Informal Reading Inventory Preprimer To Twelfth Grade Whats New in Education Ebook PDF Version

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At-a-Glance Guide to Sections in the
Roe/Burns, Informal Reading Inventory, Eighth Edition
Student Booklet Form B

Section One
Passages PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Background Information ...................... 1
Teacher Booklet Form B
What Is an IRI? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Passages and Questions PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
What Can an IRI Tell Teachers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Summary of Quantitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
What Are Flexible Ways to Use an IRI? . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Summary of Qualitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
How Do IRIs Fit into Literature-Based
Worksheet for Word Recognition
Programs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Miscue Tally Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Who Needs to Take This Informal Reading
Worksheet for Qualitative Analysis of
Inventory? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Uncorrected Miscues in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
When Should the Inventory Be Administered? . . . 11
How Long Does the Inventory Take to Student Booklet Form C
Administer? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Passages PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Who Can Administer the Inventory? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Teacher Booklet Form C
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Passages and Questions PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Additional Readings ............................... 12
Section Two
Instructions for Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Miscue Tally Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
How Is the Inventory Administered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Worksheet for Qualitative Analysis of
How Is the Inventory Scored and Interpreted? . . . 21 Uncorrected Miscues in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
What Are Some Frequently Asked Questions Student Booklet Form D
About the IRI? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Passages PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
A Case Study in Scoring and Interpretation . . . . . . 34
Key to Symbols on Passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Teacher Booklet Form D
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Passages and Questions PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Additional Readings ............................... 47 Summary of Quantitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Placement Word Lists Worksheet for Word Recognition
Miscue Tally Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Student Word List 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Teacher Word List 1 ............................. 57 Uncorrected Miscues in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Student Word List 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Teacher Word List 2 ............................. 69 Appendix A
Graded Passages Choosing Books to Develop and Support

Children’s Reading Proficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Student Booklet Form A Considerations in Using the Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Passages PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Books Appropriate for Each Reading Level
in the IRI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Teacher Booklet Form A
Passages and Questions PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Appendix B
Summary of Qualitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 How the Inventory Was Constructed . . . . . 229
Worksheet for Word Recognition Constructing the Word Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Miscue Tally Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Constructing the Passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Worksheet for Qualitative Analysis of Development of Sections One and Two
Uncorrected Miscues in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 and Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning, Inc. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
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Informal
Reading
Inventory
08946_00_FM_pi-x.indd i 14/04/10 9:58 AM

Informal
Reading
Inventory
Preprimer to Twelfth Grade
Betty D. Roe
Professor Emerita, Tennessee Technological University
Paul C. Burns
Late of University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Eighth Edition
Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States
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Informal Reading Inventory: Preprimer to © 2011, 2007 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning
Twelfth Grade, Eighth Edition
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright
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Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Student Word List 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Teacher Word List 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Section One
Graded Passages
Background Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What Is an IRI? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Student Booklet Form A
What Can an IRI Tell Teachers?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Passages PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
What Are Flexible Ways to Use an IRI?. . . . . . . . . . 6
Teacher Booklet Form A
How Do IRIs Fit into Literature-Based
Passages and Questions PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Programs?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Summary of Quantitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Who Needs to Take This Informal Reading
Inventory?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Summary of Qualitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
When Should the Inventory Be Administered?. . . 11 Worksheet for Word Recognition
Miscue Tally Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
How Long Does the Inventory Take to
Administer?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Worksheet for Qualitative Analysis of
Uncorrected Miscues in Context . . . . . . . . . . 108
Who Can Administer the Inventory?. . . . . . . . . . . 11
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Student Booklet Form B
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Passages PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Section Two Teacher Booklet Form B

Passages and Questions PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Instructions for Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Summary of Quantitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . 141
How Is the Inventory Administered? . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Summary of Qualitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
How Is the Inventory Scored and Interpreted? . . . . 21 Worksheet for Word Recognition
What Are Some Frequently Asked Questions Miscue Tally Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
about the IRI? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Worksheet for Qualitative Analysis
A Case Study in Scoring and Interpretation . . . . . 34 of Uncorrected Miscues in Context. . . . . . . . 144
Key to Symbols on Passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Student Booklet Form C
Additional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Passages PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Teacher Booklet Form C

Placement Word Lists
Passages and Questions PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Student Word List 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Summary of Quantitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Teacher Word List 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 Summary of Qualitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
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Appendix A
Worksheet for Qualitative Analysis of Choosing Books to Develop and Support
Uncorrected Miscues in Context . . . . . . . . . . 180 Children’s Reading Proficiency . . . . . . . . . 219
Student Booklet Form D Considerations in Using the Lists. . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Passages PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Books Appropriate for Each Reading Level
in the IRI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Teacher Booklet Form D
Passages and Questions PP to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Appendix B
Summary of Quantitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . 215
How the Inventory Was Constructed . . . . 229
Summary of Qualitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Constructing the Word Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Constructing the Passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Development of Sections One and Two
and Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Uncorrected Miscues in Context . . . . . . . . . . 218
vi ◆ CONTENTS
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Preface
administration of the oral passages to a fourth-

