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My nephews are in grade 6 and 7. I thought the Index assessment was perfect for middle schools students. The MRP-R survey seemed to be geared towards elementary school students, but it still worked for my nephews.
-Therese

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I used the Index of Reading Awareness, too. I really liked the categories the questions were organized in, but I, too,  came across the same problem as you. My nephews asked multiple times "well, what kind of book is it.." so that was a little frustrating. I decided to turn it into a conversation and ask them well, if it was a book you liked what would your answer be...and if it was a book you didn't like, what would your answer be. I learned a lot more doing it this way, but this would obviously be a challenge if you were giving this to each of your students at the same time.
Thanks - Therese

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What ages are your nephews? Would these assessments be better for younger or older students?
-Katie

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I would like to try the assessments with my students this year. Thanks for sharing these!
-Katie Cordes

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1)I used the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey and the Motivations for Reading Questionnaire both were from, Assessment for Reading Instruction Second Edition.

2)Strengths for Elementary Reading Attitude Survey: Garfield pictures were inviting and fun, age appropriate questions, easy for kids to match a picture to how they felt,  four answer choices, gave results in two areas(recreational and academic reading) as well as a full scale score, clear administration directions, percentile ranks by grade.

Strengths for  Motivations for Reading Questionnaire: age appropriate questions, four answer choices, administration and scoring directions, questions were phrases from a child's

Perspective

3)Limitations for Elementary Reading Attitude Survey: middle pictures were hard to discern difference in feelings

Limitations for  Motivations for Reading Questionnaire: 1-4 answer choice was confusing at times, scoring was a little tedious

4)I would use both at the beginning of the year to get to know my readers. I see using them the first two weeks when we are making goals and setting expectations in reading.   Both were very age appropriate for 4th and 5th graders.  The Attitude survey could easily go down a couple of grades as well.  The motivations questionnaire could go up a couple of grades.

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I used the traits of a reader survey with my high school aged student. I too liked that it asked about comprehension strategies.  It's hard to know what students are actually doing while they read to make sense-this gave a little look into what they may be doing or thinking.
Thanks,
Brenda

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I agree that the surveys would be great to use the first week of school. I know that after I give it I need to be sure to score them right away while the information is useful. Kids have more buy-in when you talk to them about their results.
Thanks,
Brenda

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I used the MRP-R Surveyand the Index of Reading Awareness both from Assessment for Reading Instruction.  Both were easy to administer – the two students (my nephews) understood what to do and finished in a short period of time.
Strengths: It was helpful that the Index of Reading Awareness broke down the questions into five categories: evaluation, planning, regulation, and conditional knowledge. This helped get more meaning when interpreting the results. The MRP-R divided the questions into two categories of: value of reading and reading self-concept. While looking at the scores, it was interesting to see how they viewed themselves as readers and how they value reading.
Limitations: I found the Index of Reading Awareness to be harder to answer. Both of the boys asked questions while taking the assessment. One student wanted to add more to the answers because some of questions did not give responses that the student would normally do. My nephews said the MRP-R was boring (but of course, it is summer break).
Use: I would use both of these at the beginning of the school year, especially with new students. They are helpful ways to get to know how the students view themselves as readers and their strengths/weaknesses in reading.

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Affective Assessment #2-Katie Cordes

I used Traits of a Reader-Self Evaluation Rubric with my 9th grade student.

Strengths:

One strength of this assessment is that it asks questions of a student’s use of comprehension strategies. I think this is important to assess because if we as educators are teaching comprehension strategies, I think we should have students evaluate if they are actually using them. I also like that one of the questions is if the student actively looks for changes in the character. I have not seen this type of question in many assessments, but it is important as we move toward “close reading.”

Limitations:

Some of the questions are a little childish for secondary students. Some students may be offended by the elementary level of the questions.

Suggested Use:

I would suggest using these questions with upper elementary students because most of the students should have be exposed to all elements of the evaluation rubric. I may even use this with 6th or 7th grade students because it could give teachers better understanding of students who struggle with comprehension.

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I liked hearing how the Feelings Literacy Related Survey went for you.  I wanted to try this one but wasn't sure if students would put in the effort to write about their reading.  But I suppose I should do it because of the correlation with reading and writing.  I did like how you stated there was a spot to draw a picture which would be great for those kids who can't always express themselves in written word.
Thanks!
Carrie

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I agree with you about the limitations on the Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes as having too large of a scale for students to choose from.  I also thought it might be better used with older students than 4th graders.
Thanks!
Carrie

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I used the Motivation to Read Profile and Elementary Reading Attitude Survey, both from Assessment for Reading Instruction.
Strengths: Both tools were easy to administer to my students.  They get information for the teacher in a quick amount of time.  I liked how the MRP Survey told me how the student may perceive themselves vs their friends in the area of reading.  The ERAS gave me info on what the student feels about reading vs playing.
Limitations: The only limitation I saw with these surveys was the Garfield character was too childish for my soon to be 5th grader. I asked her if she would have felt that way earlier in the year and she didn't know...probably didn't want to hurt my feelings! So I would use the words only surveys with my kids unless I had students who needed that level of the Garfield character.
Suggested Use:  I will use these in the beginning of the school year and for the first time I will actually use the data to learn more about the students as readers.  I find that I get so swamped with paperwork and surveys like this get put to the side.  I will have my students take this test and then give them a few post it notes and on our board create some categories with them and put those notes on it so the students and myself can see what their attitudes are about reading.  It could lead to a great first week of school conversation about how we perceive ourselves and others when it comes to reading.

