How does Literably grade "tolds/tells" and other types of teacher/parent voices heard during assessments?

Tolds/Tells: When assessing, a "told" or a "tell" occurs when a student gets stuck on a particular word and the teacher (or parent) tells the student what the word is. When this happens, sometimes students will then repeat the word that the teacher just told them. In these cases, Literably will do its best to mark this as an error (omission).

However, Literably considers its ability to accurately grade "tells" as a best-effort feature. If a student's recording includes a teacher's voice giving a "tell" for a particular word, it's possible that our grading system will mark that word correctly (i.e., it will NOT be marked as an error).  If a teacher needs to provide a "tell" to a student or a group of students (e.g., Kindergarten students), below are a few ways they might try to navigate this situation:

• Remind students before they start an assessment that they can skip a word they don't know and continue reading (so they don't get stuck on one word).
• Whisper the "tell" to the student quietly and then have students read the next word in the assessment.  

Teacher/parent voices: If teachers or parents talk or coach students during assessments, it is possible that those adult voices will be captured in the student recording that Literably grades. These adult voices can reduce the accuracy and usefulness of students' assessment data. Literably cannot guarantee that it can always decipher between adult voices and student voices and, as a result, Literably recommends that, as much as possible, only students be heard when taking their assessments. We realize that there may be background noise heard during assessments, but we want to avoid adults speaking directly to students while an assessment is taking place or reading parts of assessment for the student.

To reduce the presence of adult voices during assessments, teachers and parents might consider doing the following things before student assess:

• Tell/remind students how they want them to take the assessment (read the story, click the next page button, answer the comprehension questions, etc.) so as to reduce student questions while the assessment is taking place.
• Tell/remind students what they should do when they come to a word they don’t know (e.g., try to sound the word out but skip the word if they can’t figure it out after X number of seconds)
• Tell/remind students that the teacher (or parent) isn't allowed to help them during the assessment and that they should do the best they can.