Catherine
Casteel has been with SLTI as a part of the test development team since
the fall of 2007. Prior to working for SLTI, Ms. Casteel worked for the Washoe County School District in Reno, Nevada, as an English Department coordinator and summer school secretary. During her graduate program, she worked as a literacy tutor for the E.L. Cord Foundation Center for Learning and Literacy under Dr. Donald Bear and was a reader for the State of Nevada’s 8th grade Writing Assessment. After receiving her Master’s in Education from the University of Nevada, Reno, she taught an accredited full-day kindergarten program for four years before moving to Virginia.
After arriving in the DC area in 2005, Ms. Casteel began working for Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland. During her time with the county she was a team leader, IPAS Grant Committee member, Technology Committee member, and SMART Club advisor. In addition, Ms. Casteel conducted and coordinated various teacher trainings in a range of areas including parent outreach, technology, literacy, classroom management, and curriculum development. Since joining SLTI, Ms. Casteel has worked as an item adjudicator, item writer, item reviewer, and marking supervisor for a high-stakes English language test developed by Pearson Language Assessments.
Since joining SLTI Ms. Casteel has worked as a item adjudicator, item writer, item reviewer and marking supervisor for a high-stakes English language test developed by Pearson Language Assessments. She has also reviewed test items for the Federal Court Interpreter Exam, undergone ILR training at the Defense Language Institute, and served as a reading consultant for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and the NAEP Educational Statistics Services Institute (NESSI). Due to her diverse background, Ms. Casteel is familiar with a variety of assessment types from standardized to authentic, and is well versed in NCLB laws and compliance issues.
Ms. Casteel specializes in phonological awareness, decoding, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. She brings this knowledge to bear in her work at SLTI in item writing, item review, item specifications, standardization compliance, developmental appropriateness, linguistic simplification, and universal design.