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Your point about responses being different in summer versus the school year is something that I had never even considered, and I should have! I would even imagine the timing of the school year would have an effect on responses--if you give the affective assessments at the beginning of the year, students are probably thinking to themselves that this is the year they're going to get it together, so they'll be more positive. However, if you give it during testing season when they've been doing practice tests and strategy drills, I don't think I'd even want to see those responses.

Thanks,
Diana

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I share your concern with the Title Recognition. It reminded me of this quiz that went around Facebook wherein people were supposed to mark which "classic" books they had read, and if you had read a certain amount, then you were above average, or something like that. It neglects a lot of reading that people might be doing from lesser known authors. Accelerated Reader has a similar problem wherein you might enjoy a book, but it doesn't have a test available. You still did the work of reading it, but you don't get any recorded AR points for it!

Thank you,
Diana

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I used the Feelings Literacy-Related Survey for an new 6th grade student.

Strengths: This was an easy assessment to administer. It only has six questions, and four of the questions only require the student to complete a statement, such as "When I read, I feel..." This survey provides insight into students' attitudes toward reading, as well as their perceptions of themselves as readers and their reading ability. They are also required to draw a picture of how they feel about themselves as readers, which I thought was great because not everyone is gifted at expressing themselves in writing (especially at 11 years old).

Limitations: If a student is not particularly expressive, self-aware, or willing, this survey would be useless, and it would be better to utilize a survey that has him or her circle a response instead of writing one out. My 6th grader found herself a little limited and didn't provide much insight into the "why" behind her answers--they were pretty short. My 9th grade student had better luck, but he ran out of room to write, which is a limitation I had not considered, so I would adapt this for older students to give them more room to express their feelings and ideas. This survey also, in my opinion, has a side effect of magnifying pre-existing negativity toward reading, so I would use it with a little caution. If you already know that your student feels negatively about reading, you could probably skip this one.

Suggested use: I think it's perfect to use this with a new student (or a new class at the start of a school year) because it helps you get to know their self-perception and feelings toward reading. I think it would be odd to administer this past first quarter because this is information you could probably figure out as the year goes by.

-Diana Zarrett

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I am enjoying reading about the different assessments classmates administered! There are so many different ones available. I am not familiar with the Title Recognition Test, but now what to take a peek at it! It sounds like a very interesting way to find out about what books students are familiar with. Would be very helpful in planning - what kinds of books do students need to have experience with in order to broaden their knowledge.

Thank you for sharing,
Lorie

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Thank you for sharing the information about the assessments that you used. I'm not familiar with the Traits of a Reader-Self Evaluation Rubric. I will definitely look into this assessment. It interests me because I would like to have more information about what skills my students are using during the reading process. I teach the skills, but don't know how much the students are owning using the skills during their independent reading.

Thank you,
Lorie

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Sounds like you had some good observations about the tools! I agree that the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey sparked some great conversations! I do really appreciate how administering it one to one leads to additional comments and flexibility to find out additional information.
I thought you really brought up some great points about how the results could change based on the mood of the student. By administering it throughout the year, as you suggested, I would think you would begin to see some patterns in the child's attitude.
Thanks for sharing!
Cindy

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I completely agree with the limitations you noted about the Survey of Adolescent Reading. The information gives you just a 'taste' of what they are feeling. It would be a great opportunity for further discussion. I love Your idea about creating a spreadsheet! It would be a good tool to recognize where you might need to scaffold for future learning.
Cindy

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Selected Tool:

From the text Assessment for Reading Instruction I used the Adolescent Reading Attitudes Survey and the Title Recognition Test with an incoming 8th grade student.

Strengths:

Some of the strengths of both of these tools were that they were very easy to use. The 8th grade student was able to complete both of the independently with a quick set of directions. They were also quick to administer, taking a total of 15 minutes.  A strength of the Adolescent Reading Attitudes Survey was the vast specifics it gave me as a teacher. It also would be a spring board for conversations I had with my students during conferring time to delve deeper into getting to know them. Both tools were very easy and quick to score.