Audience and Purpose grade boy and the administration of a complete
inventory to a second-grade girl.
The Roe/Burns Informal Reading Inventory, Eighth Through a numbered and clearly labeled format,
Edition, is designed for use by several different samples of completed Worksheets and a Summary
groups: pre-service college students who are learn- Form walk the student through an explanation of
ing about informal reading inventories in reading the scoring and interpretation of the test. The Sum-
methods courses; special reading teachers who, as mary Form allows for inclusion of all important
part of their training or their everyday work, need data and highlights both quantitative and quali-
an easily administered assessment instrument for tative information. The two Worksheets facilitate
their students; and in-service classroom teachers calculation and recording of results.
in workshops dealing with reading methods or The rest of the book consists mainly of word
with informal assessment measures. lists and graded passages from preprimer through
This test should prove to be a useful tool for twelfth grade with accompanying questions that
college-level reading methods classes, elementary can be used with a range of children, in order to
and secondary school classrooms, resource rooms, determine appropriate levels of reading materials
and reading clinics. Because it includes detailed and each student’s areas of strength and weak-
instructions, a wide variety of school personnel ness. All passages have been chosen to fit the
should be able to use it with success. Teachers readability level for the grade, as measured by the
who have worked with similar assessment pro- Spache Readability Formula for preprimer level
grams should be able to use the test even without through grade 3 and the Fry Readability Graph
practice sessions. Those who have not had prior for grades 4 through 12.
experience with informal reading inventories There are two equivalent sets of graded word
should practice using the materials with a num- lists and four equivalent forms of graded passages
ber of children, referring to the instructions in for each of the levels. The availability of so many
the text as necessary. forms enables the teacher to choose the material
that is most appropriate for a particular assess-
ment. Students can also be retested at intervals as
such assessments are needed.
Features and Description Appendix A, “Choosing Books to Develop and
Support Children’s Reading Proficiency,” provides
The first two sections of the inventory contain an extensive list of leveled trade books for pre-
background information about different aspects primer through grade 12. These books can be
of testing word recognition and comprehension used to develop and support children’s reading
as well as specific step-by-step directions on how proficiency through recreational reading or class-
to administer, score, and interpret an informal room instruction.
reading inventory. To illustrate the process of Appendix B describes the construction of this
scoring and interpreting the inventory, case study instrument for readers who are interested in the
information is presented for two situations: the origins of the word lists and graded passages.
vii
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Question construction is discussed in detail. Field material. I would also like to offer grateful recog-
testing of the inventory is also briefly discussed. nition to the following reviewers whose construc-
Field testing for the passages in this edition was tive advice and criticism over several editions has
coordinated by Sandra H. Smith, Associate Profes- helped me shape the revisions:
sor of Curriculum and Instruction and Director
James Javorsky, Oakland University
of Teacher Education at Tennessee Technological
Hanfu Mi, SUNY-Oneonta
University.
Joanne Rossi, Notre Dame De Namur University
Marilyn Scott, Ursuline College
Claire Sibold, Biola University
Marilyn Stepnoski, Palm Beach Atlantic
New to the Eighth Edition University
Several key updates and improvements have been Appreciation is also expressed to those who have
made to the Eighth Edition, including these: granted permission to use sample materials or
quotations from their works. Credit for these con-
• A new tabbing system has been designed to tributions has been given in the source lines.
mark the various sections of passages and Special recognition goes to Sandra H. Smith,
forms in an effort to increase the utility and the colleague who implemented the field testing of
navigation of this tool. the passages in this edition. Without her assistance
• The appendix of leveled trade books has been I would have been unable to field test materials
expanded, thus providing a valuable resource easily in multiple school settings. My appreciation
for teachers planning instruction following for this mammoth task is great.
administration of this tool. I also wish to acknowledge that some work of
Paul C. Burns, a colleague and friend who was my
coauthor for the first edition, still remains in this
edition. His death in the summer of 1983, before
Acknowledgments the second edition was begun, was a loss to all of
us in the field of reading education.
The author is indebted to many people for their Finally, I want to thank my husband Mike for
assistance during the preparation of this book. all the assistance that he gave me with proofread-
Although it is impossible to name them all, I ing and computer problems.
would like to acknowledge the many teachers
and students involved in the field testing of the Betty D. Roe
viii ◆ PREFACE
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Informal
Reading
Inventory
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SECTION ONE
Background Information
This section answers the following questions:

• What is an IRI?
• What can an IRI tell teachers?
• What are flexible ways to use an IRI?
• How do IRIs fit into literature-based programs?
• Who needs to take this informal reading inventory?
• When should the inventory be administered?
• How long does the inventory take to administer?
• Who can administer the inventory?
students’ specific reading problems. As Johnson,

