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Addressing the Needs in Reading of the Dyslexic Learner in the Inclusive Classroom

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Addressing the Needs in Reading of the Dyslexic Learner in the Inclusive Classroom

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Addressing the needs in reading of the dyslexic learner in the inclusive classroom

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Bear, Chapter 6

Cunningham, Chapters 5 & 11

Sousa, ELL Brain Learns, Chapter 7

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Enid Martinez - Teaching English Language Learners

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Enid is a literacy consultant working with educators across the nation and the world to strengthen reading and writing instruction. Enid was a Senior Staff Developer for more than 10 years at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project where she led much of the primary work in Word Study and Shared Reading as well as the ELL work.

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Professor Kathy Rastle, Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London describes the method of teaching, known as phonics and why it works.

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Reading Instruction: 10 Essential Elements

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Reading Instruction: 10 Essential Elements

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Reading Instruction: 10 Essential Elements

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This video mini-lecture describes the 10 essential elements that should be a part of any reading program. Dr. Andy Johnson, Reading Specialist, www.OPDT-Johnson.com

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Proof of the 3 Cueing Systems for Recognizing Words

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This video provides a very simplistic demonstration of the existence of the 3 cueing systems for recognizing words during reading. Dr. Andy Johnson, Reading Specialist. www.OPDT-Johnson.com

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http://www.phonicsminilessons.com - Phonics Minilessons author Gay Su Pinnell explains what features of the program are designed to support effective and efficient delivery of phonics instruction to young learners.

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4 Stages of Teaching Writing to Children

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4 Stages of Teaching Writing to Children

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Teaching writing to elementary students happens over a series of scaffolded stages. A gradual release towards independence will result in improving writing skills.

The four stages of teaching good writing is a gradual release from teacher-directed to complete independence. It is tightly controlled to ensure success, yet the lessons can be really fun.

In fact, they should be interactive and fun, or you will lose the interest of your class (then you are toast!).

The stages are:

Modeled Writing

Shared Writing

Guided Writing

Independent Writing

For each stage you will find a specific strategy to use in your lessons. Each strategy can be used as a stand-alone lesson or at intervals during other stages.

Modeled Writing

What is Modeled Writing?

A think aloud about strategies

Utilizes a problem-solving approach

Can be used to teach a specific element of language

Modeled writing is the first step in teaching writing to children. This is when the teacher is in front of the class doing all of the writing.

If your students struggle greatly with getting their ideas going, come back to this basic step and model your writing process for them. They need to see it being done. I like to have my students sitting on the floor in front of the chart paper so we are in an intimate setting while I discuss my thinking.

Make your thoughts about the process known (be explicit) while you are teaching writing to children.

For example, you might say, "Today I want to write about what happened to me last night. I need to make a web to sort out my thoughts, then I can start putting the words into sentences."

If it is a specific skill lesson, such as great beginning sentences, you might say, "I know that author's need to have strong beginnings to hook their readers into a story. Today I am going to use a little-known fact to hook them."

The key to modeled writing is to never assume your students are following you. Tell them everything you are doing and why. It is not enough for them just to watch you. As well, don't try to model so many things that the lesson goes on too long - you will lose their attention.

Shared Writing

During shared writing, a teacher will scribe the words, but the students are now invited to contribute to the piece. This is the type of writing I tend to do a lot of at the beginning of the year in my second grade classroom. It would be appropriate for any primary writing.

Students contribute ideas while the teacher writes

Lots of discussion, questions and answers

Think alouds continue to be used

The photos below show a shared writing lesson that my class did for a special assembly we had. We were to write a very simple story that had little detail (it was to be performed by a mime). The entire process, from start to finish, took us about 45 minutes.

Below is our story that we wrote together. Notice that you can see where I made my thinking visible to the students as we worked. That is critical in teaching writing to children. Words are circles and crossed out, punctuation marks are changed, and substitutions have been made throughout.

You can also see where the basic narrative elements were underlined in the story. Doing this helps the students see how the elements are woven into the story without saying, "The main character is..." or, "The setting was..."

Guided Writing

Guided writing is the third step in teaching writing to children. In guided writing, teachers continually provide feedback, redirection and expansion of ideas. Any area of writing can be addressed, but it works well to put similar needs together and address them at the same time.

The step between teacher directed and independent writing

Teacher utilizes prompts and clues to help develop ideas and organization

Teacher works with students either small group or independently

Oral discussion of sentences before writing

You may also choose to do guided writing independently as part of how you approach teaching writing to children. I find that using smaller groups works really well for teaching creative writing as so many children struggle with formulating ideas.

During a writer's workshop, I like to walk around the classroom and stop at my students desks. I have them read to me what they are working on and ask them what they might be struggling with.

It is surprising what they realize they need help with, and it is not always what I thought they should work on, but the motivation to improve an aspect of writing is there so we do it.

The absolute best series of videos to watch on teaching Guided Writing are found at Primary Framework Guided Writing. I have no affiliate relationship with them, so my opinion is completely unbiased. You must watch these though, as they give a clear, conceptual understanding of what guided writing really is and how to use it within the framework of teaching writing to children.

Independent Writing

This is where the students effectively utilize written language for their own purposes or as assigned by the teacher. These writing pieces can be anything, from creative stories and reports to writing journals or letters to friends and family.

Students use ideas from shared writing to produce their own independent piece

Reference to charts and other materials to revise and edit composition

Teacher evaluation for growth

This part of teaching writing to children must always include a time to share. It is critical to provide validation of your young author's process and growth as a writer. This provides them not only recognition, but an opportunity to receive feedback.

While some children gravitate towards writing independently, many need more practice with essential writing lessons. If you have a student who struggles, you must go back and do more shared and guided writing, as well as spending some time simply romancing young writers.

But what about the mechanics and structure of writing?

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4 Stages of Teaching Writing to Children

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Teaching writing to elementary students happens over a series of scaffolded stages. A gradual release towards independence will result in improving writing skills. The four stages of teaching good writing is a gradual release from teacher-directed to complete independence. It is tightly controlled to ensure success, yet the lessons can be really fun.

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Not sure what kind of phonics activities you should start with? Confused about the levels of phonics instruction? Fuzzy on how to tell when a student has mastered a phonics task? Check out the chart below, created with the guidance of phonics expert Wiley Blevins. He has included key phonics skills, the approximate age most kids master them, and illustrations of mastery - plus sample activities for each skill level from Scholastic books and programs that promote phonics instruction.

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Teach With Phonics Skills Chart | Scholastic

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Not sure what kind of phonics activities you should start with? Confused about the levels of phonics instruction? Fuzzy on how to tell when a student has mastered a phonics task? Check out the chart below, created with the guidance of phonics expert Wiley Blevins.

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Letter and sounds correspondences (Phonics: Stage 2)

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Blending and segmentation (Phonics: Stage 4)

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Yolanda Soryl teaches a small group of New Zealand 5 year old pupils how to blend and segment. These children have been at school between 6-8 weeks. The lesson follows the 'Hear Read Write Revise' approach to teaching phonics. The focus is on interactive learning, fun and success.

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Word Study in Action: Making Words Lesson

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Understanding Word Structure Making Words The teacher explains that a "making words" activity helps students to under- stand how longer words are constructed based on common patterns such as vowel combinations. This process also provides opportunities for ongoing assessment. The activity begins with students building a two-letter word and culminates in the unscrambling of the seven-letter word "oatmeal."

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Consonant Digraphs & Hearing Every Sound

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Consonant Digraphs & Hearing Every Sound

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Consonant digraph and hearing every sound (Phonics: Stage 5)

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Yolanda Soryl teaches a group of New Zealand 5 year old pupils how to read and write consonant digraphs. These children have been at school between 4 and 9 months. The lesson follows the 'Hear Read Write Revise' approach to teaching phonics. The focus is on interactive learning, fun and success.