Limitations:

I have some hesitation about the Title Recognition Test. I find it interesting the correlation to literacy exposure. The student that I administered this to, is an avid reader and has consistently been exposed to a variety of books in both school and her home, but yet barely met the ‘average literacy exposure.’ It doesn’t seem to match what I know about the child. So one limitation could be the effect of the child’s interest compared to the set list of titles. Another limitation with the Adolescent Reading Attitudes Survey would be the 6-point scale. Adolescents might be more decisive if the scale was smaller.

Suggested Use:

I could see these tools administered in a whole class setting. I would also see value in administering the attitude survey a few times throughout the year to monitor my students’ attitudes about reading.  As the teacher, I would also look for patterns throughout my class. For instance, if many felt negative about researching online I would investigate this pattern, could it be that this is an area where the students need to build more capacity?

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It's interesting that you got to use your daughter for this assessment. It'd be sort of interesting to see how you view your child versus how she views/what the assessment decides. I think that the idea of using the assessment as a way to talk to parents/guardians would be a great use of the assessment. Like you mentioned, there isn't a way for students to actually answer and contribute their reasoning behind the rating scale, but the surveys might be a starting point for those conversations to occur. I found myself doing a lot of further probing as i watched the students answer their surveys.

Thanks for sharing,
Sarah Stout

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I thought about using the MRP-R Conversational Interview for the exact reasons that you pointed out. It gives a lot more insight into the student than the survey do, but yes, those take so much more time. I'm currently taking LANG 7903 Secondary Readers, and for my practicum for that class I ended up using some of those questions for the interview that I needed to do. I shied away from using the interview format since I was working with an 8th grader that I didn't know, and wasn't sure how much information I'd get from her. However, I could see this being a powerful tool to use in the classroom once your students feel a bit more comfortable with you.

Thanks for sharing,
Sarah Stout

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I used the Traits of a Reader-Self Evaluation Rubric (Adapted by Laura ludvigson, 2003) and the Motivations for Reading Questionnaire (Mckenna and Stahl, 1995 as cited in Mckenna and Stahl, 2014, p. 223) for an incoming 8th grade student.

Strengths: These were very simple to administer and to score. I chose them because I use something similar in my own classroom, and am always looking for different ways to assess students' thinking about their reading. The Traits of a Reader was especially simple and gives the student and teacher information about what skills the student is already utilizing while reading, and what other skills need to be worked on. Another strength to both of these surveys is that it gives insight into students' thinking that they may not want to share, or may not have a way to put into words when you question them about their reading. Specifically, the Motivations for Reading Questionnaire gives information about students' motivation for reading based on efficacy, challenge, curiosity, etc.

Limitations: The Motivations for Reading Questionnaire is based on a 4 point scale (1 most disagree, 4 very much agree) which somewhat skews the results (you do add up and divide to get an overarching category score). Likewise, although easy to administer to a large group or an individual, the Traits of a Reader-Self Evaluation Rubric seemed to be lacking in information. For my 8th grade student, she had three skills that were things she already did, three that she needed to work on, and one that she has yet to do. For that one, she marked, 'I never think about things I would say to the author". Not sure how important that skill is in comparison to other reading skills; it seemed like this survey needed more.

Suggested Use:
These could be administered to elementary or secondary. They were very easy to use and I'd probably use them at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year to see how students' views of themselves as readers has changed, but to also see if there is growth throughout the school year as well. I don't have my students for a full year, so when I do these surveys, I like to do them at the beginning of the school year to figure out what sort of student I'm working with and how  to best help them.

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Lorie's Post

I used the Survey of Adolscent Reading Attitudes and the MRP-R Conversational Interview with an 11th grade student. Both assessments are from the AFRI book.

Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes:
Strengths:
This survey can be whole-group administered. This assessment provides information about reading a variety of texts for varying purposes. It is a good quick-check.

Limitations:
I'm left wanting more information about specific answers.  Why are some of these activities less appealing and how can the teacher support the student?

Suggested use:
Could create a class spreadsheet noting where students are feeling less-confident about reading. Then when beginning a new project, the teacher could scan the spreadsheet and meet with flagged students to find out what concerns there are and what teacher/student can do to make project successful.

MRP-R Conversational Interview:
Strengths:
The teacher gets to know the student on a deeper level. Student has the opportunity to expound upon their answer. Teacher has the opportunity to ask more probing questions.

Limitations:
Time. This assessment needs to be administered on an individual basis.

Suggested use:
Maybe begin with the students that you have the most concerns about. This interview could be very team-building - "how can we work together?" Wondering if some of the less personal questions could be pulled out and peer-administered? Classmates getting to know each other. Then the teacher could go through and follow-up with particular students.