What Is an IRI? Kress, and Pikulski (1987, p. 2) state, “The use of
IRIs is aided by a series of guidelines for their con-
An informal reading inventory (IRI) is a type of struction, administration, scoring, and interpre-
informal reading test designed to provide teach- tation. However, use of these inventories is not
ers with a variety of information. It can help a bound by formal directions, defined time lim-
teacher discover the levels of reading material its, or a restricted set of materials or procedures.
pupils can read both with and without teacher Finally, the results of IRIs do not match an
assistance, the reading levels at which pupils individual’s performance against standardized or
should not be asked to function, and the levels at normed scores. Instead, the individual is evalu-
which they can comprehend material that is read ated against preestablished standards, which
to them. It serves as a placement and monitoring must be met if that individual is to become a
tool for teachers and measures students’ perfor- successful, accomplished reader of the materi-
mances against established criteria, not against als ultimately determined appropriate for use in
the performances of other students. Invernizzi classroom instruction. The emphasis is not upon
and colleagues (2005) point out that teachers comparing the performance of someone who is
often prefer to have the specific instructional taking an IRI with others who have taken such
information provided by such tests. Teachers inventories; instead, the emphasis is on learn-
know that numerical scores alone “usually don’t ing about the skills, abilities, and needs of the
provide a complete picture of what children know individual in order to plan a program of reading
and can do” (Wilson, Martens, and Arya, 2005). instruction that will allow a maximum rate of
Thus, the qualitative analyses of the IRI provide progress.” As Invernizzi and colleagues (2005,
far more insight into students’ progress, and p. 611) point out, “teachers want assessments that
they can also help teachers diagnose some of the are instructionally useful in the here and now.”
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They need specific information about features of passages (referred to in this text as the placement
word recognition and comprehension that can level). This estimate may have to be revised after
guide them to appropriate instructional choices. the first passage has been administered, but it is
IRIs can provide this information. a tentative indicator that may save the teacher
Although IRIs were originally teacher-made, some time by eliminating the tendency to begin
they are time-consuming and difficult to con- the passages at too low a level.
struct. For this reason, published inventories,
such as this one, have been developed. The
■ Graded Passages
goals for our inventory are the same as those for
teacher-made IRIs. Directions for use, based on This IRI contains a series of carefully graded read-
experience, research, and field testing, are offered, ing passages for all reading levels from preprimer
but teachers with experience are encouraged to through twelfth grade. Each selection has been
use the materials flexibly to fit individual needs. checked for difficulty with a well-known readability
According to Barr, Blachowicz, and Wogman- formula and has been found to be at the designated
Sadow (1995, p. 265), a commercial “informal level. The Spache Readability Formula was used to
reading inventory has many advantages over a check selections for preprimer through grade 3, and
diagnosis based on oral reading of a single passage. the Fry Readability Graph was used to check selec-
It allows for the comparison of silent and oral tions for grades 4 through 12. Because formulas do
reading and for an assessment of fluency and word not take into consideration many factors related to
recognition proficiency at various levels of diffi- reading difficulty, during the field testing these pas-
culty. These comparisons make it possible for you sages were checked for increasing difficulty in word
to determine more precisely the level of materi- recognition and comprehension. The passages also
als that a student should read under various con- were chosen primarily from graded materials in
ditions. Perhaps its greatest strength lies in the basal readers and literature books actually used in
assessment of listening comprehension, which schools with students at that grade level. They in-
allows a more definitive conclusion to be drawn clude both fiction and nonfiction passages, because
regarding the influence of word recognition on a students are expected to read both types of passages
student’s comprehension.” in school. This choice of selections was made to
Most commercial IRIs have graded word ensure that the IRI presented the students with
lists that function as placement tools to help realistic reading tasks.
the teacher decide where to start administering Following each selection is a group of ques-
the graded passages that provide the bulk of the tions designed to measure many types of com-
diagnostic information. In addition, an analysis of prehension strategies. Appropriate answers to
errors on the graded word lists can give the teacher the questions are provided for the convenience
information about phonics and structural analy- of the examiner.
sis skills that need attention. Word recognition Four selections (four forms) are provided at
is a valid and reliable measure of overall reading each reading level to facilitate pre- and post-testing.
ability, because automatic word recognition frees Most clinicians and some teachers like to use both
the student to focus attention on comprehension an oral and a silent reading measure at each level
(Invernizzi et al., 2005). The graded word lists and and look at the combined results. This is the most
graded passages in this IRI are discussed below. desirable method, because it yields the most infor-
mation for diagnostic purposes. In such a situation,
two forms of the test are available for pre-testing
■ Graded Word Lists
and two forms for post-testing. In the interest of
Two lists of twenty words from each reading level time, some teachers prefer to administer only an
(preprimer, primer, first reader, second grade, oral reading passage, or in some cases only a silent
third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, reading passage, at each level. In these instances,
seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth the user of this IRI has available, in essence, four
grade, eleventh grade, and twelfth grade) are equivalent forms for use.
provided in this IRI. No pictures accompany the graded passages in
The primary function of these lists is to pro- this IRI because it was felt that the possible use of
vide the teacher with an indication of the level at picture clues to obtain meaning from the para-
which the administration of the graded passages graphs would lessen the accuracy of the test in
should be started. The highest level at which the determining the reader’s ability to comprehend
pupil knows all of the words on the list should printed language. Students may be able to read
be the starting point for administration of the more difficult material when picture clues are
2 ◆ SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION
08946_01_Sec-1_p001-012.indd 2 13/04/10 7:01 AM

