Pennington Publishing Blog

My district has decided to “speed pilot” two reading intervention programs for our secondary schools: Language!® Live is the re-vamped Language!® program from Voyager Sopris with new contributing author Louisa Cook Moats; and Read 180 Next Generation is the thoroughly revised offering from mega publisher Scholastic/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt with new contributing authors Kevin Feldman and Kate Kinsella. The latter uses the Read 180 Foundational Reading Assessment. At my middle school we have one pilot teacher for each program. Training has been extensive from these two eager publishers because Elk Grove Unified is the third largest district in California and a district-wide adoption would be quite a plum for either of the two companies.

So I’ve been able to check out these two programs to compare to my own. A bold move given that my cost per class of 25 students is about $20 per student, whereas the cost per class for each of the two comparative programs is closer to that of a well-equipped Lexus. I started my comparisons with the screening and placement assessments in Read 180. Of course, as a publisher (check out my program advert to the right of the article, you would expect bias. See what you think.)

Our school has always struggled with screening and placement for our “support” classes. As a large middle school with about 1100 students, we have five “feeder” elementary schools and lots of transfer students. Program scheduling is a nightmare. We have used a variety of assessments, teacher recommendations, and decision-making tools to place students with mixed results. Since teachers have done “their own thing” in the “support” classes for years, the “curriculum” and instruction has only haphazardly matched the student needs indicated by the placement tools. Since the placement criteria has been a “moving target,” misplacement of students has been an ongoing concern. Our principal makes all transfer decisions and, fair to say, these are rare. Once students are placed in a “support” class, they remain all year. So if the district adoption of either the Read 180 or Language Live! program would mean that screening and placement assessments and exit criteria would be honored at our school, we might be moving onto the right track. Or will we? This article will focus on the Read 180 Next Generation Foundational Reading Assessment.

Read 180 Foundational Reading Assessment

As described in a companion article, READ 180 and Phonemic Awareness, the first part of the Foundational Reading Assessment (designed by Dr. Richard K. Wagner as a K-2 test and published as such for another program) consists of a short random sample 12 rhymes, initial, final, and medial sounds (3 each). I can hear kindergarten teachers cringing at the sample size and components. The take-away from my article is that the test assesses only part of what constitutes phonological or phonemic awareness and is not teachable because it is not comprehensive.

The next component of the assessment is the Letter-Word Identification Strand, which includes 10 items designed to measure students’ knowledge of uppercase and lowercase letter names and 20 items designed to measure students’ sight word knowledge. The last component, the Word Attack Strand, includes “40 total items, specifically 10 items designed to measure students’ ability to identify letter sounds and 30 nonword items designed to measure students’ decoding skills” (SRI College and Career Technical Guide).

Sight Words

“A total of 20 sight word items were developed using the 100 most frequent words from Fry’s (2000) 1000 Instant Words. The distractor items were other high-frequency sight words or common decodable words.”

Criticism

Sight words are, by definition exceptions to the rules. Random sampling presupposes that the components are representative of the whole. How can there be external validity when the sample does not match the group? It’s a bit like tasting 6 of the 31 (the same percentage) ice cream flavors at Baskin Robbins and claiming that students either like or don’t like all ice cream based upon the results. Missing 20 out of 20 sight words indicates that the student does not know those 20 sight words. It does not mean that the student does not know the remaining 80. My Teaching Reading Strategies program assesses and provides instruction to remediate all 100 of the most frequently used sight words. That makes more sense.

Why have sight words as part of a screening and placement test in the first place. Knowledge of sight words is not a reliable indicator of reading difficulties. And why 20 test items when there are only 30 phonics sound-spellings (a much more reliable indicator). The ratio is completely out of whack. Plus, as any remedial reading teacher will tell you, the easiest reading remediation is memorizing those 100 words.

Phonics

“A total of 30 nonword items were developed, representing the full range of commonly taught phonics skills. All targets and distractors were nonwords or obscure English words that are unlikely to be known. In addition, all targets and distractors follow conventions of English spelling, and care was taken to avoid Spanish words, slang, and nonwords that sounded like real words.”