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guided reading early words yolanda soryl literacy

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An Early Words Readers guided reading lesson for an emergent reader

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Guided reading is when a young reader learns to read a book by themselves with the help and guidance of an experienced reader (usually a teacher or perhaps a parent). In this video, Yolanda teaches her 5 year old nephew Barney how to read a little book.

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Tip: Cut apart the student lists and show the child one list at a time.

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Check out how well your children can read.

By using the San Diego Quick Assessment found on the next three pages, you will quickly be able to gauge your children's reading ability.

Download now to print this assessment.

What you need to know:

1. Research has confirmed that the San Diego Quick Assessment provides a fairly accurate estimate of children's ability to read grade-level material.

2. It is a first-step screening procedure - not a substitute for a comprehensive reading assessment.

3. At the high school level, the assessment is most effective for students with poor decoding skills.

4. Bright children often read several levels above their grade level.

What you will learn from the assessment:

1. You will learn how well your child is reading words at each grade level.

2. A reading category can be determined for each grade level:

independent - the child can read with no help from his or her teachers

instructional - the grade level where your child is actually reading

frustration - the grade level where material is too difficult for your child

Reading Level Assessment - Record Form

Directions: Begin with the children's reading list that is at least two years below a child's grade level or at the preprimer level. Cover the words not being read with a paper. Ask the child to read the list words aloud to you. Give no longer than five seconds before asking the child to move to the next word. Indicate the child's errors on this record form. Continue until the child makes three or more errors in a list.

Reading Level: When testing is completed, record the highest reading level in each of the categories below.

___INDEPENDENT (1 error) ____INSTRUCTIONAL (2 errors) ___FRUSTRATION (3 errors)

Reprinted with Permission of the International Reading Association, 2011. LaPay, M. and Ross, R. (1969). The graded word list: Quick gauge of reading ability. Journal of Reading, 12(4), 305-307.

Children's Reading Lists

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Check out how well your children can read. By using the San Diego Quick Assessment found on the next three pages, you will quickly be able to gauge your children's reading ability. Download now to print this assessment.

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Scribd is the world's largest social reading and publishing site.

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As a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and university professor, I have always found helpful published summaries or syntheses of professional-related information relevant to my work. In this article, I review the current editions of eight informal reading inventories (IRIs) published since 2002 that are available at the time of this writing. Specifically, I identify key issues surrounding the use of IRIs and examine ways in which the various IRIs reviewed approach them. A goal of this undertaking is to guide teachers, reading specialists, reading coaches, administrators, professionals in higher education, and others charged with the education or professional development of preservice or inservice teachers in their quest to find IRIs best suited to their specific needs. I hope the findings point to new ways in which IRIs can be made even more effective in the near future.

What are informal reading inventories (IRIs)?

IRIs are individually administered diagnostic assessments designed to evaluate a number of different aspects of students' reading performance. Typically, IRIs consist of graded word lists and passages ranging from preprimer level to middle or high school levels (Paris & Carpenter, 2003). After reading each leveled passage, a student responds orally to follow-up questions assessing comprehension and recall. Using comprehension and word recognition scores for students who read the passages orally, along with additional factors taken into consideration (e.g., prior knowledge, fluency, emotional status, among other possible factors), teachers or other education-related professionals determine students' reading levels.

They also use this information to match students with appropriate reading materials, place children in guided reading groups, design instruction to address students' noted strengths and needs, and document reading progress over time. While IRIs serve a variety of purposes, perhaps their greatest value is linked to the important role they play in helping educators to diagnose the gaps in the abilities of readers who struggle the most.

Based on notions implicit in developmental (Chall, 1983; Spear-Swerling & Sternberg, 1996) and interactive models of reading (Rumelhart, 1977; Stanovich, 1980), IRIs provide information about students' reading stages and knowledge sources. For example, by charting and analyzing patterns in oral reading error types, educators identify whether students rely on one cueing system (i.e., graphophonic, syntactic, or semantic cueing system) to the exclusion of the others, as beginning readers typically do, or if they use a balance of strategies, as mature readers at more advanced stages do in their reading development when they encounter challenges while processing text. Supplemented by other measures of literacy-related knowledge and abilities, as needed, IRIs contribute valuable information to the school's instructional literacy program.

Rationale for selecting IRIs to evaluate

Given the sweeping, education-related policy changes associated with the No Child Left Behind Act signed into U.S. law in 2002, the IRIs included in this analysis were limited to those published since 2002 because it was felt that they would be more likely to reflect features relevant to the policy changes than IRIs published earlier. For example, federal guidelines specify that the screening, diagnostic, and classroom-based, instructional assessments used by schools receiving Reading First grants to evaluate K-3 student performance must have proven validity and reliability (U.S. Department of Education, 2002) - aspects noted as weak with regard to IRIs published earlier (Kinney & Harry, 1991; Klesius & Homan, 1985; Newcomer, 1985).

In addition, specifications in Guidance for the Reading First Program (U.S. Department of Education, 2002) require that educators in Reading First schools evaluate students in the five critical areas of reading instruction (i.e., comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, phonemic awareness, and phonics) as defined by the National Reading Panel (NRP; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000) and screen, diagnose, and monitor students' progress over time. Given these federal mandates, it was assumed that IRIs published since 2002 would be more apt to exhibit the technical rigor and breadth in assessment options necessary to help reading professionals achieve these goals.

The names of specific IRI instruments identified were obtained from searches in the professional literature or recommended by professionals in the field of literacy. In all, eight IRIs were identified, examined, and cross-compared with regard to selected features of their most current editions. The following were the IRIs included in this analysis: Analytical Reading Inventory (ARI; Woods & Moe, 2007), Bader Reading and Language Inventory (BRLI; Bader, 2005), Basic Reading Inventory (BRI; Johns, 2005), Classroom Reading Inventory (CRI-SW; Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004), Comprehensive Reading Inventory (CRI-CFC; Cooter, Flynt, & Cooter, 2007), Informal Reading Inventory (IRI-BR; Burns & Roe, 2007), Qualitative Reading Inventory-4 (QRI-4; Leslie & Caldwell, 2006), and The Critical Reading Inventory (CRI-2; Applegate, Quinn, & Applegate, 2008).

Analyzing the IRIs

In order to cross-compare selected features of the current editions of all eight IRIs, a coding spreadsheet was prepared and used to assist in the systematic collection of data. The categories used were chosen because of their relevance to issues in the professional literature (e.g., length of passages, type of comprehension question scheme used) or to policy and other changes affecting the field today (e.g., assessment options related to the five critical areas of reading, reliability, and validity information).

Interrater reliability measures

To ensure the accuracy of the coded data, I enlisted the assistance of a graduate student who independently coded one of the IRIs. Afterward, our data charts were compared and the percentage of agreement was determined with differences resolved by discussion. Following this interrater reliability check, data from the separate coding sheets for each IRI were rearranged and compiled onto additional charts in various ways in order to facilitate comparisons and the detection of patterns among variables of interest.

Results

In all, eight IRIs published since 2002 were analyzed and compared in order to identify the variety of ways in which the instruments approach key issues relevant to their use. Based on the analysis, it is evident that the eight IRIs reviewed range in the assessment components they include and in which critical aspects of reading instruction identified by the NRP (NICHD, 2000) they assess. For example, measures for reading comprehension and vocabulary (i.e., sight word vocabulary) were more common than measures in the other areas. An analysis of the IRI features related to each of the five pillars of reading follows.