added to the context. Not all classroom reading same time, Ekwall (1974) presented evidence that
tasks are accompanied by pictures, however, so the Betts criteria should be maintained, with rep-
testing performance without availability of pic- etitions counted as errors, in order to determine
ture clues seemed to be most helpful to teachers. the frustration level accurately. That position also
If pictures are included in classroom material, seems to agree with Johnston’s idea that repeti-
many children will be able to handle material tions are “indicators of difficulty” (Johnston, 1997,
that is a grade level above the test result. p. 213). Taking these findings into account, we have
utilized the criteria presented in Table 1–1. The set
of criteria for the reading levels are basically those
proposed by Johnson, Kress, and Pikulski (1987),
What Can an IRI Tell Teachers? with an adjustment suggested by Powell (1970) for
word recognition for grades 1 and 2.
Two major types of information can be obtained
from the use of this IRI: quantitative information Independent Reading Level ■ The independent
expressed in grade equivalent scores to indicate reading level is the level at which a person can
the reader’s independent reading level, instruc- read with understanding and ease, without assis-
tional reading level, frustration level, and listening tance. The reader has 99 percent or better word
comprehension level; and qualitative information recognition (misses no more than one word in a
concerning the reader’s word recognition and com- hundred) and 90 percent or better comprehen-
prehension strengths and difficulties. These two sion (misses no more than one question in ten).
categories of information are briefly explained as At this level, reading is not accompanied by inap-
follows. propriate habits (finger pointing, etc.) or signs of
nervous tension (facial tics, frowning, etc.).
Material at a student’s independent level is ap-
■ Quantitative Information propriate for homework assignments and recre-
To analyze the results of an informal reading in- ational reading. The directions for class work to
ventory in order to find a student’s different read- be completed without teacher assistance should
ing levels, an examiner must use predetermined be written at this level.
criteria. The criteria used are percentage of word
recognition accuracy and percentage of correct Instructional Reading Level ■ The instructional
answers to comprehension questions. reading level is the level at which a person can read
Various writers in the field suggest slightly dif- with understanding with the teacher’s assistance.
fering percentages for independent, instructional, The reader has 85 percent or better word recogni-
frustration, and capacity levels. The original criteria tion (misses no more than fifteen words in a hun-
for establishing the levels were developed by Betts dred) as a first or second grader or 95 percent or
(1946). Powell (1970) and Powell and Dunkeld better word recognition (misses no more than five
(1971) have suggested that the numerical stan- words in a hundred) as a third grader or above, and
dard used for determining the instructional level he or she has 75 percent or better comprehension
is too stringent, particularly at lower levels. At the (misses no more than two questions out of eight).
Material at a student’s instructional level
should be used for teaching reading strategies.
TABLE 1–1 IRI Criteria It should be used during “reading class,” where
Word the teacher is available to support the students as
Level Recognition Comprehension they work with the written passages.
Independent 99% or higher and 90% or higher
Frustration Level ■ The frustration level is the level
Instructional 85% or higher and 75% or higher at which a person is unable to function adequately
(grades 1–2)
because the reading material is too difficult. The
95% or higher
(grades 3–12) reader has either less than 85 percent word recog-
nition (misses more than fifteen words in a hun-
Frustration below 85% or below 50% dred) as a first or second grader or less than 90
(grades 1–2)
below 90%
percent word recognition (misses more than ten
(grades 3–12) words in a hundred) as a third grader or above, or
has less than 50 percent comprehension (misses
Listening 75% or higher
more than five of ten comprehension questions)
Comprehension
as a student in any grade. At this level, attempts
SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION ◆ 3
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to read may be accompanied by finger pointing, administered, teachers should record word rec-
frowning, squirming, facial tics, and other inap- ognition miscues for use in determining reading
propriate habits and signs of nervous tension. skill strengths and weaknesses. The skill determi-
No student should be asked to read material nations can be used in setting up instructional
written at his or her frustration level. Nothing groups or for individual instructional planning.
can be learned from such material, and the expe- The types of miscues made may provide the
rience can lead to negative attitudes toward both teacher with information about how the reader
reading and school in general. decodes words and about the reader’s phonics
For a full explanation on what to do when a and structural analysis skills.
student’s scores are not high enough for the instruc- Teachers should not overgeneralize from the
tional level, but not low enough to be at the frustra- results of an analysis of miscues on the word lists,
tion level, see FAQ 1 on page 32 of Section Two. however, for students’ miscues on words in isola-
tion often differ significantly from those on words
Listening Comprehension Level ■ The listening in context. Readers tend to read words in context
comprehension level (sometimes referred to as more accurately than words in isolation (Allington
capacity level or potential level) is the level at which and McGill-Franzen, 1980). This finding should
a person adequately comprehends material that not be surprising, because more information is
is read by the teacher. The student has 75 percent available to assist in decoding words when they
comprehension of the material read. are in context. In fact, comparison of the types of
This level is the one at which the student miscues made on words in isolation and words in
would probably be able to read if no limiting fac- context may alert teachers to needed instructional
tors were present. Limiting factors could include procedures. For example, if the two types of pre-
physical or emotional disabilities, lack of motiva- sentations result in identical miscues, the student
tion, or inadequate instruction. Comparing the is probably not making use of the semantic and
student’s listening comprehension level with his syntactic information provided by the context.
or her instructional level can indicate potential for Such a student may be too bound to phonic and
improvement. For example, a child who has an in- structural analysis techniques and may not be
structional reading level of 2.0, but a listening com- willing or able to use available context clues.
prehension level of 6.0, has an excellent chance of The word recognition miscues in the oral
improvement with a good program of instruction. reading passages should be considered in terms
In contrast, a child with an instructional level of of those that change meaning and those that do
2.0 and a listening comprehension level of 3.0 has not. Even good adult readers often do not read the
less potential for advancement, but could improve exact words when their minds are moving beyond
some. It is generally possible to obtain a listening the material that is being spoken. They often
comprehension level by reading to the student translate the material into different words that
passages from successively higher grade levels, after mean the same thing as the words in the text. For
the frustration level has been found. example, a reader may read “I will speak to him”
Some teachers use the word lists to make quick as “I will talk to him,” if talk is the word that seems
approximations of students’ reading levels. How- more natural for the reader and if the reader’s eyes
ever, because they involve only word recognition are ahead of the voice, taking in different words
and not comprehension, word lists are not the that must be processed. Such a change obviously
best tool for determining levels. Still, comparison does not change the meaning and therefore is not
of the levels obtained from the word lists and the a serious miscue. In contrast, if the reader reads
graded passages can provide some useful informa- “I will speed to him,” the miscue disrupts the
tion. If students’ levels are much higher on the meaning, although not the syntax, and the mis-
word lists than on the passages, teachers can ex- cue can go unnoticed, leaving the reader with a
pect that instruction in comprehension and use misleading impression. If the reader reads, “I will
of context clues is needed more than instruction spinach to him,” the miscue results in nonsense
in sight words, phonics, and structural analysis.
1
Miscue is a term that has grown out of the research of
Kenneth Goodman and his associates. It is used to describe
■ Qualitative Information the unexpected responses students give when they misin-
terpret clues in the language that could help them decode
Word Recognition Miscue Analysis1 ■ Both when words. Some people continue to use the term errors, but
the graded word lists are administered and when this term implies random response (Johnson, Kress, and
the informal reading inventory oral selections are Pikulski, 1987).
08946_01_Sec-1_p001-012.indd 4 13/04/10 7:01 AM