Criticism

While my Teaching Reading Strategies program includes the same sound-spellings as the 30 nonword items, my program includes 52 vowel sound-spellings and 50 consonant sound-spellings in the nonword format. Phonics tests are necessary as screening and placement assessments for reading intervention, but why not test everything that needs to be taught with corresponding activities and worksheets? The tests take only 12 minutes to give and can be graded on Scantrons® or Grade Cam®. Audio files are provided with the program. Why not check out these assessments yourself?

Finally, the little known fact about the READ 180 Next Generation program is that students who fail the Foundational Reading Assessment will need to be assessed and placed in another program: SYSTEM 44 Next Generation. This program is a separate program and is extremely expensive. The publishers claim that READ 180 and SYSTEM 44 can be taught concurrently in the same classroom, but none of our pilot teachers throughout our district is doing so. Fair to note that the Language!® Live program and Teaching Reading Strategies each provide the instructional resources to teach the full range of student pre-reading and reading needs within the same program.

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The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Reading Mark Pennington, phonics, Read 180, reading assessment, reading instruction, reading intervention, reading programs, remedial reading, RTI, Teaching Reading Strategies

My district has decided to “speed pilot” two reading intervention programs for our middle schools and high schools: READ 180 Next Generation from Scholastic Houghton Mifflin Harcourt with new authors Kevin Feldman and Kate Kinsella and Language!® Live from Voyager Sopris with contributing author Louisa Cook Moats. I teach at a large middle school and we have one pilot teacher for each program. Training has been quite thorough, especially from the well-funded READ 180 reps.

Although I am the only reading specialist on staff, I decided not to pilot either of the two programs. However, I do have a vested interest in getting to know both READ 180 and Language!® DISCLAIMER: I am the author and publisher of my own assessment-based reading intervention program: The Science of Reading Intervention Program.

I do use my own program with a seventh grade support class, so I can compare programs and results with those of the students in the READ 180 and Language!® at the same school with the same placement criteria. I’ll not pretend to have created an experimental design to determine if there are statistically significant differences between my program and the others. Of course I am biased, but I can present a few observations and allow teachers to draw their own conclusions.

I decided to start my comparisons with the screening and placement assessments for each program. As a reading specialist, I’m always concerned about using assessments to deny or provide services. Plus, as a matter of equity I’m very invested in the placement process: I hate to see a child overlooked who needs to learn to read but I’m equally distraught to see a student misplaced into a program who does not need to be there.

I decided to start my analysis with the READ 180 program. Specifically, in this article I’m taking a look at the phonological awareness component from one of the two assessments in the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI): The Foundational Reading Assessment. The second assessment is the Reading Comprehension Assessment. In my first article on these two reading intervention programs, I noted my concern that no encoding (spelling) test was included as part of the screening and placement assessments for READ 180. Jane Fell Greene’s encoding test has always been part of the competing Language!® program.

I emailed Dr. Richard K. Wagner, author of the READ 180 assessment (originally developed as the iRead Screener for another program). I asked him “If you were to add a print component that would ameliorate some of the limitations of the computer-based format, what would that include? I was hoping that you would have added an encoding test and a timed fluency assessment at the students’ Lexile levels.

Rick kindly responded: “What you say makes sense.”

Now onto the specifics of what is actually on the READ 180 Foundational Reading Assessment. This computer-based assessment includes a total of 82 possible items, divided into three strands: Phonological Awareness, Letter-Word Identification, and Word Attack.

Let’s look at the first two of the three strands. In my next article I’ll tackle the word attack component. The Phonological Awareness Strand has 12 total items. First, let’s look at two definitions to get us on the same page:

Phonological awareness refers to a general recognition of speech sounds. “When that insight includes an understanding that words can he divided into a sequence of phonemes, this finer-grained sensitivity is termed phonemic awareness” (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998, p. 51).

Phonemic awareness is the recognition that words are made up of speech sounds (phonemes) and that these phonemes can be segmented (pulled apart), blended (put together), or substituted, added, or subtracted from one word to the next to create new words. It also refers to the understanding that the phonemes combine to form distinct syllables and words.

