THE PREDICTIVE ASSESSMENT OF READING (PAR) February 11, 2013 Carrie Malloy & Julie Smith

Literacy Long Term Goals

Engagement and Joy Story Time at SummitStory Time at Secca

History of the PAR  Developed out of 30 years of NIH-funded research designed to gain a better understanding of literacy development  How it unfolds in typical readers  How early intervention can ameliorate later difficulties

The National Reading Panel’s 2000 report, Put Reading First  Commissioned out of concern for the growing illiteracy rate in our country  A panel of research experts analyzed hundreds of literacy studies (a meta-analysis)  Their assessment of the research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction

Their Findings  Research Supports Five Essential Components of Reading Instruction:  Phonemic Awareness  Phonics  Vocabulary  Fluency  Comprehension

Phonemic Awareness  A child’s ability to recognize that spoken words are made up of individual speech sounds (phonemes) and that child can hear, count, and manipulate those sounds.

Listening for Sounds

Phonics  Understanding that there is a predictable relationship between speech sounds in our spoken language (phonemes) and the letters which represent them (graphemes). Often referred to as the “alphabetic principle”  Phonics instruction must be taught  Systematically (easiest concepts to harder)  Explicitly (to mastery)  Should begin no later than Kindergarten

Sounds and Symbols

Vocabulary  Development of stored information about the meaning and pronunciation of words  Developed indirectly through oral language and listening to enriched text read aloud  Developed directly through explicit and specific teaching of word meanings in context, dictionary skills, familiarity with word parts

Alfie and Annie Rose

Fluency  The ability to read text accurately, quickly, and with prosody. Studies demonstrate that practice and repetition leads to automaticity.  Activities for improving fluency include:  Monitored, repeated oral reading practice  Student-adult paired reading  Choral reading  Taped practice  Timed drills

Repeated Stories and Singing

Comprehension  The ultimate goal of reading. The following strategies have a firm scientific basis for improving text comprehension:  Teaching students to question, predict, self-monitor as they read  The use of graphic organizers  Teaching story structure  Summarizing and visualization strategies

Expressing What We Know

Understanding

Why the PAR?  Now that research can better shed light on how literacy develops, rather than waiting for children to fail, what can be done to:  Predict a child’s future reading outcome  Change the course of that outcome through focused, preventative instruction

What is the PAR?  The PAR is not an academic achievement test, but rather an early screening tool developed to assess a child’s skill on basic underlying processing skills which support literacy. These include:  Phonological Awareness  Letter Identification and High Frequency Single Word Reading  Rapid Naming (a measure of fluency/word retrieval)  Vocabulary  It is able to predict a kindergartener’s eighth grade reading ability with 97% accuracy.

What Can the PAR Tell Us About a Child?  Its results can:  Uncover patterns of uneven skill development  Identify early literacy and pre-literacy strengths and weaknesses  Provide insight regarding critical pre-reading skills, which can be supported or bolstered to change the course of a child’s future literacy outcome

A Look At How it’s Administered

Understanding The Results

Begin with the End in Mind