IRI

Forms or passage types (grade levels)

Passage word length

Question scheme/ retelling rubric focus

3 narrative passages (pp-12)

3 expository passages (pp-12)

Questions: Text-based, inferential, and critical response questions

3 formsa (pp-8, 9/10, 11/12)

Form C (for children)

Form C/A (for children, adolescents/adults)

Form A (for adults)

Questions:
Literal questions and one interpretive question per passage (not included in the total memory score)

Cooter, Flynt, & Cooter
(2007)

Forms A and B, English, narrative (pp-9)

Forms A and B, Spanish, narrative (pp-9)

Forms C and D, English, expository (1-9)

Form C, Spanish, expository (1-9)

Form D, Spanish, expository (10, 11, 12)

Form E, English, expository (10, 11, 12)

Emergent literacy assessments

Johns
(2005)

7 forms (not entirely equivalent):

Forms A, B: oral reading (pp-8)

Form C: oral reading, expository (pp-8)

Form D: silent reading (pp-8)

Form E: oral reading, expository (pp-8)

Form LN: longer narrative (3-12)

Form LE: longer expository (3-12)

Emergent literacy assessments

Questions:
Topic, fact (lower-inference, and vocabulary (higher-level comprehension) questions

4 narrative, 1 expository (pp)

3 narrative, 2 expository (p-2)

3 narrative, 3 expository (3-5)

3 literature, 2 social studies, 2 science (6)

2 literature, 2 social studies, 2 science (UMS)

1 literature, 1 social studies, 1 science (HS)

Varies:
44-786 (pp-UMS)
354-1,224 (HS,
passage sections

Silvaroli & Wheelock
(2004)

3 formsb with pre-/posttests for each:

Form A, Subskills Format (pp-8) 38-268

Form B, Reader Response Format (pp-8)

Form C, Subskills Format for high school and adult education students (1-8)

Woods & Moe
(2007)
3 equivalent narrative forms (pp-9):
2 expository forms (1-9):

Form S (science)

Form SS (social studies)

Questions:
Defined by the reader-text relationship:

"Retells in Fact" (RIF)

"Puts Information Together" (PIT)

"Connects Author and Reader" (CAR)

"Evaluates and Substantiates" (EAS)

Retelling rubrics:
A focus on story elements for narratives and expository elements for factual text

Note: pp = preprimer level, p = primer level, UMS = upper middle school,
HS = high school.

aNarrative and expository text passages are distributed across levels as follows: pp.2: narratives only; 3-5: 2 narrative, 1 expository; 6: all expository; 7: 1 narrative, 2 expository; 8: 2 narrative, 1expository; 9-10: 1 narrative, 2 expository; 11-12: all expository.

b Forms include narrative and expository text passages that are not explicitly identified by genre.

Reading comprehension and recall

Evidence of content validity

According to Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (1999), a fundamental concern in judging assessments is evidence of validity. Assessments should represent clearly the content domain they purport to measure. For example, if the intention is to learn more about a student's ability to read content area textbooks, then it is critical that the text passages used for assessment be structured similarly. Based on their study of eight widely used and cited IRIs, Applegate, Quinn, and Applegate (2002) concluded that there were great variations in the way IRI text passages were structured, including passages with factual content. They observed that biographies and content area text, in some cases, matched up better with the classic definition of a story.

In a similar manner, Kinney and Harry (1991) noted little resemblance between the type of text passages included in many IRIs and the text type typically read by students in middle and high school. As researchers have demonstrated through their studies and analyses, narrative and expository texts are structured differently (Mandler & Johnson, 1977; Meyer & Freedle, 1984), and readers of all sorts, including general education students and children with learning disabilities, process contrasting text types in different ways (Dickson, Simmons, & Kame'enui, 1995). Thus, it makes sense that if the goal of assessment is to gain insights on a student's reading of textbooks that are expository, then the text used for the assessment should also be expository.

Relative to the IRIs examined for this analysis, text passages varied by genre and length as well as by whether the text included illustrations, photos, maps, graphs, and diagrams. A discussion of the ways in which the various IRIs approach these issues follows.

Passage genre

With regard to the text types included in the IRIs under review here (aligned with the perspective that reading comprehension varies by text type), five of the eight IRIs provide separate sections, or forms, for narrative and expository passages for all levels, making it easy to evaluate reading comprehension and recall for narrative text apart from expository material (Applegate et al., 2008; Cooter et al., 2007; Johns, 2005; Leslie & Caldwell, 2006; Woods & Moe, 2007).

However, caution is advised. Despite the separation of genres, in some of the current IRIs, consistent with Applegate et al.'s (2002) observations, some passages classified as expository are actually more like narrative. For example, in BRI (Johns, 2005), the passage "Have You Played This Game?" contains factual information about the board game Monopoly, but it is written in a narrative style. The passage is placed in the Expository Form LE section; however, the first comprehension question asks, "What is this story about?" Even for passages more expository-like in text structure, at times authors refer to them as "stories" (e.g., "Here is a story about driver's license requirements," Bader, 2005, p. 65; "Tell me about the story you just read," Cooter et al., 2007, p. 275, in reference to the factual passage "Bears").

Of all the IRIs considered, ARI (Woods & Moe, 2007) and QRI-4 (Leslie & Caldwell, 2006) provide expository text passages with features most like text found in science and social studies textbooks. In fact, the authors note most of the passages were drawn from textbooks.

A few of the IRIs appear to take a more holistic approach in their representation of the content domain. For three of the IRIs, the assessment includes a "mix" (Burns & Roe, 2007, p. 227) or "balance" (Bader, 2005, p. 4) of text types with greater emphasis on narratives and no expository passages at lower levels (Bader, 2005; Burns & Roe, 2007; Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004). In these IRIs, there is no clear separation of narrative and expository text passages.

Passage length

While the passages generally become longer at the upper levels to align with the more demanding texts read by older students, across inventories passage lengths at the same levels vary; some cases, within the same inventory, authors offer passages of different lengths as options at the same levels (see Table 1). For example, finding that beginning readers sometimes struggled with the 50-word, pre-primer passage in earlier editions, Johns (2005) now includes in the ninth edition of BRI a second, shorter passage option of 25 words for each form that offers passages at the preprimer level. In a similar manner, he offers passages of two different lengths at levels 3-12.

Pictures and graphic supplements

Noting the benefits and drawbacks of including illustrations and other graphic supplements with the passages, IRI authors vary in their opinions on this matter. To eliminate the possibility of readers' relying on picture clues rather than their understanding of the text, Silvaroli and Wheelock (2004) and Burns and Roe (2007) exclude illustrations entirely. Bader (2005), Cooter et al. (2007), Johns (2005), and Woods and Moe (2007) limit illustrated passages to lower levels only. Providing examiners with options for comparing beginning readers' performance, Applegate et al. (2008) and Leslie and Caldwell (2006) provide passages with and without illustrations or photos. Moreover, Leslie and Caldwell provide a number of assessment choices at levels 5 through high school, allowing for in-depth and varied evaluations of students' abilities to use different types of graphic supplements typically found in science and social studies textbooks, such as diagrams, maps, photos, and pie graphs.

Evidence of construct validity

According to Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (1999), a valid test also captures all the important aspects of the construct (i.e., the characteristic or concept that the test is designed to measure), and it also provides evidence that processes irrelevant to the construct do not interfere or distort results. Across IRIs examined, comprehension question frameworks varied in terms of which aspects of narrative or expository text comprehension they centered on, as well as what dimensions, or levels, of comprehension they measured. In addition, across the IRIs reviewed, assorted measures were used to identify extraneous factors potentially affecting comprehension scores. A discussion of the various ways in which each IRI handles these issues follows.

Comprehension/Recall measures

For most of the IRIs reviewed, question schemes introduced alone or in conjunction with retelling rubrics or scoring guides serve to assess a reader's comprehension or recall in two areas: (1) the reader's grasp of narrative and expository text structure and (2) various dimensions or levels of reading comprehension (e.g., literal and inferential comprehension). All of the IRIs attempt to assess these areas either through their question schemes alone or in combination with a retelling and rubric assessment; however, in some cases, the authors use different terms for the dimensions of comprehension they measure.