Lorie

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I found it so interesting that you knew your students so well. You said the one would just circle something rather than think it through. This is a huge notice for an assessment like this. You knew your audience which is something to be said when deciding what type of assessment to give. You mentioned that the multiple choice definitely worked for the student who didn't want to put more work into it. The lesson is that sometimes we need to try more than one to get an outcome with accurate data.
LeAnn Karl

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I find it interesting that you gave the questionnaire to your own daughter. I gave a questionaire to a girl I used to babysit (who is now in 10th grade) and her mom cried out of happiness and surprise at some of her answers about her reading history and how much her family influenced her. Did you find anything like that in your questionnaire or was it too formal for that. I know you mentioned that the test didn't give way for much of an authentic answer.
LeAnn Karl

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I think it is a little challenging having students complete surveys when they  do not do much reading outside the classroom. However, by getting to know what they are interested in, maybe teachers can motivate students to spend more time reading during school or when they leave if they provide them with books they like. I understand your uncertainty with students sincerely answering the questions and can see why they would choose "safe" answers. It is important that they feel comfortable answering the survey honestly, so teachers truly understand their how they feel.
-Megan

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Maritt,
I agree that the Motivations for Reading questionnaire would be very time consuming to review if you gave it to your entire class. Especially if you teach secondary and have such a large number of classes. It would make more sense to give it to individual students, so you could focus more on the results and feel like you could help adequately help improve their motivation for reading. It may be helpful to then discuss more in-depth of their answers to better understand their feelings. Thanks for sharing!
Megan

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Sounds like you had some great conversations with your 2nd grader! I agree with you so much about the validity of the answers from the students. I really feel, that if it were a student from my own classroom, I'd feel much safer in believing the answers to the questions.
Thanks for your thoughts!

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-Katie Cordes

I used the Adolescent Reading Attitudes Survey (McKenna & Stahl, pp. 243-245) with my 9th grade student.

Strengths:

This survey is helpful for instructors when they want to find out if there is a discrepancy in where students like to read. I also think it is a good tool because it shows that many activities that students typically like to do are essentially reading activities such as participating in online chat rooms. I also think the activities are relevant in students lives and is not intimidating for students.

Limitations:

This survey does not mention anything about whether the students thinks that they are good or bad readers or if those kinds of motivations are present in their lives. This survey also does not discuss genres. In addition, most of the students would have to have internet and cellphone access outside of the classroom for this to be relevant.

Suggested Use:

I would suggest to use this survey with another survey that discusses more genres or other motivations to get a better picture of what is important to the student. This should be used at the beginning of the school year to get a better picture of what the students motivations are toward recreational versus academic and print versus digital reading.

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Looks like you really got some great information about Miguel!  I find it so fascinating when students don't see themselves as readers and, like Miguel,  do very well.
I also really agree with you about the limitations ... mainly that we don't know the history of the student as a reader.
Great thoughts!
Amy

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I chose to use the Reading Activity Inventory and the Motivations for Reading Questionnaire to my 10th grade student, who happens to be my daughter.  The student was in honors English for 8th and 9th grades.
Strengths:
The Motivations for Reading Questionnaire gave me information about how my student views herself as a reader and like the title implies, what she finds motivating about reading. Because my student is also my daughter, I feel I know her well. :) . Her responses matched what I thought to be true about her and her attitude towards reading.  The Reading Activity Inventory gave me more insight into the genres my student enjoys reading in and out of school. This tool also provided some evidence for how often a student is reading for a variety of purposes.  Again, this tool also gave me information that matched what I think I know about my student.
Limitations:
The Motivations for Reading Questionnaire was a little lengthy.  If I were giving this assessment to a class of 27 students, reviewing the surveys would feel like a laborious chore.
Measuring Reading Activity Inventory was a more concise survey, however the questions were not very engaging.
Both surveys lacked the opportunity for a student to provide any spontaneous answers.  They both only used rating scales, which is somewhat limiting.
Suggested Use:
I think using these surveys in a one to one setting with a student who is struggling in reading would be beneficial. I also think that using these surveys as a communication tool with parents could be beneficial. After reviewing the information in the surveys for my students, I think students should share them with their parents/guardians to help communicate their attitudes towards reading in and out of school.
-Maritt May

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I chose to use the Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes and the Interest Assessment with my 10th grade student.
Strengths:
The  Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes covers such a wide array of texts - online, textbook, newspaper. It also gets to the attitudes about where and when they might like to read. The Interest Assessment is more open ended and gives the teacher a chance to have a conversation about each question.
Limitations:
With the survey the choices are 1-6 and I feel like a lot of  teens would just choose 3 to be "safe".  The Interest Assessment was difficult when the student doesn't read outside of the classroom.
Suggested Use:
I would use both of these to find out more about my students in the class. I'm out of my league with high school students and their surveys, so I would think this would be more difficult because many teens are busy and don't read out side of the classroom.
Amy

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Barbara,
What an interesting result you discovered from your assessments with Miguel. I have experienced this same opinion with some of my first graders. I think that the majority of young children do love to read, and enjoy books, its what comes later in the teaching of reading that can alter that perspective. I think that you discovered some great insight for this child and his fears about reading. I wonder as a primary teacher if these fears were discovered early and addressed if his reading journey would be impacted and changed for the better?