It doesn’t take a reading specialist to understand that phonological awareness precedes phonemic awareness. However, what teachers need to know to properly screen and place students is student mastery of the basic phonemic awareness skills. This data we do not get from the Foundational Reading Assessment. If teachers have to assess for proper placement (we do), why not kill two birds with one stone and assess to inform instruction as well?

Three of the test items in the phonological awareness assessment measure students’ rhyme identification skills. Students see an image and hear a word read aloud. They then see three more images and hear three more words. One of the words matches the beginning, middle, or end sound of the first word, or rhymes with the word. The test design certainly makes sense, but why only three rhymes? Rhyming is a critical component of phonemic awareness and is one of the earliest developmental stages of pre-reading. Rhyming is usually taught at home, in nursery school, and in kindergarten.

If I were designing the assessment, I would include 10 rhymes: one for each of the five short and five long vowel sounds. That would be an assessment that would properly screen, help place, and ultimately provide useful data for the teacher to teach to… in other words, assessment-based instruction. Yes, that is the format for my Rhyming Assessment in my program. The test is a simple five-minute whole class audio assessment.

The balance of the Phonological Awareness Strand test includes students’ abilities to identify initial, final, and medial sounds (only three test items for each). These elements of phonemic isolation are important pre-reading skills, and teachers need to know exactly what their students do and do not know for both program placement and for instruction. My phonemic isolation assessment has 10 teachable components on the five-minute whole class audio assessment.

And, most importantly, why isn’t phonemic segmentation, phonemic blending, and syllable awareness part of the assessment? These kindergarten−first grade pre-reading skills are essential skills to assess. And, no, READ 180 does not include separate diagnostic assessments for these elements of phonemic awareness. My does. Each of these three assessments has the usual five-minute whole class audio assessment.

The second component of the Foundational Reading Assessment tests letter name and letter sound knowledge items. The test uses a sample of 5 items assessing lowercase letter name knowledge and 5 assessing uppercase. Last I checked, there are 26 letters in our alphabet. Additionally, 10 letter sound items are included.

Interestingly, the publishers have taken the step to test the validity of their assessments to those of the University of Oregon’s Dibels Next assessments; however, Dibels Next assesses all 26 upper case and lower case letters. Knowing which letters students know and don’t know allows the teacher to teach to those deficits. Again, the READ 180 program does not provide assessment-based instruction with its screening assessments. Sampling has its drawbacks; teachers need teachable data.

The little known fact about the READ 180 program is that students who fail the Foundational Reading Assessment will need to be assessed and placed in another program: SYSTEM 44. This program is a separate program and is extremely expensive. The publishers claim that READ 180 and SYSTEM 44 can be taught concurrently in the same classroom, but none of our pilot teachers throughout our district is doing so. Fair to note that the Language!® Live program and my program each provide the instructional resources to teach the full range of student pre-reading and reading needs within the same program.

READ 180 and Language!® use adaptive computer technology to teach individual student deficits. Technology is wonderful; however, there are limitations. Most teachers I know prefer to control what needs to be taught, when it needs to be taught, and how it needs to be taught—not trust the machine and a canned reading program to “fix ‘em.” This is especially important in teaching phonemic awareness. Since phonemic awareness is an auditory, not a visual skill set, the face to face teacher to student instruction is essential.

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The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary Language Live reviews, Language!, Mark Pennington, phonemic awareness, Read 180, Read 180 reviews, System 44, Teaching Reading Strategies

As money has finally started to creep back into education, districts are now turning their attention and dollars into purchasing reading intervention programs. My district has decided to “speed pilot” two reading intervention programs for our secondary schools: Language!® Live is the re-vamped Language!® program from Voyager Sopris with new contributing author Louisa Cook Moats; and READ 180 Next Generation is the thoroughly revised offering from mega publisher Scholastic/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt with new contributing authors Kevin Feldman and Kate Kinsella. At my middle school we have one pilot teacher for each program. Training has been extensive from these two eager publishers because our district, Elk Grove Unified, is the third largest district in California and a district-wide adoption would be quite a plum for either of the two companies.