For measuring narrative text comprehension and recall, six of the eight IRIs focus their question schemes and retelling rubrics on story elements (e.g., character, setting, problem or goal, resolution; Applegate et al., 2008; Burns & Roe, 2007; Cooter et al., 2007; Johns, 2005; Leslie & Caldwell, 2006; Woods & Moe, 2007) based on story grammar theory. It should be noted that the question schemes of Burns and Roe, Johns, and Woods and Moe are structured differently (see Table 1). Thus, if their question schemes are used to evaluate narrative comprehension independently without a retelling and the associated rubric with story elements criteria, then a student's grasp of narrative text structure will not be evaluated.

In the assessment of expository text comprehension and recall, there is greater variety across IRIs. Four IRIs use question schemes or rubrics based on the levels of importance of information (e.g., macro vs. micro concepts, main ideas vs. details; Applegate et al., 2008; Burns & Roe, 2007; Johns, 2005; Leslie & Caldwell, 2006). Taking a different approach, Woods and Moe (2007) and Cooter et al. (2007) provide checklists and question schemes, respectively, for evaluating student recall of expository elements (e.g., description, collection, causation, problem and solution, comparison). Johns includes a variety of rubric options specific to narrative and expository text passages but also more holistic rubrics that he suggests can be used with retellings of any text type.

In addition, in the QRI-4, Leslie and Caldwell provide a think-aloud assessment option useful for capturing information about the strategies readers use while they are in the process of constructing meaning based on the text. To facilitate the use of this assessment option, some of the expository text passages at the sixth, upper middle school, and high school levels are formatted in two different ways that allow for conducting assessments with or without student think-alouds. The authors also provide a coding system for categorizing the think-aloud types based on whether they indicate an understanding or lack of understanding of the text.

It should be noted that Bader (2005) and Silvaroli and Wheelock (2004) use similar criteria for assessing comprehension and recall of narrative versus expository text. For example, in using the BRLI (Bader, 2005) for the assessment of narrative and expository passages, readers are asked to retell the "story" (p. 59), and the idea units recalled are checked off from a list that does not categorize the idea units in any way (e.g., according to story grammar elements in the case of narratives or levels of importance for expository material). In addition, there is a place on the evaluation sheet for checking off whether a student's retelling is organized; however, criteria for making this judgment are lacking. Without a theoretical framework and clearly defined criteria to guide the examiner, it is difficult to determine if the assessment effectively captures the essential qualities of reading comprehension and recall.

The CRI-SW (Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004) is similar in that there is little distinction in criteria used for judging comprehension or recall of contrasting text types. For example, in the Reader Response Format section of the IRI (the same scoring guide used to evaluate a student's recall of characters, problems, and outcome or solutions for the narrative) "It's My Ball" (p. 136) is provided as a tool for evaluating the factual selection "The World of Dinosaurs" (p. 143). Use of a scoring guide based on story grammar theory seems misplaced as a tool for judging comprehension of expository text.

As noted, in addition to assessing students' understanding of the structural features of narrative and expository text, IRI authors provide measures of various dimensions, or levels, of reading comprehension - most commonly literal and inferential comprehension (Applegate et al., 2008; Bader, 2005; Burns & Roe, 2007; Cooter et al., 2007; Johns, 2005; Leslie & Caldwell, 2006; Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004; Woods & Moe, 2007). Although the terms for these constructs vary, and there may be subtle differences in meanings across inventories, the dimensions overlap. For example, Leslie and Caldwell refer to explicit and implicit comprehension. Woods and Moe, however, using a reader-text relationship question scheme stemming from Raphael's (1982, 1986) Question-Answer Relationships framework, provide questions measuring fact-based, literal comprehension that call for responses "from the text" as well as questions that measure inferential comprehension or responses "from head to text" (Woods & Moe, 2007, pp. 28-29).

Taking a different approach, Applegate et al. include questions to measure critical response (i.e., a response requiring analysis, reaction, and response to text based on personal experiences and values and usually allowing for more than one possible answer). Cooter et al. (2007) provide questions as measures of evaluative comprehension. Johns's questions measure comprehension dimensions called "lower-level" (i.e., assessed by fact questions) and "higher-level" (i.e., assessed by topic, evaluation, inference, and vocabulary questions; Johns, 2005, p. 76). It should be noted that Silvaroli and Wheelock include assessment of different levels of comprehension (i.e., inferential vs. factual questions) as part of the question taxonomy in the Subskills Format section of their IRI, but this aspect of comprehension is not assessed by the question scheme in the Reader Response Format.

Despite concerns (Applegate et al., 2002; Duffelmeyer & Duffelmeyer, 1987, 1989; Johns, 2005; Schell & Hanna, 1981), a few of the IRIs reviewed continue to use question taxonomies with main idea, fact and detail, inference, and vocabulary questions, among other question types (Burns & Roe, 2007; Johns, 2005; Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004). In the past, criticisms targeting these question schemes arose out of concern due to lacking empirical support and confusion over what main idea questions in some of the IRIs actually measured.

In the ninth edition of BRI reviewed for this study, citing Schell and Hanna (1981) as his information source, even Johns himself cautions readers, "Lest teachers glibly use the classification scheme suggested, it must be emphasized that these categories of comprehension questions, although widely used, have little or no empirical support" (Johns, 2005, p. 72). For this reason, Johns advises using his own question classification scheme informally and with discretion.

Other scholars in the field of literacy, as well, have suggested that main idea question types included in some IRIs were actually no more than "topic" questions that could be answered in one-word or simple phrase responses rather than full statements of the moral or underlying theme of a story, requiring the integration of selection content (Applegate et al., 2002; Duffelmeyer & Duffelmeyer, 1987, 1989; Schell & Hanna, 1981).

As Applegate et al. pointed out, the ramifications of confusions over question types can be serious in that children who are proficient in responding to questions of one sort, such as questions requiring literal recall and low-level inferences that are largely text based, sometimes experience great difficulty in answering questions of other types, such as those that require more critical thinking. The confusion over question types and just what the questions actually measure restricts the usefulness of the assessment data they yield in terms of helping teachers pinpoint and address children's instructional needs.

While IRI-BR (Burns & Roe, 2007) continues to use a question classification system with main idea questions vulnerable to these criticisms, it is evident that Johns (2005) has made changes to address the terminology issue in BRI. Items that he previously called main idea questions are now labeled "topic" questions. Otherwise, his classification system remains similar to that in earlier editions. As a result, some of the confusion over question type is eliminated, but if a teacher relies strictly on Johns's question scheme to assess comprehension, a reader's ability to synthesize the content and come up with the main or "big idea" (Walmsley, 2006) of a passage (an important aspect of reading) will not be evaluated.

Silvaroli and Wheelock (2004) include not only the traditional question scheme from earlier editions of CRI (Silvaroli, 1990), but also the authors have added a whole new question framework that supplements, or serves as another option, to the question scheme of their earlier editions. Those who use the newest edition of CRI-SW have a choice as to whether to administer the passages and follow-up questions that fall into the Subskills Format or an alternative set of questions included in what the authors call the Reader Response Format. Accordingly, the five questions accompanying the passages in the Subskills Format, as in the earlier editions, include factual, inferential, and vocabulary question types.

The question types for the retelling portion of the newer Reader Response Format, however, include a prediction question followed by three questions pertaining to the characters (i.e., "Who was the main person in the story?"), the problems (i.e., "What was the problem?"), and the outcomes or solutions (i.e., "How was the problem solved?") of the passage. The authors explain that the rationale for adding the Reader Response Format was to accommodate literacy programs that have shifted from a "subskills instructional emphasis" to a "literacy emphasis" (Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004, pp. 1-2). They suggest the passages and questions included in each format can be used separately or in some combination, as desired.

Measures of extraneous variables

In order to control for extraneous variables that can affect comprehension and recall, some of the IRI authors include measures of prior knowledge (Bader, 2005; Johns, 2005; Leslie & Caldwell, 2006; Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004; Woods & Moe, 2007), emotional status (Burns & Roe, 2007; Woods & Moe, 2007), and level of engagement (Johns, 2005). Other authors suggest the administrator informally note observations and student comments in related areas (Burns & Roe, 2007).

