Judy K. Montgomery, Ph. D., CCC-SLP

Alice, Gabbie, Emily, and Allysa

MAVA Montgomery Assessment of

Vocabulary Acquisition

What is MAVA?Title: Montgomery Assessment of Vocabulary Acquisition

(MAVA)

Publisher: Super Duper Publications

Recommended Age Range: 3 years, 0 months to 12 years, 11

months

Stated Purpose: “The Mava was designed to measure the

development of children’s oral language by assessing

listening, and speaking vocabulary. First because oral

language precedes reading and writing, it serves as an

excellent predictor of literacy skills. Second, the assessment

informs teachers and specialists of the words or concepts

that require extra attention in the classroom. Finally, the test

guides special educators and parents toward appropriate

intervention plans and IEP goals” (Montgomery, 2008, p. 3).

Scope, Standardization, and Validity and Reliability

Scope: Expressive (speaking) and Receptive (listening) Vocabulary

Standardization:

Receptive: The standardization sample included 1373 children

Expressive: The standardization sample included 1248 children

Validity and Reliability: “The standardization samples for the MAVA included over 1,300 children for

the receptive test and over 1,200 for the expressive test. Test-retest, interrater reliability, and

concurrent validity are all very high and over .90” (Super Duper® Publications, 2014).

Scoring ProceduresScoring Procedures:

Receptive Vocabulary Test:

• Add all of the errors in each column

• Add the columns together to get the total for each page

• Transfer each page’s total errors to page 4 of the record form

and add them to obtain the total number of errors for the test

• (Ceiling item)-(total number of errors)=(raw score)

Expressive:

• Add total errors for each page

• Transfer each page’s total errors to page 8 of the record form

and add them to obtain the total number of errors for the test

• (Ceiling item)-(total number of errors)=(raw score)

Stated Limitations➢ “Only students in one small rural southeastern New Mexico elementary

school were investigated. A review of the instrument reveals that the

creators of the MAVA involved no students in New Mexico and did not

assess a proportion of households headed by parents and caregivers who

had not graduated from college comparable to that in the study school

district” (Gatliffe, 2010).

Three Tiers of VocabularyTier 1 Words:● Basic, high frequency words

● Nouns, verbs, adjectives

● Includes early reading words

● Examples: book, girl, sad, run, dog, and orange (Hutton, 2008)

Tier 2 Words:• High frequency words across all domains

• Words with multiple meanings

• “Tier Two words are the most important words for direct instruction because they are good indicators of a student’s progress through school” (Hutton, 2008).

• Examples: masterpiece, fortunate, industrious, measure, and benevolent (Hutton, 2008)

Tier 3 Words:• Related to specific domains

• Subject area words

• Hobbies, technology, weather, professions

• Low frequency

• Examples: economics, isotope, asphalt, Revolutionary War, and crepe (Hutton, 2008)

Response Analyzer Once the tester has administered the assessment → they plug the data into the response analyzer and this will show the percentage of tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 vocabulary the child knows in each section!

Video!

Now we will watch part of a video on how the assessment looks! (1:19-2:55)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=765KlgPNo7Q

Alice’s Case❖ Nick. 6 years and 1 month of age when test was administered (Kindergarten)

❖ Performed in the school library- very quiet, no distractions.

❖ Mild temperament. He was very responsive during the assessment. He seemed to enjoy the assessment- smiled after he would answer the questions and would say things like, “I’m smart aren’t I?”

❖ Difficulties with scoring: Nick was very curious--he kept trying to see my clipboard when I was marking down his answers and he would ask, “Did I get that right?” after a lot of questions. I kept telling him he is doing great!

❖ I did the first part of the assessment, then took him back to class for snack, and then after snack, we went back and did the second part. Next time I administer this assessment, I will do it all in one sitting so it is more accurate!!!

❖ Scores received:RECEPTIVE:Raw score:

128Standard Score:

125Confidence Interval: 119-131Percentile:

95Age Equivalent:

9;0

EXPRESSIVE:Raw score:

97Standard Score:

109Confidence Interval: 103-115Percentile:

73Age Equivalent:

7;6

Alice’s Case cont.For receptive, he scored +1.5 standard deviations above the mean!

For expressive, he scored roughly +.75 standard deviations above the mean!

I plugged in his incorrect answers into the response analyzer and this is the data I received:➢ Receptive vocabulary: Nick understands 100% of the words in Tier 1, 72% of the words in Tier 2, and 46% of the words

in Tier 3➢ Expressive vocabulary: Nick understands 100% of the words in Tier 1, 50% of the words in Tier 2, and 9% of the words

in Tier 3➢ Recommendations for facilitating child’s learning:

■ His Tier 1 words (early reading words, sight words, nouns, verbs, and adjectives) are very much used and understood. His Tier 2 words that play a large role in speaking and reading vocabulary, need a little bit of work. “Tier Two words are the most important ones to directly teach to students because they are assumed to be known as students progress through school” (Super Duper Publications, 2014). Examples of Tier 2 words include masterpiece, preference, fortuitous, glean, and measure and there are about 7,000 word families in English in Tier 2 (Super Duper Publications, 2014). Nick only knows a small percentage of expressive Tier 3 words, however he is above average and has the expressive vocabulary knowledge of a 7 and 6 months year old. The teacher should still attempt to amp up his vocabulary and begin to use bigger words with this student. Examples of Tier 3 words include things like ukulele, asphalt, genome, crepe, and cornice and they comprise the remaining 400,000 words in the US language fall in this tier.