I am not one of the pilot teachers; however, I am curious. So now my DISCLAIMER: I sell my own reading intervention program: The Science of Reading Intervention Program. I developed the program in three instructional settings: grades 4−6 as a district elementary specialist; middle school as a “support” teacher; and high school as a co-teacher of a remedial reading class with a special education teacher.

As my colleagues have been piloting, I’ve been able to log-in as a student and check out these two programs to compare to my own. A bold move given that my cost per class of 25 students is about $15 per student, whereas the cost per class for each of the two comparative programs is closer to that of a well-equipped Lexus. But, you get what you pay for… right? Well, you do get a lot of bells and whistles.

I’ll begin with the screening and placement assessments for the programs. First I’ll start with the READ 180 program. This article will begin to tackle just one of the two assessments in the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI): The Foundational Reading Assessment. The other assessment is the Reading Comprehension Assessment. As a reading specialist, I always gravitate to phonemic awareness, decoding, and encoding materials, so I’ll start there.

My first ah, ha was the lack of a spelling test as part of the screening and placement assessments. The Language!® program has one; my program has one. What gives?

I will say from my own 25+ years of teaching remedial reading that a student’s ability to encode (spell) certainly has helped me properly place students in instructional programs to target their individual needs. I would go as far as saying that a spelling test (Jane Fell Greene’s encoding test, the Qualitative Spelling Inventory developed by Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, and Johnson (2000), or my own comprehensive Diagnostic Spelling Assessment) provides essential information for program placement.

I did a little digging to see if a spelling assessment was part of the READ 180 companion program for beginning readers: SYSTEM 44. Nope. The Scholastic Phonics Inventory® has letter name recognition, sight word recognition, and nonword decoding, but there is no accompanying spelling test.

I decided to email the assessment author, Dr. Richard K. Wagner, and Rick kindly replied twice to my questions. Not to put words into his mouth, but I seemed to get support for my view that using spelling as a screening assessment makes sense.

Now READ 180 does provide individualized assessment and spelling instruction as part of its program, but not as part of its screening and placement. I will give my take (Spoiler Alert: It’s not the best Yelp review) on this spelling “instruction” in a related article.

But why use screening and placement assessments solely to determine whether students qualify for some form of tiered reading intervention? In other words why waste time giving separate placement and diagnostic assessments? Why give a test that provides nothing to teach to?

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary anguage Live reviews, Language Live, Mark Pennington, Read 180, Read 180 reviews, Teaching Reading Strategies

English-Language Arts and Reading Intervention Articles and Resources 

Bookmark and check back often for new articles and free ELA/reading resources from Pennington Publishing.

• Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics
• Vocabulary and Morphology
• English-language Arts Standards
• English-language Arts Instruction
• Essay Resources and Lessons
• The Writing Process/Writers Workshop
• Writing Style
• Writing Feedback
• Spelling
• Structural Analysis/Syllabication/Oral Language
• ELA/Reading Assessments
• Independent Reading
• EL/ESL/ELD/ESOL/MLL
• Assessment-based Individualized Instruction/Differentiated Instruction
• Critical Thinking
• Study Skills
• Test Preparation
• Developmental Characteristics
• Professional Development
• Close Reading
• Reading Comprehension

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The Pennington Publishing Blog consists of well over 700 articles, specifically tailored to the interests of ELA and reading intervention teachers. Each article provides useful information, links, and FREE resources. Simply click on any FREE resource to subscribe (such as the one below).

Pennington Publishing’s mission is to provide the finest in assessment-based ELA and reading intervention resources for grades 4‒high school teachers. Check out curriculum written by teachers for teachers and their students at Pennington Publishing. Enter discount code 3716 to save 10% off any programs.

Also, make sure to check out Pennington Publishing’s FREE ELA and reading assessments to help you pinpoint grammar, usage, mechanics, spelling, and reading deficits. Of course, these assessments are tailored to my assessment-based instructional resources, but they will work with any resources you already use to improve learning.

FREE RESOURCE

Every ELA and reading intervention teacher is interested in improving the vocabulary of their students. Most teach Greek and Latin prefixes, roots, and suffixes (Common Core Standards). But which ones should we teach. Check out this FREE resource including updated research on high frequency Greek and Latin word parts and a clever instructional resource: 25 Greek and Latin Power Words. These 25 words combine the 60 high frequency Greek and Latin prefixes, roots, and suffixes. Once you download a few of my FREE resources or use one of my FREE assessments and see their value for your students, my take is that you will be more interested in purchasing my program resources.