Form equivalence/Reliability

Because federal guidelines for Reading First schools require educators to monitor student progress over time (U.S. Department of Education, 2002), it can be valuable to know if the parallel forms within each IRI can be used interchangeably. In order to know how consistent the scores are across forms, it is necessary to obtain the alternate form reliability coefficient. Generally, a correlation of .85 or higher is desirable, with the maximum a correlation can be at +1.00. It is also necessary to have information about the sample population on which the reliability figure was based in order to generalize to a different student population (Bracey, 2000).

Although the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (1999) suggests a need to report critical information indicating the degree of generalizability of scores across alternate-forms, few of the IRI authors do. Only one IRI (Leslie & Caldwell, 2006) provides data suggesting the forms for determining that reading comprehension levels may be used interchangeably, although the specific IRI edition used for that reliability study is not reported.

With respect to the alternate forms of the QRI text passages, Leslie and Caldwell found the reliabilities based on comprehension scores were all above 0.80, and 75% of the scores were greater than or equal to .90. In addition, the authors examined whether the same instructional level would be determined based on the comprehension scores of each passage and report that 71% to 84% of the time the instructional level was the same on both. The individual reliability levels for each grade-level text from primer level through upper middle school are reported.

In some IRIs, the authors infer that alternate-form reliability levels are acceptable; however, information is lacking to confirm that. For example, based on the similar content that occurs across all three narrative forms in ARI (e.g., all three passages at level 6 are written about famous African American scientists or inventors), Woods and Moe (2007) suggest, "This consistency enables the examiner to change forms when determined necessary" (p. 257); however, because no correlation coefficient indicating degree of equivalence is reported, this inference cannot be made with confidence.

With respect to IRI-BR, Burns and Roe (2007) state, "Alternate forms testing revealed that the levels indicated by different forms administered to the same students were consistent" (p. 229); however, without reliability figures reported, the examiner cannot make a judgment about the degree of reliability. Also, without a sample description, even if the forms are equivalent for one sample population, given the possible differences across groups, it may not be possible to generalize those results to another student population.

In addition, in John's (2005) ninth edition of BRI, he refers to an alternate-form reliability study (Helgren-Lempesis & Mangrum, 1986) of BRI (Johns, 1981) and two other IRIs, which indicated the Pearson r coefficients for BRI were .64 for independent level, .72 for instructional level, and .73 for the frustration level. However, these results pertain to a 1986 study with fourth-grade students who orally read passages from Forms A and B of the second edition of BRI. New reliability information pertaining to all forms in the current edition and for passages at all levels read orally and silently is needed in order to use parallel forms interchangeably without question.

Some of the alternate-form reliability figures reported are lower than is desirable. For example, based on the figures reported by Cooter et al. (2007) for grades 1, 2, and 3 (i.e., 0.58, 0.63, and 0.70), the authors caution that Forms A and B may not be equivalent. The authors also report that due to small sample sizes, they were not able to obtain reliability figures for other grade levels. Of note, CRI-CFC was published in its first edition in 2007.

In some cases, there are not enough data reported for interpreting the degree of reliability. For example, it is not clear just what variables the reliability coefficients (i.e., 0.80 for oral, elementary; 0.78 for silent, elementary; 0.83 for oral high school and adult; 0.79 for silent, high school and adult) reported by Bader (2005) apply to, such as word recognition, comprehension, or both.

Vocabulary

Meaning vocabulary

Although norm-referenced tests typically report scores for vocabulary knowledge both as a separate and combined reading score (Pearson, Hiebert, & Kamil, 2007), none of the IRIs reviewed include enough vocabulary items accompanying the text passages to make this feasible. For example, Burns and Roe (2007), Johns (2005), and Silvaroli and Wheelock (2004) treat vocabulary as an embedded construct contributing to reading comprehension; however, out of five to eight questions, only one or two items are vocabulary related.

Sight word vocabulary and word recognition strategies

While Cooter et al. (2007) treat vocabulary as a separate construct with its own set of test items and score in CRI-CFC, this section is more a measure of high-frequency or sight words recognized than meaning vocabulary knowledge. It should be noted that the word list components of the other IRIs reviewed also provide information related more to word recognition than to knowledge of word meanings.

Each of the other inventories takes a different approach to the assessment of sight word recognition, as well as general word identification strategies, by including a series of word lists administered at the beginning of the IRI assessment in order to gain insights on a student's word recognition strategies as well as to determine a reading passage starting point. Across inventories, although the specific sources for the word lists are not always identified (Bader, 2005; Burns & Roe, 2007; Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004; Woods & Moe, 2007), two of the authors report some or all of the word list words are drawn from the reading passages (Applegate et al., 2008; Leslie & Caldwell, 2006) or various named, high-frequency word lists (e.g., Fry's Instant Words; Applegate et al., 2008; Johns, 2005).

With regard to CRI-2 and QRI-4, because some of the words were drawn from the reading passages, evaluators can compare word identification abilities in context versus out of context. These two inventories also allow for making distinctions between words recognized instantly (i.e., sight words) versus words that are decoded when readers are allowed more time.

BRLI (Bader, 2005) includes separate lists of "experiential" words (i.e., words commonly found in instructional materials and on tests), as well as lists of "adult thematic" words (i.e., office-related vocabulary, words related to health and safety, vehicle-related words), which could be useful with English-language learners and adult literacy students. Because students are asked to read each item but to explain the meanings only as needed, this assessment appears to provide more information related to sight word vocabulary and word recognition strategies than meaning vocabulary, similar to the other IRI word lists. Information about the development of these word lists, however, or pilot testing of items is lacking.

Phonemic awareness

Three of the IRI authors include phonemic awareness assessments (Bader, 2005; Cooter et al., 2007; Johns, 2005) in their manuals. It should be noted that these assessments are not integral parts of the inventories; instead, they are provided as supplements for optional use. Given the fact that there are other instruments available that are more developmental, systematic, and comprehensive for assessing phonemic awareness, these IRI assessment supplements are not recommended for evaluating children's knowledge in this area.

Phonics

As with phonemic awareness, an IRI is not intended to provide a thorough evaluation of a child's phonic knowledge. While the authors of CRI-CFC (Cooter et al., 2007) and BRLI (Bader, 2005) provide supplementary phonics assessments in their manuals, there are other more systematic and comprehensive assessments of this aspect of reading available. For this reason, these supplementary assessments are not recommended for evaluating this pillar of reading.

It should be noted that the miscue analysis and word list components (see the Vocabulary section) featured in most of the IRIs allow the evaluator to gain valuable insights on patterns related to students' word recognition abilities, including insights related to phonics. In addition, miscue analyses of passages read orally provide the advantage of allowing the tester to observe how a child actually applies phonics skills while reading familiar and unknown words in connected text. Because of this powerful function, the miscue analysis portion of an IRI should not be skipped or overlooked.

Fluency

With the exception of CRI-SW (Silvaroli & Wheelock, 2004), each of the IRIs includes some measure of fluency. All but Woods and Moe (2007) suggest, at a minimum, tracking the reading rate, and all but Applegate et al. (2008), who includes an oral reading rubric in the manual, provide norms or guidelines in their manuals for interpreting scores. In some of the IRIs, checklists are provided listing additional aspects of fluency to evaluate, such as pitch, stress, intonation, and use of punctuation, among other qualities observed, to check off as applicable. Woods and Moe also include a four-point fluency scoring guide. Given the relevance of fluent reading to reading comprehension (Allington, 1983), these measures provide valuable data for interpreting the results of an IRI assessment and are recommended.

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A Critical Analysis of Eight Informal Reading Inventories

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As a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and university professor, I have always found helpful published summaries or syntheses of professional-related information relevant to my work. In this article, I review the current editions of eight informal reading inventories (IRIs) published since 2002 that are available at the time of this writing.

