Chapter 6-Assessing Reading Performance

Trends in Assessment

• High-Stake Testing-the practice of using a single test score for making education-related or personnel decisions.  Are known as achievement and graduation tests.  Is intended to provide the public with a guarantee that students can perform at a level necessary to function in society and in the work-force
• Authentic Assessment-asking students to perform tasks that demonstrate sufficient knowledge and understanding of a subject.  They are doing reading and writing tasks that look like real-life tasks and the students are primarily in control of the reading or writing task.
  • Retelling-an assessment in which students identify and discuss integral parts of a story
  • Formative Assessment-an assessment that is used to gather information for teachers to adapt instruction to meet students’ needs.  It is ongoing to determine their strengths and how learning progresses.  Helps to identify the specific learning needs of all readers, including those who have difficulties with English. 
  • Self-Assessment-an assessment in which students identify their strengths and weaknesses to help provide a plan for intervention

Formal Assessments

• Standardized Tests-a formal test of reading ability administered according to specific, unvarying directions; usually norm-referenced and machine-scored.  They are useful in making comparisons among individuals or groups at local, state or national level. 
  • Norms-average scores of a sampling of students selected or testing according to factors such as age, sex, race, grade or socioeconomic status; basis for comparing the performance of individuals or groups.  Done by a norm-referenced tests which is administering to large numbers of students and it is inefficient and difficult
  • Reliability-the relative accessibility or difficulty of a text.  Sentence length and word difficulty are among the elements used in formulas that assign grade-level readability scores for text materials.
  • Validity-the accuracy with which a test measures what it is designed to measure-the most important characteristic of a test. 
• Types of Test Scores-to make interpretations properly, you need to be aware of differences in the types of scores reported on a test.  The raw, or obtained score reflects the total number of correct items on a test.  Raw scores are converted to other kids of scores so that comparisons among individuals or groups can be made.  It may be converted into a grade equivalency score, which provides information about reading performance as it relates to students at various grade levels.  In place of grade-level scores, the use of percentile scores which refer to scores in terms of the percentage of a group the student has scored above.  Stanine is one of several types of standard scores, where it is a raw score that has been converted to a common standard to permit comparison. 
• Types of Tests-different norm-referenced tests have different purpose…two broad types of tests are frequently used in schools…
  • Survey Test-broad type of test that measures general performance only!!!  It does not yield precise information about an individual’s reading abilities.  They are most often used at the beginning of the school year
  • Diagnostic Test-formal assessment intended to provide detailed information about individual students’ strengths and weakness!!! The results are often used to profile a student’s strengths and weaknesses of their reading performance; some are individual, and some are group administrated
• Criterion-Referenced Tests-formal assessment designed to measure individual student achievement according to a specific criterion for performance (ex. 8/10 words spelled correctly).  The major premise behind this testing is that the mastery of reading skills should be assessed in relation to specific instructional objectives.  Performance is judged by what a student can or cannot do with regard to the skill objectives of that test.  The reliability and validity have been called into question.

Informal Assessments

• Informal measures of reading such as reading inventories, miscue analyses and running records, which finds useful information about student performance that can be used to inform and guide instruction.
• Informal Reading Inventory (IRI)-an individually administered informal test, usually consisting of graded word lists, graded reading passages and comprehension questions that assess how students orally and silently interact with print. Information gathered from an IRI should allow teachers to pair students with appropriate instruction materials with some degree of confidence, but also an analysis of oral reading miscues helps to determine the cueing system that students tend to rely o when reading.  Information from this can lead to instructional planning that will increase students’ effectiveness with print
• Determining Reading Levels-the following reading levels can be determined for individual students by administering an IRI…
  • Independent Level-level at which student reads fluently with excellent comprehension, also been called the recreational reading level because not only will students be able to function on their own, but they also have high interest in the material
  • Instructional Level-level at which students can make progress in reading with instructional guidance, also been called teaching level because the material to be read must be challenging but not too difficult
  • Frustration Level-level at which the students are unable to pronounce many of the words or is unable to comprehend the material satisfactorily and is the lowest level of reading, the material is too difficult to provide a basis for growth
  • Listening Capacity Level-level at which the students can understand the material that is read aloud, also known as potential level because if students were able to read fluently, they would not have a problem with comprehension

• Miscue-oral reading errors are called this.  The terms error and miscue essentially describe the same phenomenon-a difference between what a reader says and the word on the page
• Miscue Analysis-informal assessment of oral reading errors to determine the extent to which readers use and coordinate graphic-sound, syntactic and semantic information.  To analyze miscues, you should ask at least four crucial questions
  • Does the miscue change the meaning? (semantically acceptable)
  • Does the miscue sound like language? (syntactically acceptable)
  • Do the miscue and the text word look and sound alike? (substitutions and mispronunciation)
  • Was an attempt made to correct the miscue? (self-correction)

Running Records

• Running Records-method for marking miscues of beginning readers while they read.  Used as an assessment system for determining students’ development of oral reading fluency and word identification skills and strategies
• Administering a Running Record (see Running Record and Comprehension Check BLOG post)
• Analyzing a Running Record (see Running Record and Comprehension Check BLOG post).  Teachers calculate the words read correctly, analyze the student’s errors and identify patterns of errors.  Look closely at self-corrections! Running records provide insights into student’s strengths and weaknesses by allowing teachers to analyze patterns of miscues (look at visual above; meaning, structure and visual)

Other Informal Assessments

• Words correct per minutes-involves children reading aloud for one minutes form materials used in their reading lesson.  As the students is reading the text, the teacher crosses out any word read incorrectly
• Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)-assessment that includes a series of oral reading skill assessments.  Short measure are used to monitor early literacy skills and provide feedback to informal instruction

Portfolio Assessment

• Portfolios-a compilation of an individual student’s work in reading and writing, devised to reveal literacy progress as well as strengths and weaknesses
• Digital Portfolios-a multimedia collection of student work stored and reviewed in digital format

Kid-watching While Teaching

• Kid-watching-observing how students interact with print during the instructional process is what it is all about.  This term has been coined to dramatize the powerful role of observation in helping children grow and develop as language users
• Anecdotal Notes-brief, written observations of revealing behavior that a teacher considers significant to understanding a child’s literacy learning (see figure 6.13)

• Checklists-a list of categories presented for specific diagnostic purposes (see figure 6.14)

• Interviewing-periodic communication with individual students to assess reading interests and attitudes, self-perceptions, and understanding of the language-learning process

Classroom Application: This chapter has taught me the reasons to use authentic assessments in making decisions about instruction in my future classroom, the purpose and different types of format/standardized assessment, the purpose and different types of informal/alternative assessments, the techniques for using miscue analysis, running records, kidwatching/observing, anecdotal notes, checklists and interviews and crucial elements for implementing portfolio assessments.  As a future educator, I have learned that reding is a process that takes place inside the mind and it isn’t directly observable or measurable through any one specific assessment.  It is my job as a teacher to base my decision about instruction of a variety of indicators of reading performance off all the students in my classroom.  I have learned that observations of students, informal reading inventories, running records and many others types of assessments all contributes to my understanding of how my students are reading, comprehending and are accurate when reading. 

Source: Vacca, J. L., Vacca, R.T., & Gove, M K. (2012). Reading and Learning to Read (8th ed.). New York: Longman.