldn’t impact their risk level classification (see screenshots below). A Kindergarten student who has a prorated score of 2 or 3 would still have a high risk classification for both Kindergarten and Grade 1 across all seasons. The nuances of the difference between a score of 2 vs 3 are not meaningful to the purpose of the test.