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Types of Informal Classroom-Based Assessments

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Types of Informal Classroom-Based Assessments

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Most of the assessments here should be given one-on-one. It is important that you have a non-distracting, comfortable testing environment for students, and that the rest of the class is engaged in a task or assignment and working quietly. It's even better if you can arrange for another teacher to be present while you are performing assessments.

This list of informal assessments is not all-inclusive; there are components of reading that these tools do not assess. This information is also available in chart form.

Letter/sound recognition

About this assessment

Familiarity with the letters of the alphabet is essential to the development of reading skills. Instruction should be geared towards unknown letters and their sounds. Students should be able to recognize the letters in both uppercase and lowercase forms.

What it measures

Ability to recognize letters and sounds.

Examples of assessment questions

Show student one letter at a time and ask:

Can you tell me what letter this is? (Record the student's response)

Can you tell me what sound it makes? (Record the student's response)

Age or grade typically mastered

Many students enter kindergarten with the ability to recognize letters. Fewer students recognize the letter sounds. Both are taught in kindergarten.

When should it be assessed?

Assess letter/sound recognition three times during kindergarten, at the start of school, at mid-year, and at the end of the year.

Concepts of print awareness

About this assessment

Concepts of print are usually learned incidentally as children are exposed to books and story readings at home and at school. Concepts of print include an understanding that: print carries meaning, that books contain letters, words, sentences, and spaces. It also includes understanding what books are used for, and that books have parts such as a front cover, back cover and a spine. Eventually, students learn more sophisticated ideas such as understanding that we begin reading on the left and read across the page to the last word on the right, and then we got to the next line, begin reading on the left, and so on.

What it measures

If a student understands:

That print has meaning

That print can be used for different purposes

The relationship between print and speech

There is a difference between letters and words

That words are separated by spaces

There is a difference between words and sentences

That there are (punctuation) marks that signal the end of a sentence

That books have parts such as a front and back cover, title page, and spine

That stories have a beginning, middle, and end

That text is read from left to right and from top to bottom

Examples of assessment questions

Give the student a book and ask the following questions. "Can you show me:"

a letter?

a word?

a sentence?

the end of a sentence (punctuation mark)?

the front of the book?

the back of the book?

where I should start reading the story?

a space?

how I should hold the book?

the title of the book?

how many words are in this sentence?

Age or grade typically mastered

Some students enter kindergarten with an understanding of print concepts, but other will master it as the school year goes on.

When should it be assessed?

Assess concepts of print twice during kindergarten, at the start of school and at mid-year. In addition, as you model story reading techniques to help guide instruction, identify students who need additional support, and determine if the pace of instruction should be increased, decreased, or remain the same.

Phonological awareness

About this assessment

Phonological awareness is a necessary part of reading instruction. Children can show you they have phonological awareness in several ways. It is necessary as the classroom teacher to determine strengths and weaknesses to plan instruction.

What it measures

Recognizing a word in a sentence shows the ability to segment a sentence

Recognizing a rhyme shows the ability to identify words that have the same ending sounds

Recognizing a syllable shows the ability to separate or blend words the way that they are pronounced

Understanding onset-rime shows the ability to blend the first sound in the word (onset) and the rest of the word (rime)

Examples of assessment questions

Word
How many words are in this sentence? "I am happy." (Correct response: 3)

Rhyme
Do these words rhyme? big, fig(Correct response: Yes)

What about key, tree? (Correct response: Yes)

Syllable blending
I am going to say a word in parts. Listen: o...pen What word did I say? (Correct response: open)

Syllable segmentation
Can you tell me the two word parts in open? (Correct response: o...pen)

Syllable deletion
Say open without the -pen. (Correct response: o)

Onset-rime
What word do these sounds make? /s/ – /ee/ (Correct response: see)

How about /h/ – /op/? (Correct response: hop)

Age or grade typically mastered

Word: Age 3

Rhyme: Age 4

Syllable blending: Age 4

Syllable segmentation: Kindergarten

Syllable deletion: Kindergarten

Onset-rime: The middle of kindergarten

When should it be assessed?

Typically, phonological awareness is assessed during kindergarten and throughout first grade. During the beginning of kindergarten, assessment should be limited to recognizing words, rhyme, syllable blending, and segmentation to help guide instruction.

Phonemic awareness

What it measures

Phoneme matching is the ability to identify words that begin with the same sound.

Phoneme isolation is the ability to isolate a single sound from within a word.

Phoneme blending is the ability to blend individual sounds into a word.

Phoneme segmentation is the ability to break a word into individual sounds.

Phoneme manipulation is the ability to modify, change, or move the individual sounds in a word.

Examples of assessment questions

Remember, when a letter appears between slash marks, you should say the letter sound, and not the letter name.

Phoneme matching
Which words sound alike? man, sat, sip (Correct response: sat, sip)

Phoneme isolation – initial (first) sound
What's the first sound in sat? (Correct response: /s/)

Phoneme isolation – final (last) sound
What's the last sound in sat? (Correct response: /t/)

Phoneme isolation – medial (middle) sound
What's the middle sound in sat? (Correct response: /a/)

Phoneme blending
What word do these sounds make? /h/ – /o/ – /t/ (Correct response: hot)

Phoneme segmentation
What sounds do you hear in hot? (Correct response: /h/ – /o/ – /t/)

Phoneme manipulation – initial (first) sound
Say mat without the /m/ sound. (Correct response: at)

Phoneme manipulation – final (last) sound
Say mat without the /t/ sound. (Correct response: ma)

Phoneme manipulation – substitution
Say pig. (Correct response: pig)

Now change the /p/ in pig to /f/. (Correct response: fig)

Age or grade typically mastered

Phoneme matching: The middle of kindergarten

Phoneme isolation – initial (first) sound: The middle of kindergarten

Phoneme isolation – final (last) sound: Late kindergarten or early first grade

Phoneme isolation – medial (middle) sound: Late kindergarten or early first grade

Phoneme blending: Late kindergarten or early first grade

Phoneme segmentation: First grade

Phoneme manipulation – initial (first) sound: First grade

Phoneme manipulation – final (last) sound: First grade

Phoneme manipulation – substitution: Middle to end of first grade or early second grade

When should it be assessed?

Phonemic awareness assessments should be done three times during the kindergarten and first grade years to help guide instruction.

Informal (qualitative) reading inventory

What it measures

Grade level reading

Fluency

Comprehension

Vocabulary

Oral reading accuracy

Examples of assessment questions

Choose a grade level passage for the student to read. As the student is reading complete the oral reading accuracy and reading fluency assessments. After the student finishes the passage, check for understanding through explicit and implicit questions. Also, ask open-ended questions about the vocabulary found in the passage.

Age or grade typically mastered

This assessment can be given to students in grades one through twelve. Students should be expected to master age-appropriate material.

When should it be assessed

The informal reading inventory is an on-going assessment, and should be completed several times throughout the child's schooling. In kindergarten, perform the informal reading inventory twice per year, at mid-year and at the end of school. In first and second grades, it should be done three times, at the beginning of the school year, at mid-year, and at the end of the year. If a child is struggling, the inventory should be done more often in order to have an accurate picture of the child's progress.

Reading comprehension

About this assessment

Reading comprehension assessments are the most common type of published reading test that is available. The typical type of reading comprehension assessment involves asking a child to read a passage of text that is leveled appropriately for the child's age or grade, and then asking explicit, detailed questions about the content of the text. An example of a common reading comprehension assessment is the Informal Reading Inventory (IRI), also known as the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI).

There are variations on the basic reading comprehension assessments. For example, instead of questions about facts found directly in the text, the child could be asked to answer questions about information that is implied in the text, or the child might be asked to retell the story in the child's own words.

Oral reading accuracy

About this assessment

This assessment provides a measure of a student's oral reading accuracy by giving teachers insight into a student's individual reading level. It allows the teacher to listen and record reading behaviors such as the number of errors a student makes, if the student substitutes words, or if the student needs prompting from the teacher.

