Overview
The Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey – Third Edition (WMLS-III; Woodcock, Alvarado, Ruef, & Schrank, 2017) is an individually-administered, norm-referenced instrument designed to measure academic language proficiency in listening, speaking, oral language, comprehension, reading, and writing. The primary uses of the WMLS-III include (a) determining English and/or Spanish language proficiency; (b) determining oral language dominance of bilingual (English and Spanish) subjects; (c) monitoring growth or change in English and/or Spanish language ability; (d) determining eligibility for bilingual education/ESL services; (e) assessing readiness of English language learners for English-only instruction; (f) determining eligibility for accelerated or gifted and talented programs; (g) assisting in educational planning; (h) evaluating program effectiveness; and (i) describing students’ language characteristics in research studies The WMLS-III is co-normed with and links to the WJ-IV for comprehensive evaluations. Two forms (A & B) are available for English and one form for Spanish; they can be used to assess individuals from 2 through 22 years, 11 months old.
The eight subtests of the WMLS-III English and Spanish forms include three new tests (i.e., compared with the WMLS-R): Oral Comprehension/Comprension Oral, Oral Language Expression/Expresion de lenguaje oral, and Written Language Expression/Expresion de Lenguaje Escrito. Tests retained from the previous version include: Picture Vocabulary/Vocabulario sobre Dibujos, Analogies/Analogías, Letter Word Identification/Identificación de Letras y Palabras, Dictation/Dictado, and Passage Comprehension/Comprensión de Textos. Two tests have been eliminated from the Third Edition: Understanding Directions/Comprensión de Indicaciones and Story Recall/Rememoración de Cuentos. These eight subtests are combined in different ways to provide two tests for each language domain- one test of basic/foundational skills and one test of skill application/functional skills Listening/Escuchar, Speaking/Hablar, Reading/Leer, and Writing/Escribir. Eleven cluster scores are yielded and include Comprehension/Comprensión (Written and Spoken), Oral Language/Lenguaje Oral (3 clusters: Broad, Basic, and Applied), Reading-Writing (3 clusters: Broad, Basic, and Applied), and English or Spanish Language Ability (3 clusters: Broad, Basic, and Applied).
In addition to norm-referenced scores such as standard scores (SS) and percentile ranks (PR), the WMLS-III also provides criterion-referenced information via scores including relative proficiency index (RPI), instructional zones, language proficiency levels, and comparative language index (CLI). The six language proficiency levels replace cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) scores. The CLI score compares Spanish and English proficiency on selected clusters and is helpful in determining language dominance.
Summary
Age: 2 years 0 months to 22 years 11 months
Time to Administer: 25 min. for screening. 55 minutes for all eight tests
Method of Administration: Individually administered, norm-referenced instrument of academic language proficiency in English or Spanish.
Yields standard scores (M = 100, SD = 15), T-scores (M = 50, SD = 10), z-scores, percentiles, age/grade equivalents, language proficiency levels (replacing CALP scores in previous versions), and comparative language index scores to determine language dominance.
Subscales: Cluster Scores: Comprehension, Broad English Language Ability, Basic English Language Ability, Applied English Language Ability
Cross-Domain Clusters: Listening and Speaking; Reading and Writing
Subtests: Analogies, Oral Comprehension, Picture Vocabulary, Orla Language Expression, Letter-Word Identification, Passage Comprehension, Dictation, Written Language Expression
Autism Related Research
None found.