and as such is a serious impediment to the read- 4. A sequence question requires knowledge of
er’s comprehension. The fact that a word does not events in their order of occurrence.
fit the syntax of a sentence should prevent such 5. A cause-and-effect question names a cause and
miscues, but if syntactic clues are ignored, serious asks for its effect or mentions an effect and
miscues can result. asks for its cause.
When analyzing miscues of different types, 6. A vocabulary question asks for the meaning of
teachers should not worry about planning skill a word or phrase used in the selection.
lessons for miscues that do not change the mean-
The question types used in this inventory cor-
ing of the passages; such miscues are likely due to
respond to areas of comprehension addressed in
the internal translation process of the reader, and
instructional materials that are used in schools.
not to the reader’s inability to decode the words
Analysis of the types of questions most frequently
in question. Miscues that change meaning should
missed can help teachers decide what specific
be examined more carefully. If students do not
lessons are needed to alleviate comprehension-
recognize the inappropriateness of miscues that
skill deficiencies. Teachers should be careful to
produce nonsense, they should be given lessons
avoid drawing conclusions from extremely lim-
that encourage the use of context clues.
ited samples, however. If only four questions of a
When meaning is disrupted, a reader who is
particular type have been asked and the student
monitoring his or her comprehension may return
has missed two, deciding that this is a problem
to the point of confusion, reexamine the text,
area may be inappropriate. Deciding that more
and correct the miscue. Such self-correction is a
assessment may be needed in this area is more
good sign, showing that the reader is demanding
reasonable. On the other hand, if a student has
meaning from the text. Two important strategies
been asked ten questions of a particular type and
for readers to acquire are self-monitoring and self-
missed nine, an instructional decision would be
correction. Self-corrected miscues are not counted
warranted.
in miscue totals for determining reader levels,
Main Idea Questions. Main idea questions are
because they are considered positive evidence of
asked primarily to determine whether the reader is
reading skill. However, the repetitions of reading
able to obtain the central thought or topic of a pas-
material that occur when the self-corrections are
sage. As Harris and Hodges (1981, p. 188) indicate,
made should be counted in the miscue total for de-
“[t]here is little agreement on what a main idea
termining reader level. This decision is based on
is.” In beginning reading instruction, students are
the results of a convincing study (Ekwall, 1974)
often taught to recognize the topic of a passage,
indicating that repetitions should be counted
whereas at more advanced levels they are often
as errors if the criteria for levels that are used in
asked to formulate a more complete statement
this test are to be appropriate. The placement
of the central thought or message of the passage.
of students in materials is likely to be too high
Harris and Hodges (1995, p. 148) offer four defi-
if repetitions are not counted as errors. Such
nitions of main idea that range from “the chief
artificially high placement could force students to
topic” to the “central thought” of a passage.
try to read material that causes them discomfort
A major problem in testing for knowledge of
and frustration.
the main idea is that of phrasing the question
The teacher can obtain a measure of the read-
in a way students can understand. Many young
er’s sight vocabulary from the graded word lists
children are not familiar with the term main idea
when a more extensive testing procedure is not
and therefore cannot simply be asked what the
desired. Having two forms of the word lists facili-
main idea of a passage is. The question “What is
tates retesting.
this story about?” often will elicit the main idea
from such children; however, it may also elicit
Comprehension Question Analysis ■ Following each
a summary of the entire story. The teacher may
reading selection is a set of comprehension ques-
wish to follow a summary-type response with the
tions. The following types of questions are used:
question “Could you tell me what it is about in
1. A main idea question asks for the central just one sentence?” or, for first graders who do
theme of the selection. not yet have a concept of sentence, “Could you
2. A detail question asks for bits of information tell me what it is about in a shorter way?” The
directly stated in the material. way children respond to main idea questions will
3. An inference question asks for information depend on their grasp of the terminology used in
that is implied, but not directly stated, in the the questions and on what they have been taught
passage. about main ideas. A teacher giving this inventory
08946_01_Sec-1_p001-012.indd 5 13/04/10 7:01 AM

