Assessing

Reading
Ability

Why assess reading

ability:
The overall goal of reading assessment
is to inform the teaching and learning
process
Reading assessment helps screen
students who may have deficits in
reading identify and place students with
reading disabilities, plan reading
instruction and intervention programs,
identify present levels of reading
performance, develop IEP goals and
objectives in reading, assess student
progress in reading, and monitor the

Purpose of reading
assessments:
Reading ability is very difficult to
assess accurately
In the communicative competence
model, a student's reading level is
the level at which that student is
able to use reading to accomplish
communication goals.
This means that assessment of
reading ability needs to be
correlated with purposes for
reading.

Criteria for good

assessment:
a. Reliability

Stability
Internal Consistency
Inter-rater
Alternate Forms

b. Validity

Construct
Content
Predictive
Concurrent
Consequential

Formal reading
assessments:

Placement tests
Diagnostic tests
Progress tests
Achievement tests
Learner self-assessment

Assessment Procedures

Teacher Observation
Conversation
Reading Interviews
Reading Journals
Reading logs
Annotated Work Samples
Student Self Assessment & Peer Assessment
Observation Survey
Running Records; Letter Identification; CAP;Word
Recognition (Clay & BURT); Hearing & recording
sounds in words; Writing Vocabulary

Neale Analysis
TORCH
DART

Teacher
Observations

Teacher judgements based

on observations in the
classroom environment are a
valid and reliable method of
assessing students.

Conversations
Teachers gain valuable
information about a students
attitudes, understandings,
and knowledge through
conversations during small
group or individual work.

Reading
Interviews
An interview can provide
information about
themselves as a reader and
the strategies they use
when they read

Reading
Journals

Reading Journals provide students

with the opportunity to record
Responses to text
Opinions formed
Successful strategies learned
New understandings Written and
drawn

Reading Logs
Reading Logs can provide the
following:- An overview of the number of
text being
read
- The type of texts being read
- The amount of reading taking
place
- The texts being taken home
- Any Preferences. Eg same author

Annotated Work Samples

- Teacher notes on dated samples of
reading
responses are evidence of the
knowledge,
skills and understandings the
student has.
-The teachers conversation with the
student
can provide information about the
level of

Types of Informal
Curriculum-Based
Assessment

Observation Observation Observation of students in different

reading situations.
Oral Reading - Observation and
recording of students oral reading
behaviors.

Silent Reading - Observation and

recording of students silent reading
behaviors.
Reading Comprehension - Evaluation
of students reading comprehension.

More Informal Assessment

~Miscue Analysis/Error Analysis A technique using oral reading and
recording a students errors when
reading.
~Running Records - Running records
highlights the meaning, structural and
visual cues that students use when
reading.
~Cloze Procedures - An informal
assessment of word prediction abilities

Constucting an informal
Reading Assessment
1. With primary children passages of about 50 words for
each grade level of difficulty to be
assessed. With secondary
students - passage should be 150200 words in length.
2. Most teachers limit the

3. To determine a students
independent
reading level,
assessment should begin below
the students grade level. The
teacher needs two copies of each
passage. One for student and one
for him/her.
4. Teachers should record the
percentage of words read

5. After establishing the students

independent level, the assessment
continues with the student reading
increasingly difficult graded
passages to determine an
instructional level and a frustration
level.
6. Teachers may modify these
procedures to assess specific skills.