READING ASSESSMENT DAY 2: COVE CREEK FRYE AND TRATHEN

Matching texts to students by assessing the students’ reading behaviors.

Lexiles Text Lexiles – Approximations (estimates) of the reading difficulty level of the text (readability formula). Student Lexile Scores – Estimates of a reader’s ability to read (with 75% comprehension) material at designated lexile levels. – Score is derived from a standardized comprehension test of grade level material. Goal is to match texts (lexile level) to student lexile scores for ideal reading performance.

Student Lexile Scores Scores are mathematically derived from the standardized scores (normal distribution) of students’ grade level performances on the NCEOG. – Lexile scores are assigned based on something like students’ percentile scores on reading portion of NCEOG. Scores range from 200L for beginning readers to 1700L for advanced reading performance. – At each grade level there is a ceiling (restriction) to how high the scores may go, and how low they may go (floor). Lexile Range for a student’s score. – 50L above the student’s lexile score. – 100L below the student’s lexile score. Match student to text with lexile score in student’s range. – Student with score of 890L match with texts from 790L to 940L

Diagnostic Testing NCEOG is a standardized test where a student’s performance (score) is compared to all other students’ scores who took that test. It is best used to report performance of the population (averages, percentile rankings, etc.) and to make comparisons between groups of students’ performances. Diagnostic tests are criterion referenced, and are designed to provide information about a student’s performance compared to an established set of criterion goals. Reading diagnostic tests include differentiated levels of material—a student is tested on a range of leveled material (lexile levels, if you will) in order to find the level of text where the student performs at the established criterion levels. Reading diagnostic tests are often administered individually and are used to measure the reading process.

Print Processing: The Engine that Drives the Reading Process Print Processing & Comprehension = READING Print processing is the accurate and automatic recognition of a sequence of printed words. Comprehension refers to the meaning-making process—constructing meaning from the printed words. The reading process is most efficient when print processing is automatized so that more mental energy (cognitive resources) can be devoted to comprehension.

Gough: Simple View of Reading Reading Comprehension (RC) can be explained by two reading behaviors: – Decoding (D) the ability to decode written words (letters, phonemes, and common spelling patterns) in order to match them up with spoken word representations in memory. Efficient word recognition (includes arriving at a word’s meaning). – Language Comprehension (LC) the ability to derive meaning from spoken words and combine words into meaningful sentences. Connecting meaning (sentences) to prior knowledge. RC = D X LC – Low scores on either D or LC will lower the RC. Reading Comprehension is separated from Decoding (print processing). – Readers can be assessed on their decoding and their language comprehension, providing information about the reading process for these students. – Types of readers: Strong on both decoding and language comprehension measures. Weak on decoding measures but strong on language comprehension. Strong on decoding measures but weak on language comprehension. Weak on both decoding measures and on language comprehension. This information is not available from NCEOG scores.

Diagnostic Reading Behaviors Indicating “Readable” (Accessible) Text Accuracy: (Reading words correctly) Accurately decoding printed words is measured by students saying the words correctly when reading text aloud (oral reading). Rate: (Reading words with speed) Reading rate is measured by calculating how rapidly (words per minute) students read text. This measure is important because it represents a student’s ability to rapidly and effortlessly decode words with little conscious effort; thus saving cognitive resources for the demands of text comprehension. Prosody: (Reading that sounds natural) Prosody refers to reading with the appropriate pace, phrasing and intonation. It is measured by listening and judging (rating) a student’s oral reading.

Reading Assessment Graded Passages 1 st Grade 210 L Frog and Toad 2 nd Grade 460 L Ellie and Gram 3 rd Grade 630 L Mary and Boxer 4 th Grade 730 L Two Dogs and a Cat 5 th Grade 880 L Shelia Young 6 th Grade 980 L Garrett Morgan 7 th Grade 1060 L Sable Island

How can we determine if a text is appropriate (not too hard) for a student to read? Locate a 100 word passage in a book or text…preferably not the first 100 words of the text. You may wish to read the first few paragraphs or pages and then have the student continue. As the student is reading, record the errors or miscues. You may simply write them down or just keep a tally. Also, keep track of how long it took the student to read the passage. Convert to number of seconds. If the student misses 10 or MORE errors, then more than likely, the passage is too difficult. In addition to accuracy, please calculate the rate. Refer to grade-level minimum scores (criteria).

Reading Rate: Grade Level Indexes Oral Rates

Just listen to your students read a sample of a text.

IRI Passage-Grade 4 Student 1

IRI Passage-Grade 4 Student 2

Conclusion If we provide individual students with good books they can read, then maybe, they will choose to read, in and outside of school. After all, teaching children to read counts for little unless they want to read, gain the habit of reading, and do read (Temple, et al., 2006).

References Allington, R. (2001). What really matters for struggling readers: Designing research-based programs. New York: Addison, Wesley, Longman. Allington, R. (2007). Intervention all day long: New hope for struggling readers. Voices from the Middle, 14(4), Anderson, R. C., & Nagy, W. E. (1992). The vocabulary conundrum. American Educator, 16, 14-18, Baumann, J. F., Kame‘enui, E. J., & Ash, G. E. (2003). Research on vocabulary instruction: Voltaire redux. In J. Flood, D. Lapp, J. R. Squire, & J. M. Jensen (Eds.), Handbook on research on teaching the English language arts (2nd ed., pp ). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (1991). Conditions of vocabulary acquisition. In R. Barr, M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research, (Vol. 2, pp ). New York: Longman. Betts, E. (1946). Foundations of reading instruction. New York: American Book Company. Chall, J.S., & Conrad, S.S. (1991). Should textbooks challenge students? New York: Teachers College Press. Chall, J. S., and Curtis, M. E. (2003). Children with reading difficulties. In J. Flood, D. Lapp, J. R. Squire, and J. M. Jensen (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts (2 nd ed.). (pp ). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Chall, J.S., Jacobs, V.A., & Baldwin, L.E. (1990). The reading crisis: Why poor children fall behind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cunningham A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (2001) What reading does for the mind. Journal of Direct Instruction, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 137–149. Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1997). Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later. Developmental Psychology, 33, Curtis, M.E., & Longo, A.M. (1998). When adolescents can’t read: Methods and materials that work. Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books. Gelzheiser, L. M. (2005). Maximizing student progress in one-to-one programs: Contributions of texts, volunteer experience, and student characteristics. Exceptionality, 13(4), 229–243. Guthrie, J.T., Wigfield, A., Metsala, J.L., & Cox, K.E. (1999). Motivational and cognitive predictors of text comprehension and reading amount. Scientific Studies of Reading, 4(3), Hayes, D. P. (1988). Speaking and writing: Distinct patterns of word choice. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 572–585. Hayes, D. P. & Ahrens, M. (1988). Vocabulary simplification for children: A special case of ‘motherese.’ Journal of Child Language, 15, 395–410. Ivey, G. (1999). A multicase study in the middle school: Complexities among young adolescent readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 34 (2), Kane, G. R. (1984). Readability. In Pearson, P.D., Barr, R., Kamil, M.L., & Mosenthal, P.B. (Eds.). Handbook of reading research: Volume I. White Plains, NY: Longman. Mathes, P. G., Denton, C. A., Fletcher, J. M., Anthony, J. L., Francis, D. J., & Schatsneider, C. (2005). The effects of theoretically different instruction and student characteristics on the skills of struggling readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 40(2), 148– 182. Morris, D. (2008). Diagnosis and correction of reading problems. New York: The Guilford Press.