From phonemic proficiency to flexibility: The WIAT-4 CDN is coming
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Are you ready to upgrade how you measure student progress and achievement? The newly released Wechsler Individual Achievement Test - Fourth Edition Canadian (WIAT-4 CDN) is sure to be a game changer.
At Pearson, we’ve long anticipated this introduction and the impact it will have on schools as they embrace its improved flexibility and accuracy.
As a quick summary, the WIAT-4 CDN offers more subtests and updated scoring options. Its fresh content and process reflect clinicians’ needs and educators’ requests — all designed to help better identify the support students need to achieve more. Here’s everything you need to know about the new WIAT-4 CDN.
What’s new and noteworthy with the WIAT-4 CDN
As mentioned, the new WIAT-4 CDN features new subtests and expanded scoring capabilities, including composites for phonological processing, orthographic processing and writing fluency. These will help better parse student proficiencies and gaps in these areas:
- Phonemic proficiency to measure speed and accuracy of phonological manipulation
- Orthographic fluency to measure speed of irregular word reading
- Decoding fluency to measure speed of pseudoword reading
- Sentence writing fluency to measure speed of sentence composition
- Orthographic choice to measure recognition spelling skills (only available on Q-interactive)
If I had to choose one feature to highlight it would be the phonemic proficiency subtest. This addition measures whether a student can manipulate sounds and parts of words both accurately and efficiently — which research supports is critical for reading development. It’s one of the only tests that looks at phonological processing for an extended age range up to age 50.
We’re also excited to report that the phonemic proficiency subtest can be administered using audio files. Having pre-recorded tests means you don't have to worry about inadvertently mispronouncing any of the words, which adds to the reliability and removes some of the stress involved in testing. You can just focus on the student, thus giving them a better experience as well.
In fact, that’s another positive factor to mention: We know clinicians prize flexibility that enables them to better consider the needs of the client right in front of them. With more subtests than ever before, you can choose the modules that work for you. For example, practitioners can utilize the Dyslexia Index to provide a brief screening for dyslexia and identify individuals who may benefit from a comprehensive evaluation or a more intensive intervention approach.
Why the WIAT-4 CDN was worth the wait
The WIAT-4 CDN has been a long time coming. It’s the byproduct of a substantial amount of meticulous research and ongoing refinement, and we are confident the effort put into it will pay off. As the first update in 16 years, we recognize how much has changed in the academic world, starting with potential learning gaps created by the pandemic.
But that’s not all — over the years we’ve collected a lot of feedback from clinicians that has directly informed a number of our upgrades, including simplified scoring, more “Canadianized” questions and increased testing flexibility.
Educators are on board
Recently, there has been a significant shift in how we expect educators to teach evidence-based reading skills to students in the classroom, partly inspired by the 2022 Ontario Human Rights Commission Right to Read inquiry report. For example, students are now expected to have a better understanding of sound-letter relationships, develop phonics knowledge and use specific vocabulary. Naturally, this has prompted some changes to how we measure academic performance as reflected in the updates to the WIAT-4, and we’ve gotten phenomenal response from our tester educators that it hits the mark.
Educators have also embraced the shorter testing time and the subtests that can easily be added to tailor the assessment to a student's specific challenges. I think it’s fair to say that the most anticipated feature was the automated scoring of the essay composition subtest that removes a long-standing challenge.
Another beneficial byproduct of the WIAT-4 Canadian is that it is available digitally on both of our digital platforms (Q-Global and Q-Interactive). This reduces the need for paper and helps schools and districts more accurately balance their budgets.
For additional information about WIAT-4 CDN, including about pricing or reserving a seat for professional training, check out the product page or contact the Pearson team.