CASAS Basic Skills Content Standards

The standards help instructors identify the underlying basic and academic skills embedded in CASAS Competencies. These standards contain clearly stated, detailed statements leveled according to NRS Educational Functioning Levels. The standards are also related to the items in our various test series. The statements are divided into easy-to-use categories. Aligning CASAS Competencies and Assessments to Basic Skill Content Standards get adobe reader provides a full description of the reading and listening content standards.

Basic Skills Content Standards by Skill Area

CASAS Reading Standards (2016) Second Edition

In 2019, CASAS updated the CASAS Reading Standards and re-named them CASAS Reading Standards (2016) Second Edition. The document, CASAS Reading Standards (2016) Second Edition, shows how the standards align with the College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Education (2013) and the NRS Educational Functioning Levels for ABE (2016) and ESL (2018).

Development and History

Since 1980, CASAS has focused on teaching and assessing basic skills in contexts relevant to adults. CASAS has developed and continues to refine a highly formalized hierarchy of competencies, the application of skills that adults need to be functional and productive members of society.

At the request of the CASAS National Consortium, representing numerous states, CASAS developed content standards as a formal part of the system. This enhancement helps teachers more fully integrate content standards and competencies into instruction.

The content standards are clear statements, leveled according to NRS Educational Functioning Levels, and are related to CASAS test items across many test series. The statements are divided into categories to assist in navigating through the standards.

This National Consortium project was coordinated with the assistance of a thirteen-state technical workgroup. The process included a review of existing state adult education content standards for California, New York, Massachusetts, Arizona, Maryland, and Florida, as well as other national and state standards documents. The workgroup used this information to begin developing and piloting content standards. The standards are correlated with CASAS performance levels and the National Reporting System and aligned with CASAS Competencies and tests.