Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills Tills Examiner's Practice Workbook

This Examinera€?s Practice Workbook provides helpful instructions and scoring practice for theTest of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills? (TILLS?).

Section I provides step-by-step practice exercises for each of the 15 TILLS subtests. The exercises provide opportunity to check your understanding of both administration and scoring procedures.

Section II reviews how to transform raw scores to standard scores and percentile ranks. It also shows how to use standard scores to calculate composite scores and an Identification Core score for the studenta€?s age. The Identification Core score can be compared with a cut score to identify language/literacy disorders.

Section III focuses on how to obtain the three scores of the Written Expression subtest. It includes a tutorial on grammar and T-unit division and numerous scored examples to show you how to handle challenging issues.

As you use the Practice Workbook, be sure to have on hand your TILLS Examinera€?s Manual,a blank Examiner Record Form, and the Digital Audio Files (on USB drive). One section of theDigital Audio Files provides sound clips to use with the practice exercises.

Completing the exercises in this Practice Workbook will help you:

• Practice establishing basals and ceilings
• Understand when probes can be used
• See when item answers can reveal a studenta€?s strengths as well as weaknesses
• Know how to handle a studenta€?s self-corrections
• Make modifications for students with special needs
• Know what to do if a student expresses frustration or declines to do a task
• Check your understanding of counting words, T-units, and word errors in the Written Expression subtest
• Learn when it can be useful to compare a studenta€?s responses on one subtest to results on other subtests

Keep your Practice Workbook as a helpful reminder of administration rules and a quick reference for scoring assistance. Youa€?ll find it a useful tool for efficient and accurate TILLS administration.

About TILLS

TEST OF INTEGRATED LANGUAGE AND LITERACY SKILLS (TILLS) is the reliable, valid assessment professionals need to test oral and written language skills in students ages 6—18 years. TILLS is a comprehensive, norm-referenced test that has been standardized for three purposes:

• To identify language and literacy disorders
• To document patterns of relative strengths and weaknesses
• To track changes in language and literacy skills over time

To achieve these purposes, TILLS is constructed to allow you to derive scores for identifying, tracking, and profiling a studenta€?s strengths and weaknesses and interpreting the results to support decisions about what to do next.

Learn more about TILLS and explore the key benefits.

Test of Integrated Language & Literacy Skills? and TILLS? are trademarks of Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

The contents of TILLS were developed under Grant No. R324A100354 from the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

Nickola Wolf Nelson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Professor, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Associate Dean for Research in the College of Health and Human Services, 1903 West Michigan Avenue, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008. Dr. Nelson received her bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Wichita State University. She is the author of Childhood Language Disorders in Context: Infancy Through Adolescence, Second Edition (1998 Allyn & Bacon), and Planning Individualized Speech and Language Intervention Programs, Second Edition (1989, PRO-ED), as well as numerous articles and chapters on classroom-based language intervention and related topics. Dr. Nelson began her professional career as a school clinician in Kansas and also served as a speech-language consultant specialist for Berrien County Intermediate School District in Michigan. She has been a member of the faculty at Western Michigan University since 1981. Dr. Nelson and her husband live on a lake in Three Rivers, Michigan. They enjoy gardening, boating, and entertaining their children, grandchildren, and extended families on the lake.

Elena Plante, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is Professor and Head of the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at The University of Arizona in Tucson. She is a fellow both of The University of Arizona's College of Science and of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Her areas of research interest include language learning and assessment practices. Dr. Plante has been using neuroimaging to explore the brain bases of language and cognition for the last 2 decades. She has active national and international collaborations in the areas of neuroimaging, language, and learning.

Nancy Helm-Estabrooks, Sc.D., CCC-SLP, Brewer Smith Professor Emerita in the Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina.

She was affiliated with the Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center and Boston University School of Medicine for 32 years, was a Research Scientist at the National Center for Neurogenic Communication Disorders at The University of Arizona, and a Research Professor at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Helm-Estabrooks is board certified by the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorder (ANCDS). Her awards include American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and ANCDS Honors, and the Kleffner Lifetime Clinical Career Award. She is an ASHA Fellow and has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles, 7 books, 21 chapters, and 6 standardized tests.

Gillian Hotz, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is The Director of the KiDZ Neuroscience Center, Research Professor, Department of Neurosurgery, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, Florida.

Dr. Hotz is Principal Investigator on a variety of funded research projects for acute care and rehabilitation of children with traumatic brain injury and injury prevention. She has presented at local, national, and international conferences; has published numerous papers on the topic of traumatic brain injury; and is coauthor of the Brief Test of Head Injury (with Nancy Helm-Estabrooks, PRO-ED, 1991). Dr. Hotz is a member of a number of advisory groups, including the Florida Injury Prevention Advisory Council and the Sarah Jane Brain Project/The National Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury Plan.