Master of Arts in Teaching
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR
Reading Assessments + Proposed Intervention Plan
Why Assess Student Reading?
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Assessing student reading as an English Language Arts teacher can be an important, even essential, part of teaching. Although reading assessments are typically administered in primary and middle level grades, normalizing them in high school settings can be beneficial for students, as it allows teachers to determine how they can help them improve as readers, whether they are behind grade-level or in need of additional challenges to further develop their reading skills. Assessing student reading also aligns with the professional practices described in Domain #1 of the Arkansas Teacher Excellence and Support System. By gaining knowledge of where my students are as readers, I am demonstrating knowledge of my students and their skills, which is in accordance with Domain #1b. Additionally, administering reading assessments to my students leads me to understand where they are in their reading and what I need to do to best support them, enabling me to establish learning outcomes that are tailored to their specific needs in service of Domain #1c. Furthermore, in alignment with Domain #1e, knowing what support in reading my students need allows me to design appropriate instruction, such as supplemental reading activities that aid in reading support and instructional groups tailored according to student reading levels. Because I believe reading assessments are an important part of instruction and planning, I spent a portion of my student teaching experience administering reading assessments to a student in one of my classes in order to identify her reading level and propose an informed intervention plan specifically designed to support her growth.
Understanding the Student
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For the reading assessments I administered, I worked with Lisa, a tenth-grade student I taught in Critical Reading. Critical Reading is an enrichment course in which tenth graders are enrolled based on ELPA and ACT Aspire exam scores. The purpose of the Critical Reading course is to improve student comprehension in reading. As I taught the course, I attempted to foster, at the very least, an interest in reading and its connections to the real world, in addition to equipping students with strategies for comprehension. When selecting a student to work with, I aimed to find a student who showed limitations in their reading abilities, but who was also open and willing to be assessed. After sending out a survey to both of my Critical Reading courses, Lisa responded positively to working with me, and my mentor, who has had her as a student since the beginning of her tenth grade year, suggested that as a struggling reader, Lisa could stand to gain the most from assessments of this nature. Based on the survey I sent out, Lisa stated that being a good reader to her meant, “to be a fluent reader and being able to understand the text as a whole.” When asked later in the survey if her description of a good reader described her, she remarked, “Eh, somewhat.” As Lisa is enrolled in the high school’s Medical Academy, she indicated to me on several occasions that she often cannot fully understand the reading material assigned to her for her medical classes. Lisa shared with me that she rarely reads for enjoyment and has a hard time finding books she truly enjoys.
Assessing the Student
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To begin assessing Lisa, I administered the San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability for a general indication of her reading level. The test measures the recognition of words out of context. Supposedly, proficient readers read as accurately both in and out of context, while weak readers over-rely on context and recognize words more easily with context than without. The test ranges from kindergarten to 11th grade, and is presented as a list of ten grade-level words which students are meant to read out loud. One error is regarded as reflecting the student’s independent reading level, two errors marks the instructional reading level, and three errors signifies the frustration reading level. Knowing that she is a weaker reader, and to dispel any nervousness or jitters, I started Lisa off with a 6th grade level assessment. I presented her with the 6th grade level reading list and asked her to try to read each word aloud, even if she was not sure of a word on the list. Lisa made one mistake on the 6th grade reading level list, so I knew this was most likely her independent level. I decided to give Lisa the 7th grade level list, where she made four mistakes, indicating her frustration level. According to the San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability, Lisa, a tenth grader, reads on a sixth-grade reading level.
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To assess Lisa’s vocabulary, I administered the Core Vocabulary Screening. This test measures how well students know the meaning of grade-level words they read silently. In this reading test, the student reads a word in a box and chooses which of the three answer choices has the same meaning as the word in the box. The words in the boxes are words that typically appear in literature and instructional text in a given grade, and as such they represent vocabulary that students need to understand in order to comprehend grade-appropriate texts. Scoring 75% or more on the assessment is Benchmark level (adequate vocabulary knowledge for typical reading), between 50% and 74% is Strategic (may have some difficulty understanding grade-level material), and 49% or less is Intensive (may have significant difficulty understanding grade-level material). I started Lisa off with a fifth and a sixth grade level test, which she passed with all correct responses. When I moved Lisa up to a seventh grade level assessment, she jumped to eight incorrect answers. This seemed like an odd jump to me, so I gave her the seventh grade level form A, as I had only previously given her form B. In form A, Lisa only answered two incorrectly. I knew this meant Lisa’s vocabulary knowledge was somewhere between sixth and seventh grade, though more leaning toward seventh.
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To assess comprehension, I decided to administer the Fountas and Pinnell Assessment for Independent Reading Levels. This is an exam I had experience administering at the middle school level for keeping running records of student reading improvement. The reading test involves having the student read narrative excerpts from a given grade level text, both aloud and to themselves. While reading 100 words aloud, to test for fluency, the administrator should be marking any miscues, which may be self-corrections, word substitutions, repetitions, omissions, insertions, sounding out, or long pauses between words. Scoring at zero to four miscues marks a students’ independent reading level. To test for comprehension, the student continues to read the remainder of the passage silently. When the student is finished with the passage, the administrator asks the student to retell the story, using non-leading prompting or specific comprehension questions (which are provided) only if necessary. If the student delivers a clear, accurate retelling that incorporates answers to three of the four provided comprehension questions, with or without non-leading prompting, the student can read at that level independently, fully comprehending the major parts of the text. I started testing Lisa with a sixth grade level assessment, which she passed with great accuracy. I moved on to the seventh grade level, which Lisa also passed with minimal effort. I decided to give Lisa the eighth grade level assessment based on how easily she was able to pass the lower two levels. Lisa needed some prompting to retell the excerpt for the eighth grade level test, but could answer three of the four comprehension questions. When I administered the ninth grade level test to Lisa, she needed consistent prompting and could only answer two of the four comprehension questions correctly. The ninth grade test proved to be an instructional reading level, not an independent level. According to the Assessment for Independent Reading Levels, Lisa is at an eighth grade level for comprehension.
Informed Intervention Plan
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Lisa’s scores in the three areas of reading assessment—reading level, vocabulary, and comprehension—were inconsistent, but not far off from each other. Lisa tested at a sixth grade level for reading, seventh grade level for vocabulary, and eighth grade level for comprehension. All of the levels Lisa scored at are relatively low for the grade that she is in (10th grade), which would explain her difficulty keeping up with the reading in her classes. Lisa scored the lowest in the San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability, leading me to believe that intervention should start here. It could be possible, coming from a Spanish-speaking home, that Lisa has a better understanding of vocabulary and comprehension than pronunciation. Since Lisa scored four levels below her actual grade on the San Diego Quick Assessment, further assessment is necessary in this strand to narrow down the underlying cause. I would first administer the CORE Phonics Survey, which identifies whether poor decoding skill knowledge is causing poor word recognition. As well, I would administer the CORE Phonological Segmentation Test or the CORE Phoneme Test which will isolate phoneme awareness as a possible underlying factor. In order to read proficiently, there are several foundational skills to master, which build off of each other. Identifying the cause for poor word recognition could uncover a missing foundational skill that Lisa lacks. Seeing as Lisa’s vocabulary is also below grade level, I am working toward helping her build her lexicon by constructing a “word wall” with the entire class. In constructing this word wall, students, including Lisa, are independently identifying words they do not know and consequently learning the definitions of tier II and and tier III words. I know that Lisa wants academic success, therefore, providing her with an informed intervention plan is essential to improving her reading level as reading material in her high school subjects gets increasingly complex.