will want to take both factors into account and and times of day (morning, afternoon, evening,
adjust evaluations of student responses to the etc.). Sequence questions are designed to determine
questions accordingly. whether or not students are using this knowledge
Detail Questions. Detail questions, which are when they read.
the kind of question most often asked by teach- Cause-and-Effect Questions. Causes and effects
ers, are important; they provide the building are important elements in the development of
blocks from which answers to higher-order ques- events in plots of narratives and in expository
tions are constructed. However, they can easily materials in areas such as science, health, and
be overemphasized. This inventory includes not social studies. Causes and effects may be directly
only detail questions (which are easy to formulate stated (i.e., be details) or may be implied (i.e., re-
and relatively easy to answer), but also higher- quire inferences). Both types are found in materi-
order questions that require manipulation of als that students are asked to read in school, and
information and integration of ideas. Teachers it is helpful for teachers to know how well stu-
should check the performance of students both dents are able to identify causes and effects. Both
on detail questions and on questions that require types of cause-and-effect questions are found in
more advanced thought processes and then com- this inventory. Sometimes causes and effects are
pare the results. Children in the United States signaled by words such as because and since, but
tend to perform better on detail questions (on often they are not. As with other types of infer-
which they receive much more classroom prac- ences, students need to use their background
tice) than on higher-order questions (which are knowledge to discern causes and effects that are
sometimes neglected in the classroom). implied rather than directly stated.
Inference Questions. Inference questions are Vocabulary Questions. Understanding the vocab-
among the higher-order questions that require ulary in a reading selection is essential to compre-
students to assemble clues from the reading hension of the selection. A vocabulary question in
material to determine information that is im- this inventory may ask for the meaning of a word
plied in the passage. To answer such a question, a that is important to comprehension of the selec-
reader must sometimes use information from his tion, even if there are no clear-cut context clues
or her background of experience. For example, if to the meaning. Although these questions are by
the text says, “The sun was directly overhead,” nature passage independent, they nevertheless
and the question is, “At what time of day did the illuminate the readers’ comprehension of the pas-
event occur?” in order to answer the question sage. Other vocabulary questions may have con-
correctly the reader must know that the sun is text clues that will help students discern their
directly overhead at noon. Students who have meanings. An attempt was made to include in
broad backgrounds of experience therefore are the vocabulary questions words that had multiple
likely to do better on inferential questions than meanings that might cause misinterpretation.
are students with meager backgrounds of expe-
rience. However, on the basis of the answers to
questions, teachers can often detect a lack in expe-
riential background and can plan future instruc-
tion and choice of reading materials accordingly.
What Are Flexible Ways
Making inferences is essential to comprehending to Use an IRI?
text (Valencia and Pearson, 1987). Applegate,
Quinn, and Applegate (2002) point out that IRIs The previous sections explain traditional use of
need to include assessment of thoughtful literacy. IRIs. However, because IRIs are informal tests, their
Use of inference questions at all inventory levels, use does not have to be limited to a restricted
as well as inclusion of main idea questions, is an set of procedures. Teachers may vary their use
attempt to meet such purposes of the IRI. of the materials in this IRI to fit their individual
Sequence Questions. Recognition and understand- classroom needs. Following are some suggestions
ing of sequences is important, both in following the concerning flexible use of the IRI.
plots of narrative materials and in comprehending
expository material in areas such as social studies
■ Retelling
and science. In order to follow sequences, students
must be able to respond to clues in the text such Some educators feel that more complete data
as the terms first, second, third, next, then, finally, be- on comprehension can be gained from eliciting
fore, and after. They must also use their knowledge retellings of the selections than from merely asking
of sequences of dates, months of the year, seasons, comprehension questions. Johnston (1983, p. 54)
08946_01_Sec-1_p001-012.indd 6 13/04/10 7:01 AM

sees retelling as “the most straightforward assess- Brown and Cambourne (1987) believe that
ment . . . of the result of text-reader interaction.” a retelling procedure will not work effectively in
The student retells the selection in his or her classrooms that do not have a whole language/
own words when a retelling, or free recall, technique natural-learning climate. They see such classrooms
is used to assess comprehension. The retelling may as having friendly, supportive, nonthreatening
be written or oral. The teacher may have a list of social interactions and unpressured retelling oppor-
the points that should be included in the retelling tunities, perceived as relevant to the students’ needs.
and may mark them off as they are mentioned by Brown and Cambourne used retelling as a learning
the student. After the student completes the retell- procedure, rather than as a testing procedure, and
ing, the examiner may ask questions to probe for therefore allowed student discussion of retellings,
the information that is not provided by the student rather than just having teacher evaluation.
during the initial telling. The student can be given Different methods have been devised to guide
credit for each point recalled. This procedure takes the assessment of retellings by teachers. A num-
more time than direct questioning, but it may be ber of the systems of analysis of retellings are
chosen if the teacher wants to obtain an idea of the complicated and unmanageable for many class-
student’s verbal facility. room teachers. One of the less complicated sys-
There are possible problems with diagnostic tems is shown in Figure 1–1; another is found in
use of the free recall process (Barr, Blachowicz, and Figure 1–2.
Wogman-Sadow, 1995; Morrow, 1985; Morrow, Nevertheless, retellings can offer teachers
1988; Stein and Glenn, 1979; Bridge and Tierney, insights both into students’ ability to organize
1981; Brown and Cambourne, 1987). Students the material read in a coherent manner and into
may have trouble with the process until they be- students’ recall of passage content. Moss (2004)
come familiar with it through repeated attempts. suggests having a student predict what the mate-
Morrow (1988, p. 128) points out that “[r]etelling rial will be about based on the title, before reading
is not an easy procedure for students, no matter takes place. In the passages for this IRI, a user who
what their ages and especially if they have no prior wants to incorporate this feature of testing could
experience.” Anthony and others (1991) caution include a title for each passage derived from the
that students must become familiar with what is answers suggested for the main idea questions, to
expected from them in a retelling and must prac- provide an opportunity for prediction. Personal
tice the procedure before it is used for assessment response questions can also be added after the re-
purposes. telling is done, to discover how much the student
Students also may not respond to directions is making connections between the selection and
as expected. For example, if the student knows his or her own life experiences, attitudes, inter-
that the examiner has read the selection, he or ests, and needs.
she may leave out important information on the When retelling is to be used, the students
assumption that the examiner knows it. This situ- should be informed before they start reading a
ation would be particularly likely if the passage selection that they will be asked to retell it. The
were one that the student had just read orally teacher should encourage each student to retell
to the teacher. For that reason, retelling may be as much of each selection as he or she can. The
more effective after silent reading of passages teacher may say something similar to “Retell
than after oral reading. this selection for someone who has not read it,
The quality of the free recall may be an indi- so that the person would understand it as well
cation of the verbal skills the student possesses as you do.” As the student retells the selection,
as much as it is an indication of his or her com- the teacher may offer encouragement to continue
prehension. Written retellings may be affected by when the student pauses, by saying, “Can you tell
spelling and mechanical problems as much as, anything else that it said?” After the student fin-
or more than, by comprehension difficulties. For ishes retelling, the teacher can probe further by
that reason, oral retellings may be less demand- asking the comprehension questions that were
ing for certain students. not answered in the retelling. (There is, of course,
More information may be remembered in no need to ask those questions that were clearly
response to questions than can be remembered answered in the retelling.) Teachers can figure the
in free recall. Because poor readers have a greater comprehension based on the percentage of ques-
tendency to provide additional information in tions answered under either condition. In making
response to questioning than good readers do, the qualitative analysis, they can also consider the
poor readers need questioning in order to dem- student’s grasp of the organization of the mate-
onstrate their comprehension more effectively. rial as indicated by the order of retelling. Much
08946_01_Sec-1_p001-012.indd 7 13/04/10 7:01 AM