Get the 25 Greek and Latin Power Words FREE Resource:

Grammar/Mechanics, Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills, Writing ELA resources, free ELA lessons, free reading lessons, grammar, mechanics, pennington publishing, reading intervention, spelling, usage, vocabulary Mark Pennington

Download these FREE Diagnostic Reading and ELA Assessments, designed for students ages 8 and older.

Teachers need diagnostic assessments to determine what students know and what they do not know.  Following are FREE comprehensive reading and English-language arts assessments to provide the data teachers need to target instruction. The assessments feature comprehensive, easy-administration audio files, self-correcting Google forms (or print), and progress-monitoring matrices. Optional programs provide worksheets and instructional activities, corresponding to each assessment item. Or use your own resources.

Download these FREE Program Placement Screening Assessments (Phonics, Reading Fluency, and Spelling)

FREE Program Placement Screening Assessments

FREE Diagnostic Reading and ELA Assessments (Click links to download and print.)

Phonics Assessments

The phonics assessments feature nonsense words and test all common sound-spellings.

FREE Vowel Sounds Phonics Assessment

Print, Google Forms, Google Sheets and 10:42 Audio File

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE PROGRAMS

FREE Consonant Sounds Phonics Assessment

Print, Google Forms, Google Sheets and 12:07 Audio File

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE PROGRAMS

Fluency Assessment

The fluency assessment is designed in a tiered reading level format, beginning at the first grade level and proceeding to the seventh grade level. This assessment is individually administered and is timed for two minutes.

FREE Multi-level Pets Fluency Assessment

Print

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE PROGRAMS

Diagnostic Spelling Assessments

Most common spelling patterns are included in this assessment. Administer part or all of the Diagnostic Spelling Assessment (American English Version) test items, according to grade-level criteria.

• Grade 3: (#s 1‒64)
• Grade 4:  (#s 1‒79)
• Grade 5: (#s 1‒89)
• Grade 6: (#s 1‒98)
• Grade 7: (#s 1‒98)
• Grade 8: (#s 1‒102)

Most common spelling patterns are included in this assessment. Administer part or all of the Diagnostic Spelling Assessment (Canadian English Version) test items, according to grade-level criteria

• Grade 3: (#s 1‒64)
• Grade 4:  (#s 1‒79)
• Grade 5: (#s 1‒89)
• Grade 6: (#s 1‒98)
• Grade 7: (#s 1‒98)
• Grade 8: (#s 1‒106)

FREE Multi-level Diagnostic American English Spelling Assessment: Print Assessment with “Normal speed” 22:38 and “Quick version 17:26 audio file links. Recording Matrix for Progress Monitoring

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE GRADE LEVEL PROGRAMS

FREE Multi-level Diagnostic Canadian English Spelling Assessment: Print Assessment with “Normal speed” 18:53 and “Quick version 21:12 audio file links, recorded by a Canadian teacher. Recording Matrix for Progress Monitoring

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE GRADE LEVEL PROGRAMS

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessments

Use this 45 item grammar and usage assessment to determine student’s knowledge of parts of speech, subjects and predicates, types of sentences, fragments and run-ons, pronoun usage, modifiers, verb tenses and verb forms.

FREE Grammar and Usage Assessment

Use this 32 item mechanics assessment to test students’ ability to apply correct usage of commas, capitalization, and all other essential punctuation.

Print and Google Forms

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE GRADE LEVEL PROGRAMS

FREE Mechanics Assessment (Punctuation, Capitalization, Quotations)

As an option, the grammar, usage, and mechanics assessments are combined as a Google form.

Print and Google Forms

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE GRADE LEVEL PROGRAMS

FREE Diagnostic Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessment 

Print and Google Forms

Vocabulary Assessments

The Tier 2 academic language vocabulary has been derived from the research-based Academic Word List (AWL).  The Academic Word List (Coxhead) has been ordered into grade level lists by frequency. Each grades/levels 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 Academic Language Assessment includes 56 Tier 2 words. The Tier 2 words are the academic language words that are most-often generalizable across the academic domains. For example, the word analyze is used in English-language arts, social science, history, science, math, and the arts.