The information offered by this assessment is limited. For example, it does not measure phonological ability, vocabulary, or comprehension. This is why it is often given in conjunction with other assessments such as the informal reading inventory. It should never be used in isolation.

Note: When children read orally, they usually concentrate on reading accurately and do not pay as much attention to comprehension of the content. It is also important to remember that if this assessment is used with students who are new to learning English, it should be given both in English and the child's primary language.

What it measures

Oral reading accuracy. It also provides the teacher with insight into a student's ability to use strategies to decode unfamiliar words.

Examples of assessment questions

Choose a passage for the child to read aloud. As the child reads, take notes on words read correctly and incorrectly.

Age or grade typically mastered

First through third grade.

When should it be assessed?

Reading accuracy assessments can be given as part of an informal reading inventory or combined with a comprehension assessment to yield more information. Reading accuracy should be assessed several times throughout the year to help you plan on-going instruction. Are students reading on grade level? Do some students require additional support? Do your students have rich vocabularies? Are your students able to read age-appropriate material?

Steps in administering this assessment

1. Choose a book that is age appropriate, but unfamiliar to your student. (This gives a more accurate picture of a child's ability in handling texts.)

2. Ask the student to read the story aloud to you and then at the end tell you what the story was about.

3. You should familiarize yourself with the following scoring information prior to administering this assessment:

Reading behavior

How to score

Read correctly (no error)

Check mark over word

Omission (one error)

Long dash over word omitted

Insertion (one error)

^ at point of insertion with the inserted word written above it

Repetition of a word (no error)

Mark above word with a capital R

Repetition of a phrase (no error)

Capital R with a line and an arrow stretching across phrase repeated

Self correction (no error)

Capital SC above the word to indicate child has self-corrected

Unable to read word (one error)

T for Teacher prompt

Decodes a word in an obvious manner (no error)

Mark individual sounds read within the word followed by a check mark if eventually read correctly or a circle if read incorrectly

Read incorrectly (one error)

Circle word

What should you count as an error when giving this assessment?

Substituting a word

Passage reads: The tall fir tree.

Omitting a word

Passage reads: The tall fir tree.

Inserting a word

Passage reads: A dark and stormy night.

Needs prompting (if the student has to be told a word by the person administering the running record)

Passage reads: I wish that people...

4. As the student reads, mark each word on the form by using the symbols above. Place a check mark above the words read correctly.

5. If the student reads a word incorrectly or substitutes a word, record what is said above the actual word.

6. As the student reads, pay attention to his or her behavior. Is the student using context clues (from the sentence or pictures), structure (language sounds correct) and visual cues (using beginning sounds, familiar word chunks, etc.) to read words and gather meaning?

7. Intervene as little as possible when a student is reading.

8. If the student is stuck on a word, wait 5-10 seconds before you tell him or her the word.

9. After the reading, ask the student to tell you about what he or she has just read. Make notes on the following:

Can the student tell you what happened in the story in his or her own words?

Does the student include the different parts of a story (the characters, setting, events, problem and resolution)?

Can the student identify the main idea and supporting details?

Does the student use some of the vocabulary found in the text?

Is the student's retelling minimal, adequate or very complete?

What do I do with the information obtained from this assessment?

The information gathered while completing an oral reading accuracy assessment can be used to determine error, accuracy, and self-correction rates. To calculate a student's reading accuracy rate, divide the total words read correctly by the total words read. For example, if a student read a passage containing 100 words and made 5 errors:

95 (total words read correctly) / 100 (total words read) = 95% word accuracy

Use the accuracy rate along with the information gained in the student's story retelling to determine whether the text the student read was too easy, just right, or too difficult for the reader. Below is a general breakdown to use to help guide you when choosing texts for students:

Oral reading accuracy

What this says about the text

95-100%

Too easy; the text does not present a challenge

90-94%

Just right; the text is challenging but manageable

89% and below

Too difficult; the text is frustrating for the reader

If a student can read a book with 100% word accuracy but can only give a minimal retelling of the story, do not choose a higher leveled book. We read to get meaning; if a child is not getting meaning from a text they must be instructed on comprehension strategies. Word accuracy without comprehension is not acceptable.

What should I be looking for when I give an oral reading accuracy assessment?

Giving an oral reading accuracy assessment and asking a child to retell reveals many things about a child's reading ability. There are other things to be on the look out for and can be taught in the moments following this assessment:

Has the student mastered directionality, letter-sound correspondence, return sweep, etc?

Did the student make "good errors" when phonetically reading a word (i.e., reading island as "is land" instead of "eye land")?

Was there an attempt to self-correct errors?

Did the student attempt to decode an unknown word?

Was the student's reading slow and labored, or fluent?

Did the student use expression while reading?

Reading fluency

What it measures

How many words a child reads correctly in one minute.

Examples of assessment questions

Choose an appropriate passage for the student to read aloud. As the student reads, complete a record for one minute.

Age or grade typically mastered

Students should be expected to master age-appropriate material.

When should it be assessed?

Fluency assessments should be completed throughout the year to help guide instruction.

Word recognition

What it measures

Sight word vocabulary at a given grade level.

Examples of assessment questions

Ask a child to read from a list of words.

Age or grade typically mastered

Students should be expected to master age-appropriate material.

When should it be assessed?

Word recognition should be assessed three times during the year for students in kindergarten through second grade to help guide instruction.

Phonic elements

What it measures

Phonic elements at a given grade level.

Examples of assessment questions

What sound do the letters 's' 'h' make? (Correct response: /sh/)

How can I turn cap into cape? (Correct response: Add an 'e' to the end of the word.

Age or grade typically mastered

Students should be expected to master age-appropriate material.

When should it be assessed?

Phonic elements should be assessed several times throughout the year in grades one through three to help guide instruction.

Portfolios

About this assessment

Portfolios can be used to document students' achievement and progress. Portfolios give an accurate picture of an individual's strengths and weaknesses. Instruction on how to pick a piece of work to place in a portfolio (does it show a concept that was struggled with then understood, does it demonstrate an understanding of a concept? Is it something you are proud of?) is beneficial for students. This type of instruction engages the student to reflect on his or her own work. Portfolios encourage students to take an active role in learning information they feel they have not yet mastered.

Portfolios can help guide instruction. Through looking at a piece of child's work, a teacher can quickly see what lessons are further needed. For example, by looking at a student's writing a teacher may determine lessons in using commas correctly need to be revisited.

Types of portfolios

Collection
The collection may consist of a folder that holds samples of a student's work. The collection should include representative examples of the various types of student work, such as tests, writing samples, and homework assignments.

Display portfolio
A container or box containing a selection of work documenting a student's progress may hold work in this type of portfolio. This type of portfolio may be used to share with parents at conferences. Pieces of work are carefully selected by both teachers and students to show and share with parents/guardians during conferences.

Teacher/student assessment portfolio
A collection of documentation including copies of work in the student's display portfolio, tests, anecdotal notes, conference summaries, contacts made with parents, etc. This portfolio is used by the teacher to aid in discussions with administrators, other teachers, parents, etc about a particular child.

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Types of Informal Classroom-Based Assessment

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Most of the assessments here should be given one-on-one. It is important that you have a non-distracting, comfortable testing environment for students, and that the rest of the class is engaged in a task or assignment and working quietly. It's even better if you can arrange for another teacher to be present while you are performing assessments.

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Kindergarten phonics activities for writing

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Teacher trainer, Freia Layfield, shares her top tips for teaching phonics to kindergarten children and demonstrates some writing development activities. For more video tips on teaching English to very young learners, including 21st century skills, visit https://elt.oup.com/feature/global/21st-century-skills-kindergarten

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Literacy Stategies for English Language Learners (Trisha DiFazio)

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Trisha DiFazio M. Ed. has been an educator of English Language Learners for 10 years. In this video she models an array of literacy and classroom management strategies.

