Informal Reading Assessment

In ELED 4444 (Diagnosis and Remediation of Reading Difficulties), I was assigned by Dr. Morrison to work with a peer to create a diagnostic report based on a semester long tutoring project at Washington Irving Elementary School. To create the report, my partner and I ran pretests (Informal Reading Inventory-Graded Word List, Oral, Silent, and Listening Comprehension Passages, Basic Sight Words and Phrases, Phonics, and the DIBELS mid-year assessment) to see what we needed to work on with the student and then we created lesson plans that addressed the child’s needs. After tutoring the student for eight weeks, we post tested him to gather data on how much he progressed. We used the post-tests: IRI Oral and Silent Reading Comprehension, Basic Sight words and Phrases, Phonics, and the DIBELS assessment

Starting on my third visit I started to keep running records of Jimmy’s reading. I collected three samples of his reading to be able to really asses his reading using miscue analysis and his CWPM (correct words per minute) and his WPM (words per minute). The first book that Jimmy selected was an AR book that was titled “War of the Worlds”. Based off of the AR guidelines it was a 3.2 reading level. This means third grade second six weeks. The next two samples were from a book that I selected. That book was titled “If You Give a Mouse a Muffin”. The AR reading level for this book was 2.4 which means second grade 4th six weeks. You will notice that the reading level of these books jumps drastically I did this because he struggled with the book that he selected that was at a higher level. This hurt his fluency, CWPM, WPM, and comprehension. I will discuss each of these in detail in different sections. One of my suggestions is that he work on books at a lower level to really build a prior knowledge in vocabulary, work on fluency, and his CWPM, and WPM which the running records show.

The student I worked with is in 5th grade. We did a DRA on a story called “Cry Foul”. This is a great assessment to assess a student’s reading ability in order to enhance his or her literacy achievement. I learned many things about my student that he likes to read adventurous books and books regarding sports. He wants to become a better reader by enhancing his understanding and vocabulary of the text. It’s also a bit difficult for him since English is his second language and a year ago he was taking ESL classes. It’s amazing that he has great goal settings that determines that he wants to become a better reader. The things that I observed about the student is that his oral reading is fluent since he had about three miscues in which one was

For the second assessment, we chose a level 2 story. This story had more words on each page, but the picture on every page still matched up with the words. We used the same process for assessment as last time, so that Eloise would recognize the process and remain comfortable in the situation. As before, Eloise was excited to demonstrate her reading abilities to us, but she was disoriented because she had expected to be rereading the same story. However, once she began to read the new story, she realized that she was capable of reading this

Ayden was given the Basic Reading Inventory Performance assessment during session two. The assessment tests sight word recognition, oral reading, and comprehension. Ayden was only able to get through the first two, sight words and oral reading, before becoming extremely frustrated. He recognized 3 out of the 20 pre-primer sight words and was able to get through about half of the pre-primer passage before he became too frustrated to continue. Pre-primer is late Kindergarten, early first grade reading level.

During the silent of the reading passage test, Louie's independent reading level was at the second grade which is more than two years higher than his oral independent reading level. His performance on the silent reading passages at the instructional and frustration levels were consistent with his performance on the oral reading passages, at the third grade and fourth grade levels respectively. As Louie was presented with each additional level of difficulty in silent reading, his rate of reading slowed down, until he reached his frustration level where he sped up his reading rate. Additionally, at his instructional level Louie, was moving his lips and vocalizing under his breath as he was reading. When I directed him to read silently, he

When Addison responded successfully to the concept passages she was successful in answering the comprehension questions. Considering the total accuracy and acceptability scores in oral reading in two ways allowed Addison the opportunity to continue to the next reading level and demonstrating her ability to use context clues and answer comprehension

Elilah’s independent level for silent reading was estimated at grade 4 which was slightly higher than her independent level for oral reading at grade 3.” Her instructional level for silent reading was grade 4.5 and her instructional level for oral was grade 4. Both frustrational levels for her oral and silent were grade 5.Elilah’s silent reading score was slightly higher than her oral reading score, suggesting that she was able to use the context to make meaning from the text. She had less difficulty attending to the print when read silently than when read orally.

Assessing the results of the IRI test performed, it reveals that the student’s independent reading level is at the primer level. While performing the graded passage at the primer level, the student read the passage out loud, pronouncing 59 out of 62 words correctly, and read relatively fluent. For the reading comprehension of this section she answered all five comprehension questions correct. Her instructional level resulted in first grade, 3 out of 71 words, and answered two factual comprehension questions incorrectly. She performed poorly during the re-telling of the passage, only recalling 17 words out of 71, which reflects in the comprehension section that she had poor memory the content after reading the passage. Based on her results, her

Accountability, reliability, and validity these are words that are very familiar to every educator when it comes to finding assessments the meets these criteria. Nowadays, assessments must also have the cultural bias aspect, due to the demographics of most schools in the United States.

In understanding text challenges the teacher would have been able to address these before students read the text. With students understanding the context surrounding unreliable narration the discussion would have been more productive. Listen-Read-Discuss would have been a great strategy in providing students with background knowledge in introducing concepts relating to this type of text. For example, two students stated conflicting views whether the story was written in a reliable or unreliable narration. Furthermore, the teacher should have employed different supporting strategies during the reading. Such strategies could consist of direct explanation, think aloud, magnet summary, S.R.S.D., and reading road maps/guides which would further student comprehension during the reading. By utilizing these strategies, before/during the reading they would better prepare students for a more productive

Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) are diagnostic assessment administered individually to evaluate different aspects of students’ reading. After reading the text, students orally are answering the questions following the text. Teachers take into the consideration additional factors,, such as fluency, students’ prior knowledge, and determine students’ reading levels. This information may to choose appropriate reading material for students, to form reading groups, and to plan future reading instruction taking into the considerations students strengths and needs. According to Chall (1983), the greatest value of IRI is to help educators to diagnose the gaps in the abilities of readers who struggle the most. For teachers, who looking for the better way to address students instructional needs of children, who have reading difficulties, IRI is a very valuable diagnostic tool.

In chapter five, three things that stood out for me would be the normal or bell-shaped curve, miscue analysis, and reading levels. To enumerate, I did not know about the bell-shaped curve until now. Apparently, the reliability and validity are important especially because it will show the interpretation of the student’s performance. As for the miscue analysis, I was aware of the terminology, but did not comprehend it as I do now. Miscue analysis will happen when a meaning of a sentence drastically changes and is not corrected. Lastly, I was aware of two of the five reading levels which are indepenent level and instructional level, as far as frustration level and listening capacity level are new to my knowledge. In the frustration level, the student is unable to pronounce many of the words and unable to comprehend material, and in listening capacity level, the student could understand the material read aloud.

This study sought to identify which method of reading along would have a greater impact on high functioning students with autism. The two methods were reading along with a book while a teacher was reading aloud or, reading along with a book which was on a computer.

A comprehension strategy that helps students organize their thoughts while reading. There are several formats for this graphic organizer, depending on which aspects of fictional texts are being discussed or taught. A teacher may decide to focus on beginning, middle, or end; or in a more advanced format, focus on the characters, plot, setting, problem, and solution of a story. This strategy is beneficial during and after reading. Students may encounter this strategy individually, in small groups, or as part of a whole group setting (Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/story_maps)