Anna

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Erin,
I think that your point about how the interests and attitudes of young children could change day by day is so true. I teach first grade and even though my students have opinions about reading and their likes and dislikes, they are very easily changed, it may only take a different activity or assignment to change their whole perspective. Great insights.

Anna

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LeAnn's post
I chose to use Motivations for Reading Questionaire on p. 228-230 and Here's How I feel about reading on page 213 in the McKenna and Stahl book with a second grade girl.
Strengths:
The strengths behind the reading questionaire is that the student only had to rate from a scale of 1-4 is the statement was anything like her. This gave room for little risk and got an answer from a student who may not have been asked those questions before. The strength with the "heres how I feel about reading" assessment made her put the final answer in her own words. I was surprised at some of her answers like "the worst part about reading is ....sitting still for a long time." This wouldn't have even been an option in my mind connected to reading, but because she gave her authentic answer I got more information.
Limitations:
The here's how I feel about reading doesn't have a free space to talk about reading. They are all questions that need to be answered. I wonder what the response would be if the questions were more of a conversation rather than short answer. The limitations with the questionnaire is that I'm not sure if a second grader can accurately assess themselves with a lickert scale on 1-4. It is broken down into "this is not like me, a little bit like me, etc." but I wonder what level of student is fully capable of this.
Suggestions: I would suggest using these or something like these to really get to know the students attitude toward reading. Both had their perks and setbacks, but I felt like when the student could answer in their own words, I got better information than when they had to rate a statement on a scale of 1-4.
LeAnn Karl

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Affective Assessment

I completed two assessment tools on my 2nd grade student who goes to elementary school in Minneapolis. He completed the the assessments from McKenna and Stahl’s (2009) Assessments for Reading Instruction calledReader Self-Perception Scale (p. 231-234) and the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (p. 215-223).

Strengths: I thought both assessments provided me with valuable information about my student and helped me get to know him better. The answers were great conversation starters and he seemed to enjoy telling me his reasoning behind his answers. I knew he read a lot at home and at school, but I didn’t know how he felt about himself as a reader or his attitude about reading. I could tell that he was really thinking about his answers to the questions.

Limitations:

While I learned a lot about my student, I’m not sure how reliable the answers were that he gave me. I think the questions could be answered differently depending on how you look at the question. For example, he answered the question “I am getting better at reading” as strongly disagree. I asked him to explain his answer and he said he is not getting better at reading because he is already good at reading. When I explained the meaning behind the question, he changed his answer to undecided. Additionally, I think if I gave him the same surveys tomorrow, he would answer them differently. He told me that he loves reading at home and at school, but in the survey he circled the very upset Garfield explaining how he feels about reading in school. That did not match his true feelings. I think both assessments have a lot to do with the current mood of the student, not a true representation of the student’s attitude or self-perception.

Suggested Use:

I think both surveys would be great to give students in the beginning of the year to get to know students better. I also think it would be interesting to give it to them at the middle and end of the year to see how students have changed throughout the year. It could be helpful to use the results to start conversations with students and see how attitudes or feelings could evolve.

-Megan Stevens

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Hi Anna,
I agree that the wording and formatting of a survey could limit its accuracy.The Self-Perception survey uses acronyms at the top of the questions. I think students with weak short term memories would probably struggle to remember the terms. In addition, the terms are hidden at the top of the page. Even if a student looks back, they may struggle to find the terms. One solution is to highlight the terms and write in the names by the acronym. Thanks for sharing.
-Barbara

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Robyn, I really like how you thoughtfully chose an affective assessment for your unmotivated student. I conducted an interview and I found the results much more informative than a traditional multiple choice survey. Students were free to elaborate at will and often provided detailed answers. I liked how the interview overcame some of the limitations of survey assessments. Thanks for sharing.
Barbara

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I completed a few different assessment tools. The first three I used with my 11th grade student. She completed the Motivations for Reading Questionnaire, the Reader Self-Perception Scale and the Adolescent Reading Attitudes Survey. With my elementary student I used the Tell Me What You Like, and Elementary Reading Attitude Survey. The strengths of the  Motivations for Reading Questionnaire survey is that it involves other statements about what the student likes or dislikes other than just reading based questions. I think its limitations are that the scale used has some wording that was a little difficult to interpret. The strengths of the Reader Self-Perception scale is that discusses not only how they see themselves as a reader but also how they feel others see them as a reader. The weakness of this assessment is the undecided category because it allowed them to not pick whether they agreed or disagreed. Then the Adolescent Reading Attitude Survey has strength in how it shows how and where a student enjoys or dislikes reading.
With the assessments I used for my elementary student, I found that the strength of the Tell Me What You Like Assessment was I learned more about the interests of the student, but I think a weakness is it could be more open ended because there are many more topics. Then the Elementary Attitude Survey's strength was the pictures made the survey more appealing for the student, but it was also a little hard for them to decide what picture to choose.
I could see myself using any of these assessments again, I think that the ones I used with my 11th grader were most beneficial to her, and the other assessments I used would be more appropriate with an elementary student.