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Guided Reading with ESL Elementary Students

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How I Use Legos When Teaching Phonics & Spelling

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In this video I show you how I use Legos when practicing phonics and spelling with my kiddos. LOOK BELOW FOR DOWNLOAD LINKS.

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Teaching Phonics: Sorting boxes/ envelopes

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Teaching Phonics: Sorting boxes/ envelopes

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Kindergarten phonics activities for reading: postboxes activity

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Teacher trainer, Freia Layfield, shares her top tips for teaching phonics for reading to kindergarten children and demonstrates one of her favorite fun phonics activities. For more video tips on teaching English to very young learners, as well as 21st century skills, visit https://elt.oup.com/feature/global/21st-century-skills-kindergarten

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Phonics is the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between the sounds of spoken language, and the letters and spellings that represent those sounds in written language. Successful decoding occurs when a student uses his or her knowledge of letter-sound relationships to accurately read a word.

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methods and activities for teaching phonics

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Phonic Talk :: How To Begin Teaching Phonics

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Once you understand what phonics is, its value, and the keys to success, you can follow the eight detailed phonics steps that build a phonics foundation.

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Most teachers and reading specialists advocate some teaching of sight words: the question is which ones make sense to teach and which ones don't make sense to teach? Don't worry... At the end of the article you'll get the assessments, word lists, activities, and suggested resources you need to teach. But, we do need to answer the question.

First, let's dispel a few notions about how we learn to read. It's not a which came first, the chicken or the egg? question some still suggest. In other words, the end result is not all that matters. Witness the plethora of reading intervention classes in upper elementary and middle schools to see how many of our students can "read," but not understand what they are "word calling." How we get to the end result does matter. Reading does not teach phonemic awareness, nor does reading teach phonics and multi-syllabic decoding.

We have plenty of reading research to positively assert that explicit, systematic phonics instruction is the most efficient approach to teaching beginning and remedial readers. The Look-Say Method of the Dick and Jane readers (sight words only instruction) and the Onset-Rime Method (b-ack, h-ack, j-ack, l-ack, p-ack, r-ack, s-ack, t-ack) have largely been placed on the dustbin of instructional approaches.
However...
We can certainly take things too far. We know some things, but we don't know a lot of things about reading. We are only at the beginning stages of brain research.
So...
A prudent approach to both beginning and remedial reading instruction is to focus on decoding (phonics) and encoding (spelling) instruction and practice, but to also "throw in" a healthy dose of sight words practice just to be sure. But, all sight words are not created equal.

Which Sight Words Not to Teach and Why

Don't pass out lists of high frequency reading or spelling words for students to memorize. Intuitively, it would seem to make sense to have students memorize the words that they are going to read or spell most often. However, our gut-level instincts lead us astray here.

The Dolch and Fry word lists of the most commonly used words in basal readers were never designed to provide a list of words to study. Countless U.S. classrooms still, unfortunately, have these reading goals (and assign parents the task of teaching): 10 words by the end of kindergarten; 100 words by the end of first grade; 200 words by the end of second grade; and 300 words by the end of third grade. As a reading specialist, I've worked with hundreds of elementary, middle school, high school, and even community college students who can word call each of these lists, but not read with comprehension.

Similarly, the Slosson Oral Word Reading Test and San Diego Quick Assessment were only designed to test word recognition and they do provide correlations to reading comprehension, but authors Richard L. Slosson and Charles L. Nicholson, as well as Margaret La Pray and Ramon Ross respectively, never advocated using their random sample assessments as instructional tools.

The "No Excuse" spelling word lists, floating around since Rebecca Sitton popularized this band aid approach to spelling mastery during the height of the whole language movement of the 1980s and 1990s still, unfortunately, serves as the entire spelling program for countless U.S. classrooms with absolutely no research validating its instructional validity.

Which Sight Words to Teach and Why

The first group of sight words are, indeed, words; the second and third groups are word parts.

Outlaw Words: These words break the law, that is they break the rules of the alphabet code and are non-phonetic. Words such as the and above are Outlaw Words because readers can't decode them. I've heard way too many teachers and parents force children into sounding out words which can't be done because they break the code. It is true that many of our high frequency and high utility words happen to be non-decodable, but many are not, so the efficient approach to sight words instruction is to teach and have students practice only the non-decodable words, not the high frequency words which mix non-decodable and decodable. Why confuse students? We have to teach these outlaw words because they are exceptions to our phonics rules.

Word Families (Rimes): A rime is a vowel and the final consonants in one syllable, such as "ack." The rime usually follows an first consonant, e.g. "b," or consonant blend, e.g. "tr," to form words, e.g., "back" or "track." Students apply these to other starting consonants (called onsets) to recognize or say new words. By the end of second grade, students should know every one of these 79 word families with automaticity through explicit, systematic phonics instruction. If they don't, gap fill with flashcard practice and activities to help students master the rimes. I have found plenty of success teaching the word families that students do not know with sound-spelling blending. Again, the focus is remedial, not instructional, with the rimes.

High Frequency Greek and Latin Prefixes and Roots: Greek and Latin word parts make up over 50% of the words in the dictionary. Some are decodable in English, and some are not. Because of the strong reading-vocabulary connection, it does make sense to have students teach and practice the Greek and Latin high frequency prefixes and suffixes which they do not know. Like with rimes, the analogous relationships formed by morphological (meaning-based) word parts make this a sound sight words instructional focus. For example, bi means two in bicycle, just as it means two in bicameral or biped.

FREE Sight Words Assessments

Click HERE to get a one-page Reading Assessment Matrix for these sight word assessments.

FREE Sight Words Lists and Activities

But wait... Why not get these sight word assessments, sight word lists, ALL (not the sample) sight word activities plus 10 other reading assessments AND all of the instructional resources to teach to these assessments by purchasing the the Teaching Reading Strategies and Sam and Friends Phonics Books BUNDLE? Enter discount code 3716 to save an additional 10%.

Here's an overview of this comprehensive reading intervention program: Teaching Reading Strategies is designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the

curriculum is decidedly un-canned, is adaptable to various instructional settings, and is simple to use-a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice diagnostic reading assessments , formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness, and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages recorded at three different reading speeds and accessed on YouTube, 586 game cards, posters, activities, and games. Also get the accompanying Sam and Friends Phonics Books. These eight-page decodable take-home books include sight words, word fluency practice, and phonics instruction aligned to the instructional sequence found in Teaching Reading Strategies. Perfect for guided reading.

Why not check out the program's Introductory Video (15:08)?

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Most teachers and reading specialists advocate some teaching of sight words: the question is which ones make sense to teach and which ones don't make sense to teach? Don't worry... At the end of the article you'll get the assessments, word lists, activities, and suggested resources you need to teach.

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Literacy teaching guide PHONICS Vanderbilt

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For Children with Learning Disabilities

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Effective Reading Interventions for Kids with Learning Disabilities

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Research-based information and advice for sizing up reading programs and finding the right one for your child with a learning disability.

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Teaching Special Needs Children : Teaching Students With Dyslexia

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When teaching students with dyslexia, it's important to know which form of dyslexia the student has. Determine the best way to teach a student with dyslexia from a special needs teacher in this free video on dyslexia. Expert: Krista Blessing Bio: Krista Blessing graduated Magna Cum Laude from Eastern University with a bachelor's degree in elementary education.

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I learned a lesson from every piece of information obtained.

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I learned a lesson from every piece of information obtained.

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I will be using theses activities in my groups to help my students to read. Learning and watching how is good.

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I will be using theses activities in my groups to help my students to read. Learning and watching how is good.

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Loved the touch the hand and say what feel. 

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Loved the touch the hand and say what feel. 

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Loved her book reading skills I know how to read my book for the assignment due this week.

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Loved her book reading skills I know how to read my book for the assignment due this week.

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Loved the information. especially the Dyslexia video, because it showed me clearly what and how to ins traduced these particular students manful.