Gabbie’s Case➢ MAVA was administered to Rachel on March 25, 2014

➢ 5 years, 4 months of age

➢ The test was administered at the home of Rachel in the family library.

➢ MAVA was extremely easy to administer, and took around 20 minutes to complete each section of the assessment.

➢ Rachel was engaged and extremely responsive throughout most of the assessment, but towards the end of each section she began to get bored asking if we could do something new.

➢ Due to the thorough and well detailed manual, MAVA was very simple to administer following the standardized procedures.

➢ Scoring the procedure as well was straight forward and simple after reading through the manual and following the directions provided.

➢ I feel as if the test was too long to complete in one sitting. A small break (5 minutes) could have made Rachel’s engagement last longer than it did which could have potentially created better results

➢ Results:Receptive: Age Equivalent: 5 years, 8 months

● Raw Score: 93

● Standard Score: 108

● Percentile: 70, placing her .70s.d. above from the average score

Expressive: Age Equivalent: 6 years

● Raw Score: 89

● Standard Score: 110

● Percentile: 75, placing her .75 s.d. above from the average score

Gabbie’s Case Cont.Results Cont.:

➢ Tier 1 Vocabulary○ Rachel uses 95% of the words (Expressive)○ Rachel uses 96% of the words (Receptive)

● This shows she has a strong understanding of basic high frequency, sight words, and early reading vocabulary.

➢ Tier 2 Vocabulary○ Rachel uses 48% of the words (Expressive)○ Rachel uses 35% of the words (Receptive)

● These are the words that are used through conversation and are found in many domains. Rachel demonstrates she needs work with her Tier 2 words. The vocabulary in Tier 2 are most important words to teach to your students directly as they are presumed to be known as they progress through school.

➢ Tier 3 Vocabulary○ Rachel uses 9% of the words (Expressive)○ Rachel uses 22% of the words (Receptive)

● Rachel struggles with her Tier 3 vocabulary the most. Tier 3 words are low frequency and are related to specific topics. The teacher should work with Rachel using bigger words within each content area.

.

Allysa’s Case★ Sally is a 5 year 4 month caucasian female in Pre-K

★ Administered on April 4, 2014 during rest time in the hallway outside of her class

★ Very easy to administer, took approximately 35 minutes to do both sections total

★ We started with the Receptive Vocabulary section, she identified 43 different images before she got one wrong

★ In the Expressive Vocabulary section, she described 27 images before she got one wrong

★ She was very engaged throughout the whole assessment, and was very curious about how she was doing the entire time

★ “Did I get that one right?” or “Have I gotten any wrong?” then “Can we do more?”

★ The test was very easy to score!

RESULTS: RECEPTIVE:Raw Score: 96Standard Score: 110Confidence Interval:104-116Percentile: 75%Age Equivalent: 7 years

EXPRESSIVERaw Score: 80Standard Score: 102Confidence Interval:96-108Percentile: 55%Age Equivalent: 5 years

Allysa’s Case Cont.RESULTS CONT:

★ TIER 1 VOCABULARY:○ Sally understands 98% of the words in Tier One (Receptive)○ Sally uses 95% of the words in Tier One (Expressive)

Sally has a clear understanding of her early reading words, sight words, nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

★ TIER 2 VOCABULARY:○ Sally understands 86% of the words in Tier Two (Receptive)○ Sally uses 48% of the words in Tier Two (Expressive)

She did a great job at identifying high frequency words, but her teacher might want to try and incorporate more into her vocabulary so she can express them better verbally

★ TIER 3 VOCABULARY○ Sally understands 83% of the words in Tier Three (Receptive)○ Sally uses 15% of the words in Tier Three (Expressive)

She could also identify a majority of her low frequency words, but had a very hard

With her results I concluded that she is very proficient with all Tier 1 vocabulary, advanced for her age when it comes to receptive vocabulary, and there is room for improvement when it comes to her expressive vocabulary, but there are no concerns in relation to her equivalent age!

Emily’s CaseDavid is a quiet, Taiwanese, 4 year and 8-month-old preschooler:

➢ Test administered: April 7, 2014 in his school’s library.

➢ Quite easy to administer; however, it took considerably longer than expected.

➢ He was responsive for a majority of the assessment; however, towards the end, he was lying his

head down on the table, ready to be finished.

➢ The assessment was not difficult to administer due to the detailed procedures provided in the

manual.

➢ Likewise, after reading the scoring guidelines in the manual, scoring the assessment was not

difficult either.

➢ It does not appear that taking a break during the assessment would have been an option but it

probably would have helped David re-focus; he was drained by the time he was done with the test.

Emily’s CaseResults:

Standard score=110 in the Expressive Vocabulary test, which placed him in the 75th percentile and +.75 standard deviation from the average.

