Home » Departments » Student, Family and Community Services » Department of Research, Planning & Evaluation » Nationally Normed Achievement Tests

Nationally Normed Achievement Tests

Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT)
The OLSAT assesses student's abilities that relate to success in school. To learn new things, students must be able to perceive accurately, to recognize and recall what has been perceived, to think logically, to perceive relationships, to abstract from a set of particulars, and to apply a generalization to new and different contexts. By evaluating a student's performance on a variety of tasks, OLSAT assesses those abilities that are related to success in school. Tasks such as detecting likenesses and differences, recalling words and numbers, defining words, following directions, classifying, establishing sequence, solving arithmetic problems, and completing analogies are included in OLSAT since they have been shown to be valid measures of an individual's ability to reason logically.

In our district students in grades 2, 4 and 6 may be assessed using OLSAT.

Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT)
The NNAT assesses general reasoning ability in children and adolescents. It measures nonverbal reasoning and general problem solving. Because of the simplicity of directions and the minimal use of language required to solve the items, the NNAT is ideal for use with students with limited, or no, formal education such as kindergarten students.

The NNAT requires no reading, writing or speaking. Therefore, it is also an excellent test for students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. In addition, the NNAT has only minimal motor skill requirements. It uses progressive matrices, which are fair for all examinees.

In our district all kindergarten students are assessed using NNAT as well as selected students in grades 2, 4 and 6.