Assessing the validity of the English Language Development Assessment (ELDA)

Latino students are one of the academically lowest achieving minority groups in the U.S., and have an ever increasing population. Educators across the nation use numerous programs for teaching English to these students. For proper placement of students into these programs, reliable and valid measures of English language proficiency are needed. The English Language Development Assessment (ELDA) is a new measure of English language proficiency created to specifically meet the new requirements introduced by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The ELDA reading test scores and comprehension scores were correlated with Rigby Guided Reading levels, oral reading fluency (ORF), and story-retell comprehension scores. Results indicate that the ELDA reading and comprehension scores are valid predictors of student performance on Rigby Guided Reading, ORF, and story-retell comprehension scores.