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DARA

Designing Accessible Reading Assessments (DARA) takes a component approach to assessing the reading skills of students with reading-based learning disabilities. This approach studies the individual components of reading, including comprehension, vocabulary, reading fluency, and word attack. The component approach aims to increase the accessibility of assessments and provide educators with information on how well students are performing on component skills.

DARA's research program includes:

• Psychometric research, which uses data from both operational state assessments and experimentally designed research studies to determine how effectively current reading and English-language- arts assessments perform for students with or without disabilities
• A differential boost study to determine how audio presentation accommodations affect the validity of scores on reading tests
• Cognitive labs to learn why students respond to questions in a certain way
• Usability studies to ensure that prototype test questions are appropriate for the full range of students with disabilities

DARA is based at Educational Testing Service.

Detailed information is available on the DARA Web site.