FREE Multi-level Diagnostic Academic Language Assessments Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 

FREE Multi-level Diagnostic Academic Language Assessments Grades/Levels 9, 10, 11, and 12

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE GRADE LEVEL PROGRAMS

Data Recording Matrices for Progress-Monitoring

FREE Diagnostic Assessment Matrices for Progress-Monitoring

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FREE Executive Function and Study Skills Self-Assessment and Mastery Matrix

This 56-item assessment includes questions on motivation, spelling, grammar, mechanics, essay writing, memorization strategies, test-preparation and test-taking skills, reading strategies and skills, time management, active listening, organization, best research practices, and note-taking. Each item is keyed to specific lessons in the author’s Essential Study Skills and Targeted Independent Practice: Executive Function and Study Skills programs.

FREE Literacy Knowledge Self-Assessment and Mastery Matrix

This 85-word assessment includes questions on 20 narrative/sensory descriptive genres, language structures, literary elements, literary and poetic devices. Includes a mastery matrix. Each item is keyed to specific lessons in the author’s Targeted Independent Practice: Literacy Knowledge program.

Phonemic Awareness Assessments

Use these five phonemic awareness to determine reading readiness. Each of the 5 assessments is administered whole class and includes audio files.

FREE Syllable Awareness Assessment

Print and 5:48 Audio File

FREE Syllable Rhyming Assessment

Print and 5:38 Audio File

FREE Phonemic Isolation Assessment

Print and 5:54 Audio File

FREE Phonemic Blending Assessment

Print and 5:53 Audio File

FREE Phonemic Segmenting Assessment

Print and 5:21 Audio File

FREE Alphabetic Awareness Assessments

Print and Alphabet Cards

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE PROGRAMS

Heart Words Assessment

This 108-word assessment tests student knowledge of high frequency words with an irregular sound-spelling (the part to learn by heart). As an option, teachers may require students to identify the irregular sound spellings by drawing hearts.

FREE Heart Words Assessment

Print

CORRESPONDING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES–VIEW ENTIRE PROGRAMS

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ARE THESE DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENTS RESEARCH-BASED? These are teacher/reading specialist-created comprehensive diagnostics. None are normed. You won’t find them on What Works… As you probably know, comprehensive diagnostics need not meet research-based criteria for external validity since there is no sampling. However, each assessment is evidence-based and has internal validity/reliability. Read on!

Grammar/Mechanics, Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing academic language assessment, diagnostic grammar assessment, diagnostic reading assessments, diagnostic spelling assessment, diagnostic vocabulary assessment, fluency assessment, function based grammar, heart words assessment, Mark Pennington, pennington publishing, phonemic awareness assessment, phonics assessment, reading syntax, rimes assessment, syntax, William Van Cleave, writing syntax

Essential Study Skills

The 56 lessons inEssential Study Skills (eBook) will teach your students to “work smarter, not harder.” Often, the reason why students fail to achieve their academic potential is not because they don’t try hard enough, but because they have never learned the basic study skills necessary for success. Students who master these skills will spend less time, and accomplish more during homework and study time. Their test study will be more productive and they will get better grades. Reading comprehension and vocabulary will improve. Their writing will make more sense and essays will be easier to plan and complete. They will memorize better and forget less. Their schoolwork will seem easier and will be much more enjoyable.

Lastly, students will feel better about themselves as learners and will be more motivated to succeed. Ideal curriculum for study skill, life skill, advocacy/advisory, opportunity program classes. The easy-to-follow lesson format of 1. Personal Assessment 2. Study Skill Tips and 3. Reflection is ideal for self-guided learning and practice.

Reading Study Skills

1. Choosing and Reading the Right Books
2. Reading Habits-The Bad and the Good
3. Silent Reading Fluency and Speed Reading
4. Interactive Reading
5. Building Comprehension-The SCRIP Comprehension Strategies
6. Inferences-Reading Between the Lines
7. Marginal Annotations
8. Reading Non-Fiction Strategies
9. Skimming and Scanning

Writing Study Skills

1. Parts of Speech
2. Grammatical Sentence Openers
3. Spelling Rules
4. Punctuation Rules
5. Writing Complex Sentences
6. Writing Style Errors
7. Essay Writing Rules
8. Introductory Paragraphs
9. Body Paragraphs
10. Concluding Paragraphs

Listening/ Note-taking/Test-taking

1. Active Listening with ED IS PC
2. Note-taking
3. Test Preparation
4. Objective Test-taking Strategies
5. Matching Test-taking Strategies
6. Fill-in-the-Blank Test-taking Strategies
7. Multiple Choice Test-taking Strategies

How to Get Organized and Study Effectively

7. Study Environment and Time Management
8. The Daily Review
9. Grouping Memorization Technique
10. Association Memorization Technique
11. Linking Memorization Technique
12. Catch Words Memorization Technique
13. Catch Sentences Memorization Technique

Vocabulary Development

4. Syllabication Rules 35. Greek and Latin Word Parts
5. Context Clues

Motivation/ Goal-Setting/Attitude

7. How to Get Motivated 38. How to Avoid Procrastination
8. How to Set Goals
9. Positive Mental Attitude

Essential Study Skills Preview

Critical Thinking Openers Toolkit Preview

Your students will greatly benefit from the 40 lessons in Essential Study Skills. 128 pages

Study Skills Essential Study Skills, Mark Pennington, pennington publishing

The Grammar Toolkit (Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Worksheets) has the diagnostic assessments and corresponding remedial worksheets that upper elementary, middle school, and high school teachers need to help their students catch up to the rigorous grade level Common Core grade-level Language Standards.

Here’s what teachers are saying about the Grammar Toolkit…

This is an amazing product. It makes individualized instruction a breeze!

Shawna Pounds

Instructional Components

Diagnostic Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessments

Comprehensive and reliable whole-class diagnostic assessments with recording matrices for efficient progress monitoring.

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Worksheets

40 grammar and usage worksheets and 32 mechanics worksheets, aligned to each skill tested in the diagnostic assessments (CCSS L.1, 2). Worksheets include definitions, examples, skill practice, and writing hints about how to apply the skill within authentic writing. Students self-correct to learn from their own mistakes (also saves teacher grading time) and then complete a short formative assessment to determine skill or concept mastery. Students complete only those worksheets which the diagnostic assessments determine to be un-mastered skills. That’s assessment-based instruction.

Language Worksheets

21 language worksheets to apply the Knowledge of Language Standards (CCSS L.3). Worksheets include remedial practice in subjects and predicates, sentence types (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex), sentence structure (fragments, run-ons, and complete sentences), as well as writing domains (genre), unity, coherence, and parallelism.

Independent Editing Resources

Grammar, usage, and mechanics independent reference resources to help your students revise and self-edit their own writing. Plus writing style and editing marks references formatted for classroom posters.

Management Plan for Individualized Instruction

Every resource in the Grammar Toolkit has been designed for efficient, independent learning with the teacher serving as “writing coach.” In brief, students select and complete an un-mastered Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Worksheet (takes about 10 minutes). Next, students self-correct and self-edit from the answer sheets. After correction and editing, students take a brief formative assessment and then mini-conference with the teacher to determine whether the skill has or has not been mastered. Twice per week, 15-minute sessions will enable all of your students to “catch up” on the key Common Core Language Standards. Students, parents, and principals love seeing the measurable progress on the progress monitoring recording matrices.

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Pennington Publishing Grammar Programs

Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics (Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and High School) are full-year, traditional, grade-level grammar, usage, and mechanics programs with plenty of remedial practice to help students catch up while they keep up with grade-level standards. Twice-per-week, 30-minute, no prep lessons in print or interactive Google slides with a fun secret agent theme. Simple sentence diagrams, mentor texts, video lessons, sentence dictations. Plenty of practice in the writing context. Includes biweekly tests and a final exam.

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Interactive Notebook (Grades 4‒8) is a full-year, no prep interactive notebook without all the mess. Twice-per-week, 30-minute, no prep grammar, usage, and mechanics lessons, formatted in Cornell Notes with cartoon response, writing application, 3D graphic organizers (easy cut and paste foldables), and great resource links. No need to create a teacher INB for student make-up work—it’s done for you! Plus, get remedial worksheets, biweekly tests, and a final exam.

Syntax in Reading and Writing is a function-based, sentence level syntax program, designed to build reading comprehension and increase writing sophistication. The 18 parts of speech, phrases, and clauses lessons are each leveled from basic (elementary) to advanced (middle and high school) and feature 5 lesson components (10–15 minutes each): 1. Learn It!  2. Identify It!  3. Explain It! (analysis of challenging sentences) 4. Revise It! (kernel sentences, sentence expansion, syntactic manipulation) 5. Create It! (Short writing application with the syntactic focus in different genre).

Get the Diagnostic Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessments, Matrix, and Final Exam FREE Resource:

Grammar/Mechanics Common Core Grammar, Grammar Openers Toolkit, grammar rules, grammar workbook, grammar worksheets, Mark Pennington, pennington publishing

The Reading Fluency and Comprehension Toolkit (eBook plus Links to YouTube Modeled Readings) provides 43 expository animal fluency articles and 43 corresponding animal comprehension worksheets, along with user-friendly, no teacher prep support materials. Here’s what teachers will use in this must-have eBook toolkit:

Get 43 expository animal fluency articles, each marked with words per line to help students monitor their own fluency progress. At last! Quality fluency practice in the expository (not narrative) genre. Reading experts agree that students need extensive reading practice in the expository domain to internalize the text structure and multi-syllabic vocabulary of social studies and science textbooks. Not to mention the expository articles found on standardized tests. Yes, fluency timing charts are provided. Plus, each of the 43 fluency articles has been recorded at three different reading speeds to provide the appropriate challenge level for each of your students. This toolkit provides the YouTube links to these 129 modeled readings.

Each of the 43 articles is composed in a leveled format: the first two paragraphs are at third grade reading level, the next two are at the fifth grade reading level, and the last two are at the seventh grade reading level. Slower readers get practice on controlled vocabulary and are pushed to read at the higher reading levels, once the contextual content has been established. Faster readers are challenged by the increasingly difficult multi-syllabic vocabulary. This format is perfect for differentiated fluency instruction. Both developing readers and reading intervention students who read at a variety of reading levels will benefit from this fluency practice. What a great add-on resource for phonics-based Response to Intervention tiered instruction!

This toolkit also provides 43 corresponding animal comprehension worksheets with content-specific comprehension questions listed in the margins next to the relevant text. These low-higher order thinking questions ask readers to summarize, connect, re-think, interpret, and predict (the SCRIP comprehension strategy) to promote reader dialog with the text. Students practice self-monitoring their own reading comprehension as they read. This “talking to the text” transfers to better independent reading comprehension and retention.

The animal fluency and comprehension articles each describe the physical characteristics of the animal with a color animal photograph–no drawings or cartoon characters inappropriate for older children or teenagers. Articles contain paragraphs detailing each animal’s habitat, what the animal eats, the animal’s family, interesting facts, and the status of the species (endangered or not). The writing is engaging and students will enjoy learning about both common and uncommon animals.

Each featured animal corresponds to the colorful set of digital Animal Sound-Spelling Cards. The sounds of each animal name represent each of the phonetic components. For example, ermine, armadillo, and orca represent each of the r-controlled sound-spellings. Each of the cards contains the most common spellings of the animal card sound to reinforce the reading-spelling connection. A full set of consonant blend cards complements the Animal Sound-Spelling Cards and can be used for phonics practice and games.

Additionally, get digital comprehension posters, bookmarks, and context-clue practice.

Also included are an individual fluency assessment and a kid-tested, teacher-approved plan to differentiate fluency instruction in your classroom. Note: This Reading Fluency and Comprehension Toolkit is a “slice” of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, The Science of Reading Intervention Program 128 pages

Preview This Book

Check out the introductory video.

Reading Mark Pennington, pennington publishing, reading comprehension, reading fluency, Reading Fluency and Comprehension Toolkit