Standard score= 131 for the Receptive Vocabulary test, which placed him in the 98th to 99th percentile and between +2 and +3 standard deviations from the average.

I plugged in his incorrect answers into the response analyzer and this data represents the percentage of words he understood:

➢ Receptive vocabulary: Tier 1: 96% of the words

Tier 2: 65% of the words

Tier 3: 39% of the words

➢ Expressive vocabulary: Tier 1: 91% of the words

Tier 2: 40% of the words

Tier 3: 7% of the words

➢ Recommendations for facilitating child’s learning: First off, he understands the Tier 1 words pretty well. This group includes “early reading words, sight words, nouns, verbs, and adjectives that students learn to identify or decode with instruction”. His Tier 2 words, which are prominent in speaking and reading vocabulary, require some work. Furthermore, he needs quite a bit of assistance in building his Tier 3 vocabulary. Tier 3 includes low frequency-used words, such as subject areas in school, hobbies, geographic regions, technology, weather, etc. I would like to work more on his awareness of speaking and reading vocabulary, as well as the low frequency-used words.

Weaknesses• Ending the testing was dependent on how well the

child did (6 wrong in a row). There is no appropriate answer to “when is it over?”

● Receptive assessment had 4 choices so the student already had a 25% chance of getting it right. They would guess-- doesn’t this make it inaccurate?

● Young children want to give adult correct answers and would want instant feedback so they would ask, “Did I get that right?

● Expressive assessment- may not get it “exactly” correct

● Repetitive- boring

Is it too easy?● Rachel=5 years 4 months. Age equivalence is 6 years for expressive

vocabulary and 5 years 8 months for receptive vocabulary● Nick= 6 years 1 month. Age equivalence is 7 years 6 months for

expressive vocabulary and 9 yrs for receptive vocabulary● David= 4 years 8 months. Age equivalence is 6 years for expressive

vocabulary and 7 years 10 months for receptive vocabulary● Sally= 5 years 4 months. Age equivalence is 5 years 6 months for

expressive vocabulary and 7 years for receptive vocabulary

Strengths• Simple to administer

• 2 out of 4 of our children’s assessments only took 30 mins total (15 minutes for each section)

• Interactive and enjoyable

• Assessor can prompt when guidance is needed--this is laid out specifically in the book

• Provides the assessor exactly what to say--good for novice assessors

Culturally and Linguistically Biased?• Culturally? No; contains photos of people

from different minority/ethnic groups • Socioeconomic bias? Yes; pictures of things

that people from a low socioeconomic status may not recognize (rock climbing, diamond ring, water skiing, certain instruments). However assessment does contain things from rural and urban environments.

Proof against linguistic bias:New Mexico Elementary School’s use of MAVA

This study examined vocabulary acquisition of elementary students in grades kindergarten through fifth in one rural New Mexico school. The study assessed each student for proficiency in identifying and using tier-I, tier-II and tier-III words. Hispanic and non-Hispanic participants were compared with respect to their tier-I, tier-II, and tier-III proficiency using analysis of covariance with three candidate covariate factors: participant grade in school, gender, and caregiver level of education.

The school had 277 students.

o Hispanic students comprised nearly 80% of the student body.

o All students received free lunch and breakfast.

o The 65 students who participated in the study were assessed using the Montgomery Assessment of Vocabulary Acquisition (MAVA).

Results:

• Hispanic participants and non-Hispanic students performed equally well in tier-I expressive and tier-II and tier-III expressive and receptive vocabulary.

• Caregiver level of education showed statistical significance for tier-I expressive and tier-II receptive vocabulary results.

• Participant grade level was found to be statistically significant in both expressive and receptive scores for all three-tier levels

Can it be used with children with disabilities?

Physical Disabilities:Expressive Section- Children with oral motor physical disabilities might have

problems because it is required that they orally vocalize their answerReceptive Section- Children with physical disabilities of the limbs may have

a difficult time pointing to the correct answer, however the tester can ask them “1, 2, 3, or 4?” while pointing to the pictures

could do one or the other, but not both. Children with severe disabilities would have a different vocabulary

assessment based on their abilities.

Works CitedMontgomery, J. K. (2008). “MAVA: Montgomery assessment of vocabulary acquisition: Examiners manual”. Greenville, South Carolina: Super Duper Publications.

T.Hutton. (2008). Three tiers of vocabulary and education. [Blog comment]. Retrieved from http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/02/182_VocabularyTiers.pdf

Gatliffe, E. M. (2010, January 1). Influence of Ethnicity on English Vocabulary Measurement: Using the Montgomery Assessment of Vocabulary Acquisition in One Rural Southeastern New Mexico School. ProQuest LLC

J.K.Montgomery. (2014). Assessing receptive & expressive vocabulary with the mava. [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from http://www.txsha.org/_pdf/Convention/2014Convention/2014Handouts/Holland-Assessing%20Receptive%20&%20Expressive%20Vocabulary%20with%20the%20MAVA.pdf

Super Duper Publications. (2014). “Response Analyzers”. Retrieved from http://www.superduperinc.com/Analyzer/Default.aspx