FIGURE 1–1 Free Recall Processing Checklist
Answer each of these questions according to the 8. _____ Did the student use the
following scale: organizational pattern used by the author?
5 Yes, very well 9. _____ Did the student elaborate appropriately?
4 Yes, more than adequately 10. _____ Did the student know how to adjust
3 Yes, adequately strategies to the purpose given?
2 No, not too well What effective comprehension processes were
1 No, poorly evident in the student’s recall?
NA Not applicable or can’t tell What comprehension processes were not evident,
or seemed to be causing problems?
1. _____ Did the student recall a To what extent was the student’s performance as
sufficient number of ideas? just described affected by each of the following?
2. _____ Did the student recall the 1. Limited prior knowledge or vocabulary.
ideas accurately? 2. Limited motivation or interest.
3. _____ Did the student select the 3. Cultural differences.
most important details to recall? 4. Decoding problems.
5. Difficulties in the text.
4. _____ Did the student understand 6. Social context.
explicit pronouns and connectives? 7. Discomfort with the task.
5. _____ Did the student infer 8. Other environmental influences.
important implicitly stated information?
Source: From Judith Westphal Irwin, Teaching Reading
6. _____ Did the student include the
Comprehension Processes, 2d ed., p. 202. Copyright
explicitly stated main points?
© 1991. Published by Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA.
7. _____ Did the student create any Copyright © 1991 by Pearson Education. Reprinted by
new summarizing statements? permission of the publisher.
FIGURE 1–2 Rubric for Oral or Written Retelling of a Narrative
3 2 1
Characterization
Accurately recalls both primary and Accurately recalls only primary or Incorrectly identifies the characters
secondary characters secondary characters, not both
Uses vivid, appropriate descriptive Provides limited, correct Provides no descriptions or inaccurate
words when discussing the characters descriptions of the characters descriptions of the characters
Setting
Recalls the setting: both place Recalls only the time or the Provides minimal information or
and time place, not both inaccurately describes the setting
Plot
Recalls the action or plot in correct Describes some of the events Inaccurately describes events as they
sequence as it happens in the story as they occur in the story happen in the story sequence or
sequence describes events out of sequence
Conflict/Resolution
Accurately discusses both the conflict Discusses only the conflict or Discusses fragmented sections of the
and the resolution the resolution, not both story with little mention of a conflict
or problem with a resulting resolution
Name of student: ________________________________________________

Story: _________________________________________________________
Circle type of response: Written Oral
Source: From Betty D. Roe, Sandy H. Smith, and Paul C. Burns, Teaching Reading in Today’s Elementary Schools, 10th ed.,
p. 50. Copyright © 2009, by Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Reprinted with permission.
08946_01_Sec-1_p001-012.indd 8 13/04/10 7:01 AM

judgment goes into the final analysis of the stu- instructional level only, by using just the portions
dent’s reading, and the data from the retelling can of the material that are needed. Teachers may do
be useful in forming that final judgment. this to find out whether a written work that they
Recordings of retellings can make analysis of plan to use for homework or in the class (and
them easier for the teacher, who can listen again to for which they have a grade level designation)
any parts that are confusing or that the student pre- is likely to be at an independent, instructional,
sented very quickly. Overreliance on recording slows or frustration level for the students who will be
down the assessment, so recording may simply serve asked to read it.
as a backup to be used in special cases, rather than as Many secondary teachers feel that only a
a regularly analyzed aspect of each session. silent reading assessment is appropriate for stu-
Teachers who wish to use a retelling compo- dents in grades 7 through 12, and many primary
nent for assessment may want to consult some grade teachers feel that an oral assessment will
writings on this topic for help in implementing a give them the best picture of performance if they
personally effective procedure (Clark, 1982; Irwin have limited time available. Not every assess-
and Mitchell, 1983; Kalmbach, 1986a; Kalmbach, ment has to be a complete assessment. Indeed,
1986b; Barr, Blachowicz, and Wogman-Sadow, classroom teachers would be hard-pressed to ad-
1995; Morrow, 1985; Morrow, 1988; Stein and minister complete assessments to all of their stu-
Glenn, 1979; Bridge and Tierney, 1981; Brown dents without some additional assistance, such
and Cambourne, 1987). Given the current lack as a paraprofessional to oversee other activities
of generally accepted criteria for evaluating retell- while the assessments are being done. As Barr,
ing, most teachers will probably be more comfort- Blachowicz, and Wogman-Sadow (1995) have in-
able with the standard questioning procedure. dicated, teachers must be familiar with the pro-
cedures for a complete assessment, but they also
should know when following only a portion of
■ Assessing Use of Context Clues
these procedures is appropriate.
The use of context clues is an aspect of comprehen- Users whose purpose is to analyze the word
sion that can sometimes be more easily ascertained recognition miscues carefully to decide what strat-
by examination of word recognition miscues made egies are being used may administer the word lists
while reading the passages than by examination and oral passages only and compare the word rec-
of question responses or retellings. Students who ognition strategies used in isolation with those
make miscues that fit the context and do not used in context, but some teachers may not use
distort meaning are using context clues to good the word lists, because students are not generally
advantage; in contrast, students who make mis- asked to read words out of context in authentic
cues that distort meaning or result in nonsense literacy activities.
and who fail to correct these miscues need help Instead of doing a standard complete inven-
with using context clues. tory, some teachers may administer two different
forms to compare the results of having the stu-
dents read orally at sight and having them read
■ Reading Rate
orally after they have read silently. This oral read-
The measurement of reading rate is not essential to ing after silent preparation may be used primarily
obtaining accurate results from the inventory, but to assess oral reading fluency.
information about rate can be beneficial to teach-
ers in a number of ways. First, rate is an important Cautions about Partial Assessments ■ One cau-
part of fluency, because slow, laborious reading tion is that administration of a single passage
lacks proper phrasing and intonation. Second, the will not give a definitive level for instructional
slow rate overtaxes memory and thereby reduces purposes. Students must have a chance to read
comprehension. Third, too fast a rate may also progressively difficult passages to determine the
impede comprehension because it often results in highest level at which the criteria for a specific
careless reading that may result in misconceptions. level are met.
Another caution is that any one passage may
give a misleading level because background of
■ Partial Assessments
experiences and interests strongly influence com-
This instrument can also be used to obtain more prehension. Some students will perform abnor-
limited information than administration of the mally well on some passages because of extensive
complete inventory would provide, such as silent background on the topic. Similarly, some students
reading independent level only or oral reading may perform abnormally low on some passages
08946_01_Sec-1_p001-012.indd 9 13/04/10 7:01 AM

