ITASCA, Ill. – Riverside Insights®, a leading developer of research-based assessments and analytics, today announced the launch of the Battelle Developmental Inventory, Third Edition (BDI-3) in Spanish. This early childhood solution continues Riverside’s strong tradition of developing leading assessments to support deeper understanding of English learners (EL), who are often over- or under-identified for special learning accommodations.

“We are on a mission to elevate the potential of every learner by helping evaluators and educators understand each student’s aptitude, skills and strengths,” said Dr. Sarah Holman, a former EL teacher and bilingual evaluator who now serves as a director for Riverside Insights. “Given the unique and often overlooked challenges of English learners, Riverside Insights has focused on providing multi-dimensional, research-backed insights that help evaluators and educators differentiate between language/exposure learning barriers and academic/cognitive learning barriers to help meet students’ personalized needs.”

Through its product development and design process, Riverside Insights aims to ensure that assessments are accessible to diverse learners, especially those for whom English is not their native language. Riverside Insights offers a comprehensive suite of solutions that have powerful tools to help support English learners in their native language.

These solutions include insights that allow evaluators and educators to differentiate between learning issues and language issues, then respond to student needs accordingly. Assessments focus on identifying and advancing innate student strengths by understanding learning styles. The assessments are designed with accessibility in mind to create a more equitable and comfortable environment for English learners, allowing them to demonstrate their ability, knowledge and growth.

The Riverside Insights EL product suite includes:

• NEW: BDI-3 in Spanish: The only Spanish language assessment for early learners that enables flexible administration options to comprehensively assess skills in five areas of development. 
• NEW: Arabiya: The first comprehensive assessment to cover Cattell-Horn-Carroll abilities in Arabic, this assessment was developed using Modern Standard Arabic and includes original items and content sensitive to the Arab culture. 
• Woodcock-Munoz Language Survey III: A fast and reliable assessment of listening, speaking, reading and writing, this survey is offered in two English forms and one in Spanish to help determine language proficiency and dominance, eligibility for English learner services, readiness for English-only instruction and need for additional testing. 
• Bateria IV: A comprehensive assessment system to evaluate native Spanish speakers. It is the Spanish language parallel of Woodcock Johnson IV and has updated norms and content to reflect current Spanish linguistic conventions and culture. 
• Logramos: A group-administered achievement test in Spanish, which provides measurement of critical thinking skills through test items that measure higher-order cognitive skills across all content areas, including science and social studies. 
• CogAT: Measures students’ verbal, quantitative and figural reasoning abilities. Alternate-verbal administration for grades K through 2 with no specific language requirement. Online instructions are available in eight languages. The survey enables the view of English learner students’ results both separately and with English-speaking peers. 

For more information on the assessment programs for English learners, visit the Riverside Insights website.

About Riverside Insights

Riverside Insights, one of the nation’s leading and most long-standing developers of research-based assessments, is led by a powerful mission: to provide insights that help elevate potential and enrich the lives of students, clinical patients, employees, and organizations globally. For more information, visit www.RiversideInsights.com.

eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.

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