Anna

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Great point about how one limitation may be based on whether the student is currently in school or not.  Many students, unfortunately, want nothing to do with reading over the summer and may have not thought about their feelings about reading in the past 2 months.  I feel like this was the case for one of the students I did the assessments with for sure!
-Erin

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Barbara-
I think that your findings with Miguel are ones that we see often with students.  When you ask them directly- they be stating what they feel you want to hear.  He may have stated that he enjoyed reading because he wanted to make you happy.  This was a great example of how using affective assessments can give us a more accurate picture of their true attitudes and feelings.  Thanks for sharing!
-Erin

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I am interested in looking more closely at the survey for adolescents.  I realize that I need to be better about looking at better surveys for my kiddos.  The past few years I've just used what's been given to me because "we've always used it" and then I get basically no information from it. I like the idea of figuring out motivation from a survey.  thanks for sharing!
Robyn Roub

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I had a similar thing happen with my assessment: a boy who I (and he and his parents) thought was a very good reader with great skills actually scored where it shows some lack of good skills and strategies in reading (or it could be that he just doesn't realize that he is using them).  Either way, it's a great note to make for instruction.
I'm curious about what your instructional choices will be with his confidence about reading out loud in order to improve his fluency and his confidence, but not make him uncomfortable.  Do you guys have book buddies or things like that?
Thanks for sharing!
Robyn Roub

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I completed four different assessment tools--two of which were similar to each other.
The two I will analyze are the Index of reading awareness from Assessments for Reading Instruction and the reading survey through conversational interview which was given to me by a colleague.
Strengths
For the Index, it was multiple choice which I thought was a help (especially in the summer where motivation to write is non-existent).   I also thought it was great how many different things it assessed.  It really analyzed many different parts of reading.   This was my favorite part--the scoring guide was really complete and user friendly.
The conversational interview I chose because I was working with a student who doesn't really want to do anything and I knew he would just randomly circle things on a multiple choice or refuse to write answers.    I really liked the idea of having a conversation about reading and making observational notes (in addition to what he was saying).  I found that it will be a great jumping off point for my mini-conferences.
Limitations
For the Index, I realized after the fact that some of the questions are a little hard. In fact, after scoring my student, I went back and took the test myself and realized there were several choices I would have had a hard time answering because I thought there should have been a "it depends on what I'm reading" choice.
For the interview, the biggest limitation is if you are giving it at the beginning of the year with a student you don't know, you might not get the information you want because the student feels awkward just working with you one on one.

Suggested Uses:
The index I would use after I started the year and we got going a little bit so that I might be able to teach a little bit to the assessment so they were more familiar with what the questions were asking.
The conversational interview I would still use at the beginning of the year to get them used to meeting with me one on one.
I would definitely work it into my schedule to give both of these surveys multiple times a year to see how things are changing.   And obviously, I would talk about the things I noticed in the assessments (if not showing the entire assessment) to parents at conferences.    Both assessments provide great talking points both in my conferences with students and with parents.
-Robyn Roub

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Selected Tool:                                         I completed two reading inventories with Miguel. The two inventories were “Here’s How I Feel About Reading” and “The Reader Self-Perception Scale.”                       Strengths:                                                I was surprised with the results of Miguel’s affective assessment. Prior to starting the inventories, I asked Miguel about reading. He enthusiastically stated that he enjoyed reading and reads often. He professed that we was a good reader. However, the affective assessments showed that he has doubts about his reading ability. He answered “undecided” when asked on paper if he was a good reader. In addition, he answered that he strongly dislikes reading aloud. He thinks he readers slower than other readers. Yet, he quickly completed all the questions regarding his favorite book and reading habits. I think Miguel likes to read, but is self conscious about his skill level. Limitations:                                  These tools only provide insight into how the student is feeling in the moment. The assessments do not consider prior beliefs about reading or recent changes. In addition, the Self Perception scale is long and requires students to understand the statements and rating systems. I watched both students erase and answer differently after rereading a statement.  	                        Suggested Use:                             These assessments are excellent for getting to know a student as reader. I found the surveys engaging and helpful. Students just want to be heard. These surveys give them a voice and opportunity to be understood. 

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Selected Tool:                                         I completed two reading inventories with Miguel. The two inventories were “Here’s How I Feel About Reading” and “The Reader Self-Perception Scale.”                       Strengths:                                                I was surprised with the results of Miguel’s affective assessment. Prior to starting the inventories, I asked Miguel about reading. He enthusiastically stated that he enjoyed reading and reads often. He professed that we was a good reader. However, the affective assessments showed that he has doubts about his reading ability. He answered “undecided” when asked on paper if he was a good reader. In addition, he answered that he strongly dislikes reading aloud. He thinks he readers slower than other readers. Yet, he quickly completed all the questions regarding his favorite book and reading habits. I think Miguel likes to read, but is self conscious about his skill level. Limitations:                                  These tools only provide insight into how the student is feeling in the moment. The assessments do not consider prior beliefs about reading or recent changes. In addition, the Self Perception scale is long and requires students to understand the statements and rating systems. I watched both students erase and answer differently after rereading a statement.  	                        Suggested Use:                             These assessments are excellent for getting to know a student as reader. I found the surveys engaging and helpful. Students just want to be heard. These surveys give them a voice and opportunity to be understood. 

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-Barbara

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Valora,
I completely agree that the affective assessments would be a great way to start a new school year to gain feedback on each student's thoughts/opinion about reading prior to any instruction. I also liked that you included that these assessments are a great way for us as teachers to determine the approach in which we should guide our literacy instruction. This is a great point and something I hadn't thought about prior to reading your post. Thanks for sharing!
-Kalyn Heitkamp

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Erin,
I agree that the limitations of these (and all) assessments are directly related to the attitude/mood of the student on a given day, particularly children at the primary level! In my response, I also wrote about whether or not responses would vary depending on the fact that most students are not currently in school. There are many factors we need to keep in mind when administering assessments and I think this assignment was a great reminder of that.
-Kalyn Heitkamp

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Having a student who is a reluctant reader can be a challenge! One of the ways that I used in the past is letting them listen to audio books while following along in the book! Maybe that will help your student?!

Christine Moren

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It was so cute to read about the first grader that loved the Garfield Pictures. That is so sweet!
I looked at both assessments you gave and I have to agree with you on the limitations. It is hard to really get a good grasp of where they are at with a simple survey. I think that as a jumping off point though they are very helpful. I feel like the more I understand about my students willingness to learn the better I can prepare myself to work with them!

Christine Moren

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I agree with you about the strengths of the Here's How I Feel about Reading assessment! I also used it with one of my focus students and felt as though it gave me great insight into her as both a person and a reader. I liked your question about whether administering this assessment during the summer makes it as valid... a couple of my student's answers did reflect home reading rather than school reading. In fact, one of her answers to one of the prompts about Reading was "part of the routine" which indicated her mom's rules of reading for 30 mins before any electronics each day during the summer. I thought that was both funny and a good idea!
Thanks for your post -
Valora Unowsky

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To complete the requirements of the affective assessment assignment, I used the "Here's How I Feel About Reading Survey" and "Elementary Reading Attitude Survey" with a female second grade student in the Anoka-Hennepin school district.
Strengths:
While administering the assessments, I found that the student seemed to enjoy reflecting on her reading habits and likes/dislikes when it comes to literacy practices. She gave honest answers and needed little clarification to identify how to best complete the assessment. While the "Elementary Reading Attitude Survey" fit the primary age of this student, I believe I learned more about her as a reader when looking at the results of the "How I Feel About Reading Survey." Being that these assessments were given to a second grade student, I like that the "How I Feel About Reading" assessment allowed her to conceptualize her understanding of reading instruction through the formulation of her own thoughts and ideas as opposed to deciding based on predetermined answers. This assessment could be a little bit more difficult had I used a Kindergarten or first grade student.
Limitations:
One of the limitations I considered when giving these assessments was whether or not the answers to each of the responses would vary if the student was currently in school. During summer vacation, I feel that students have a little bit of a different attitude about reading. This may not be a "good" or "bad" difference, just something that may alter the thoughts and ideas around concepts that typically aren't practiced as much as if the student were in school right now. These opinions could also be altered depending on the time/day in which I administered the assessments. Young children typically vary their thoughts quite a bit on any given day and to get the most accurate answers to these assessment questions, I might consider giving the assessments an additional time to compare answers for the most accurate results.
Suggested Use:
I think these assessments would be greatly beneficial when implemented with primary students at the beginning of the school year. The results of these assessments provide a cohesive overview into a student's reading behaviors as well as their individual opinions about reading. Sitting down with the student to talk about their responses would also provide additional information to begin to build an appropriate approach to their individualized literacy instruction.
-Kalyn Heitkamp

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I completed two affective assessments with a sweet little female first grader in the Sauk Rapids-Rice school district.  The assessments I used were the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey, and the Here's How I Feel About Reading Survey.
Strengths: This little girl absolutely LOVED the Garfield graphics and choosing one that best fit how she felt.  While administering the survey, she even stared to do the actions that depicted the picture that she was choosing.  She was also disappointed when it was over- so this showed that this was enjoyable and relatable to a primary level student.  It also showed me a lot about her personal feelings towards reading and books.
A strength of the Here's How I Feel About Reading Survey was that it encouraged her to come up with her own words for answers.  Asking her these questions gave me deeper insight into what her interests were, and what she most likes and dislikes about reading.

Limitations:  One limitation that I see for both of these affective assessments is that their interests and attitudes could change by the day-- especially for young children.  They also do not give us any information about the reading skills of the students.  Lastly, I felt that many of the questions on the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey were very subjective, and not specific enough to get a defined answer.

Suggested Use
I would suggest using either of these affective assessments as a means to get to start knowing your students' attitudes about reading at a deeper level.  You may use the answers on these surveys to lead you to where you may want to dive deeper.  The attitude survey may also help guide you to identifying students who may have insecurities with reading aloud or taking tests.

-Erin Bakke

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I used both the Motivation to Read Profile and the SARA with my focus students as well! I agree with you that students who place a higher value on reading will thus be more willing to work hard at it. I think our challenge as teachers is to find that spot for each student. One of the focus students that I work with is a bit of a reluctant reader... I am making it my mission to turn her on to books this summer! :)
Thanks for your post!
Valora Unowsky

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I completed two different assessments with my students. Marg a student who will be in fifth grade next year was given the Motivation to Read Profile (page 267 of AFRI). Her older brother Justin, who is going into 8th grade, took Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes (page 263 of AFRI).

Motivation to Read Strengths:

The Motivations to Read profile broke down motivation to read into two categorie: Value of Reading and Reading Self-concept. I think that being able to understand how the student views reading (value) and how they see themselves as a reader (self-concept) is an integral part of understanding how the student will perform in reading. It is my belief that students that place higher value on reading will be more willing to work hard, where students that place a lower value on reading would be more resistant to working hard. Having access to this information would ideally help guide and motivate students who feel that reading has little or no value.

Motivations to Read Limitations:

A large weakness that I see in the Motivations to Read Profile is that they are multiple choice questions. Many times when I was reading the survey aloud to Marg, she would ask clarifying questions, especially when it came to the time questions. Often, sometimes, almost never and never are confusing to kids! She asked me many times, “What is the difference between often and sometimes?”

Use for Motivations to Read:

I currently teach fifth grade. I think this survey would be awesome to use at open house or in the first few days of school in order to get a good sense of how my students see themselves as readers. I do think though that it would need to be in conjuncture with other assessments, like an interest assessment.

Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes Strengths:

The survey of adolescent attitudes is a very simple and quick way to survey an entire class to gather information. It has 18 questions and uses a simple rating system (1= very bad, 6= very good). The major strength it has is easily letting the teacher know what type of assignments would engage each child.

Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes Limitations:

Survey’s with rating systems are limited due to the fact that everyone views the rating system differently. Justin likes to read and so he scored everything a three or above. I could see certain students who would rate everything a 1 (very bad) just because they don’t enjoy school or reading. I would rather have them rate each marker 1-18 picking their favorite and their least favorite so I could better use the information.

Use of Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes:

The Survey of Adolescent Reading Attitudes was extremely short and easy to give. I think that a middle school teacher could use it in their class to determine creative ways to engage their students. I also think that it could help them target and work on interventions with the students who do not enjoy reading. Again, I think that you would need to use this survey with an interest survey in order to hook the readers who rate reading low.

Christine Moren

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I completed two interest inventories with Sarah, a 5th grader in Minneapolis. I used both the Here’s How I Feel about Reading inventory and the Tell Me What You Like! inventory from McKenna & Stahl, p. 250-251.

Strengths: Great for getting to know a student’s likes, dislikes, areas of interest and personality. I learned a lot about my focus student from using these assessments. They could help with choosing texts and/or genres for a student, setting up book clubs or even classroom libraries when analyzed on a classroom scale. These assessments can be administered individually or in a group setting.

Weaknesses: Students may tell a teacher what they think he or she wants to hear on the Here’s How I Feel about Reading inventory (I think this happened with Sarah!). These are both interest based rather than skill based.

Suggested Use: These would be great to have students complete during the first week of school, while getting to know one’s students. The results could be used for choosing texts and/or genres for a student, or for setting up groups or classroom libraries.

I also gave Sarah the Motivation to Read Profile Assessment (Malloy, Marinak, Gambrell and Mazzoni, 2013). This was a very interesting assessment that was more involved to administer and score, but provided very interesting learning about Sarah as a reader.

Strengths: This assessment measures students in two areas, Value of Reading and Reading Self-Concept, by asking students questions that relate to their feelings about and approach to reading. (I don’t think that Sarah had any idea of the information I was gathering when I administered this assessment!) It gives a student a score in both areas, and provides guidelines for further assessment when a student’s score falls below a certain line. These assessments can be administered individually or in a group setting.

Weaknesses: This assessment does not provide information regarding reading skill, or data from which to diagnose specific reading issues.

Suggested Use: This assessment could be included in a beginning of year assessment battery to determine students’ attitudes toward reading. It could also be used by an intervention teacher when meeting or intervening with a new student. I liked the tool for use with my focus student because it helped to confirm thoughts that her parents had about her feelings about reading, and gave me an idea of how to approach my work with her.

Thanks for reading!
Valora Unowsky