because of lack of background about the topic or independent reading of literature from trade
lack of interest in the topic. books.
Winograd, Paris, and Bridge (1991, p. 110)
encourage teachers to “[c]larify the purpose of
an assessment and then select the tools most
appropriate for that purpose.” An informal read-
How Do IRIs Fit into ing inventory meets the requirements for assess-
Literature-Based Programs? ments that are designed to diagnose instructional
needs of students and to place the students in
Norton (1992, p. 107) points out that IRIs “are materials that are on appropriate levels. Other
especially valuable for assessing the reading ability tests may be more appropriate for meeting other
of students in literature-based programs because assessment goals.
the IRIs can be constructed from passages and Strategic readers “are able to handle a variety
questions that are similar to those in the mate- of authentic texts for a variety of different pur-
rials read by the students.” Literature-based pro- poses, . . . and they are adept at planning their
grams generally focus on having students interact approach to reading depending upon their pur-
with larger chunks of language than the single, pose, their familiarity with the topic, the type
isolated sounds, words, and sentences often used of text, and so forth” (Winograd, Paris, and
for assessment in traditional standardized tests. Bridge, 1991, p. 112). This inventory provides
Informal reading inventories provide students varying topics and types of text, both fiction and
with more connected text to read, and facility nonfiction, that are typical of ones the students
with individual skills can be determined from the might encounter in classroom instruction, to
analysis of the students’ performance when read- facilitate decisions about students’ ability to han-
ing connected text. dle them.
The format of the reading passages in an infor-
mal reading inventory is more like the text found
in books that the children read than is the format
of traditional, multiple-choice-type standardized
tests. In fact, the passages in this inventory come
Who Needs to Take This
primarily from actual materials that students Informal Reading Inventory?
are asked to read in school. They are not pas-
sages designed only to highlight particular skills. Ideally, every student would be given the
Anthony and others (1991, pp. 68–69) point out informal reading inventory so that the tea-
that “the teacher needs to know how well chil- cher could place him or her at the correct level
dren can cope with real texts.” in the reading program, supply appropriate
Informal reading inventories are not timed content-area reading material, and recommend
tests that put unnatural time constraints upon recreational reading. Because an all-inclusive
decoding and understanding text. The untimed assessment is not likely to be possible for class-
nature of these tests allows students the freedom room teachers, at least pupils known to have
to use strategies, such as rereading to utilize con- reading problems and pupils for whom reading
text clues, that are often not encouraged by timed skills information is not available should be as-
tests. sessed. Students who score low on standardized
Open-ended questions, as opposed to mul- reading achievement tests are appropriate can-
tiple-choice items, require more than random didates for assessment, as are students who ar-
choices for answers. This inventory includes not rive from other schools without accompanying
only open-ended questions, but also a mixture records. The administration of an informal read-
of literal and higher-order questions, in order ing inventory provides a unique opportunity for
to get a more complete picture of the students’ close pupil–teacher contact. This may increase
comprehension. the teacher’s chances of providing effective re-
Emphasis is on what levels of material are best medial assistance.
for individual students and what instructional Teachers will also find inventory results for
needs the students have, instead of on compari- gifted students to be helpful in planning instruc-
sons with other students. The IRI provides spe- tion. They can determine the level of advanced
cific information about each individual student’s material that can be used to challenge these
reading strategies that can provide a base for de- students and keep them interested in school
veloping instructional activities and assigning assignments.
08946_01_Sec-1_p001-012.indd 10 13/04/10 7:01 AM

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agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)
The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY
With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
BRAZIER
Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT
SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB
CUTTING THE EDGE

FINISHING THE BOTTOM
LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING
FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE
TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK
DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN

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Informal Reading Inventory: Preprimer

to Twelfth Grade (What’s New in

Student Booklet Form B

Graded Passages Choosing Books to Develop and Support

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Marketing Assistant: Dimitri Hagnéré

Cengage Learning is a leading provider of customized learning solutions

Cengage Learning products are represented in Canada by Nelson

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Purchase any of our products at your local college store or at our

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Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Student Word List 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Section Two Teacher Booklet Form B

Teacher Booklet Form C

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administration of the oral passages to a fourth-

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This section answers the following questions:

students’ specific reading problems. As Johnson,

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2 ◆ SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION

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SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION ◆ 3

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4 ◆ SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION

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SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION ◆ 5

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6 ◆ SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION

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SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION ◆ 7

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FIGURE 1–2 Rubric for Oral or Written Retelling of a Narrative

Name of student: ________________________________________________

8 ◆ SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION

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SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION ◆ 9

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10 ◆ SECTION ONE ◆ BACKGROUND INFORMATION

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Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA