Assessment Tools

-- This site provides teacher with a variety of checklists for early, emergent and independent readers.

http://www.nwrel.org/learns/resources/llap/pdf.html

-- This site provides on line timed reading test. Students may click on the start bottom and beginning reading passage, the site will keep track of the reading time and words per minute.

http://iep.uta.edu/Rochelle/TimedReadings/TimedReadingIndex.html

-- This site provides a reading rate inventory. This inventory will provide the teacher with information about how the student perceives himself/herself as a reader.

http://www.nmsu.edu/~cla/Inventories/readingrate.htm

Assessing Fluency and Reading Rate

Running records: A running record is a tool for coding, scoring and analyzing a child’s precise reading behaviors. (Fountas and Pinnell, 1996, p. 89)

Taking running records require time, but will provide teachers with a wealth of information. Not only do running records help teachers evaluate fluency but they also make it possible to quickly and regularly check on the match between reader and text.

As a student orally reads a passage of text, the teacher uses a marking system and a copy of the text to keep track of the student’s reading behaviors. Teachers make check marks for each word the student reads correctly. Other marks indicate errors or miscues, self-correction, words the students does not know, and sometimes repetitions and pauses. It is a good idea to tape record the first few trials and check recording accuracy by re-playing the tape.

Teachers calculate the percentage of correctly-read words and use this information, as well as their analysis of the miscues, to document progress, plan instruction, and to determine whether the text is “easy,” can be handled “with support,” or is “too difficult.” “Easy” text can be read independently with almost no errors. Text read with 90-97 percent accuracy tends to be sufficiently challenging without being overwhelming. This is the student’s instructional level. (See IRI for more information on determining reading levels.)

Miscues can be analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. A quantitative analysis involves counting the number of errors, and is used to determine the reading level of a student. A qualitative miscue analysis, by contrast, offers a radically different perspective for exploring the strengths of students. It is a tool to measure what the student does when (s)he reads.

A miscue is significant if it affects meaning; that is, the miscue doesn’t make sense within the context of the sentence or passage in which it occurs. Miscues are generally significant in the following instances:

· When the meaning of the sentence or passage is significantly changed or altered and the student does not correct the miscue

· When a nonword is used in place of the word in the passage

· When only a partial word is substituted for the word or phrase in the passage

· When a word is identified for the student

Miscues are generally not significant in these circumstances:

· When the meaning of the sentence undergoes no change or only minimal change

· When they are self-corrected by the student

· When they are acceptable in the student’s dialect (e.g., “goed” home for “went” home; “idear” for “idea”)

· When they are later read correctly in the same passage.

It is recommended that only significant miscues be counted in determining reading levels. Subtract all dialect miscues, all corrected miscues and all miscues that do not change meaning from the total number of recorded miscues. It is important for teachers to analyze miscues so they can gain an understanding of what instructional strategies will best meet the students’ needs. (Strickland, 2002, p. 137-139)

Informal Reading Inventories

Informal Reading Inventories (IRI) are individually-administered reading tests. Usually they consist of grade-level word lists, passages, and comprehension questions, The passages are used to assess how students interact with print, orally and silently. The information gathered will allow you to pair students with appropriate instruction material.

IRI are commercially available, however teachers can easily construct one. Selections from a basal reading series may be used. If you decide to make and use an IRI, at least three steps are necessary.

· Duplicate 100- to 200-word passages from basal stories. Select a passage for each grade level from the basal series, pre-primer through grade 8. Passages should be chosen from the middle of each basal textbook to ensure representation.

· Develop at least five comprehension questions for each passage. Be certain that different types of questions are created in each passage. Avoid questions; that can be answered without reading the passage; require yes or no answers; that are long and complicated; or overload memory by requiring the reader to reconstruct lists. (e.g., “Name four things that happened…”)

· Create an environment conducive to assessment.

Select a passage you believe the student can read easily and comprehend fully; for example, a passage two grade-levels below student’s present grade. Have students orally read.

Silent reading usually follows the oral reading. In both reading situations, the student responds to comprehension questions. However, an excellent variation is to have students first retell everything they can recall from the story before answering comprehension questions.

During the oral reading passage the teacher notes reading errors, such as the errors you would find in running records. Teacher also notes if the student read the passage in a slow, halting, or word-by-word fashion.

A teacher gain an understanding of the students’ reading difficulty by analyzing the miscues, as well as determining the following reading levels:

· Independent level: The level at which the student reads fluently with excellent comprehension. Sometimes referred to as the recreational reading level.

· Instructional level: The level at which the student can make progress in reading with guidance. Sometimes referred to as the teaching level.

· Frustration level: The level at which the student is unable to pronounce many of the words or is unable to comprehend the material satisfactorily. (Vacca, 2000, p. 534-535)

Monitoring Fluency by Calculating Reading Rates

Teachers can easily monitor students’ fluency by calculating students’ reading rate. Ask the student to read the text in a normal manner as you time the reading. The text should be at or slightly below the level the student can read and understand with little difficulty. Keep track of when the reader has read for one minute. Then count the number of words read. This is the reader’s rate per minute. You need several 60-second samples before you can calculate an average rating. Compare the reader’s oral reading rate against the following:

· Grade 1: 60-90 words per minute

· Grade 2: 85-120 words per minute

· Grade 3: 115-140 words per minute

· Grade 4: 140-170 words per minute

· Grade 5: 170-195 words per minute

· Grade 6: 195-220 words per minute

· Grade 7: 215-245 words per minute

· Grade 8: 235-270 words per minute

· Grades 9/10: 250-270 words per minute

· Grades 11/12: 259-300 words per minute

Readers who read at a rate that is consistently and substantially below the appropriate grade-level reading rate need assistance in developing reading fluency.

(Vacca, 2000, p. 218)

A Rubric for Assessing Fluency

The following is a rubric developed by Martinez, Roser, and Strecker (1999). This tool assesses fluency in the classroom. The process involves the five components of fluency outlined below and provides teachers and students with concrete information with which to work.

It is important to monitor student progress by assessing them periodically with material that is on their independent level or only mildly challenging. Children may be assessed on materials that have been used instructionally or with which they have otherwise become familiar. Below are the assessment components and scoring rubrics.

Diagnostic Fluency Assessment

1. Rate: words per minute

2. Accuracy: percentage of words correctly recognized.

3. Fluidity; smoothness/flow of the reading:

Hesitates in every line of print with many false starts; frequent prompting; no rhythm or cadence.
Several extended pauses; hesitations, and/or repetitions that are disruptive to the reading; occasional prompting; impression of choppiness.
Occasional inappropriate pauses; only occasional hesitation or repetition, rare prompting; only occasional choppiness
Smooth reading overall with few pauses, hesitations, or repetitions; word or structural difficulties are quickly self-corrected; no choppiness
Smooth, connected reading with no inappropriate pauses or hesitations; rare false starts are immediately self-corrected; appropriate varied rhythm and cadence

4. Phrasing

Reads in a word-by-word manner; ignores phrases boundaries and punctuation or creates inappropriate boundaries
Overuses inappropriate phrasing; breaks phrasing within meaningful units; may break between subject and verb; some attention to punctuation boundaries
Some inappropriate phrasing; attends to punctuation boundaries
Usually chunks texts into syntactically meaningful units; attends to punctuation boundaries
Consistently chunks text into syntactically meaningful units; attends to punctuation boundaries

5. Expressiveness

Reads with equal stress to each word; reads in a monotone with no expression; fails to mark end of sentence or dialogue with rise/fall of voice
Uses minimal expression; reads with inappropriate stress; uses intonation that fails to mark end of sentences and clauses
Uses some appropriate expression; reads with reasonable stress; uses intonation that marks end of sentences and clauses
Generally uses appropriate stress and intonation with adequate attention to expression, including voice change at quotations and appropriate rise and fall of voice
Consistently attends to appropriate stress, intonation, and expression, including consistent voice changes for quotations; demonstrates sensitivity to mood and tone; alters rate as needed for dramatic effect

For more information:

Martimez, M., N. L. Roser and S.K. Stecker 1999. “I Never Thought I could Be a Star: A Readers Theater Ticket to Fluency” The Reading Teacher 52: 326-334

Strecker, S.K. 2001. “Questions Teachers Are Asking About Reading Fluency.” The California Reader 34: 23-26