As an MA reading specialist and English-language Arts teacher, I know the value of diagnostic assessments. No two students are exactly alike. Each has different instructional needs. Each student deserves instruction adjusted to those needs. But how can elementary, middle, and high school teachers assess and teach to a class or classes full of individuals? Simple. With whole-class assessments. These assessments must be quick and easy to administer, grade, and record. Less time assessing leads to more time teaching.
Following are articles, free resources, and teaching tips regarding ELA/Reading Assessments from the Pennington Publishing Blog. Also, check out the quality instructional programs and resources offered by Pennington Publishing.
ELA/Reading Assessments
Free Whole Class Diagnostic ELA/Reading Assessments
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/diagnostic-reading-and-spelling-assessments/https://penningtonpublishing.com/
Download FREE phonemic awareness, vowel sound phonics, consonant sound phonics, sight word, rimes, sight syllables, fluency, and spelling assessments. All with answers and recording matrices. Most even include audio files for easy test administration. Elementary, secondary, and adult English language-arts and reading intervention teachers need comprehensive literacy assessments to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses for individual students and their classes. These reliable and valid reading and spelling assessments which perform the dual function of placement and diagnosis.
Do’s and Don’ts of ELA and Reading Assessments Episode 1
- Do use comprehensive assessments, not random samples.
- DON’T assess to assess. Assessment is not the end goal.
- DO use diagnostic assessments.
- DON’T assess what you won’t teach.
Do’s and Don’ts of ELA and Reading Assessments Episode 2
- DO analyze data with others (drop your defenses).
- DON’T assess what you can’t teach.
- DO steal from others.
- DON’T assess what you must confess (data is dangerous).
Do’s and Don’ts of ELA and Reading Assessments Episode 3
- DO analyze data both data deficits and mastery.
- DON’T assess what you haven’t taught.
- DO use instructional resources with embedded assessments.
- DON’T use instructional resources which don’t teach to data.
Do’s and Don’ts of ELA and Reading Assessments Episode 4
- DO let diagnostic data do the talking.
- DON’T assume what students do and do not know.
- DO use objective data.
- DON’T trust teacher judgment alone.
Do’s and Don’ts of ELA and Reading Assessments Episode 5
- DO think of assessment as instruction.
- DON’T trust all assessment results.
- DO make students and parents your assessment partners.
- Don’t go beyond the scope of your assessments.
Do’s and Don’ts of ELA and Reading Assessments Episode 6
- DO use both diagnostic and formative assessments.
- DON’T assess to determine a generic problem.
- DO review mastered material often.
- DON’T solely assess grade-level Standards.
Eliminating the Trust Factor with Diagnostic ELA/Reading Assessments
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/eliminating-the-trust-factor-with-diagnostic-elareading-assessments/
In summary, trust the science of comprehensive, diagnostic ELA/reading assessments to inform your instruction. Using this objective data will eliminate the “trust factor” and guess work and enable effective ELA and reading teachers to differentiate instruction.
Don’t Test What You Can’t Teach
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/reading-assessment-dont-test-what-you-cant-teach/
Re-teach the Standards
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/re-teach-the-standards/
In traditional calendar schools across the U.S. and Canada, spring-itis is now setting in. The weather is changing. The clock has sprung forward. The standardized tests are over. Only Open House remains and the summer countdown begins. I have a cure for stable horses and spring-itis: re-teach the Standards. Not a repetitive re-hash of what has already been mastered, but an assessment-based, targeted triage of what was taught, not not caught.
RtI Reading Tests and Resources
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/rti-reading-tests-and-resources/
Ten Criteria for Effective ELA/Reading Diagnostic Assessments
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/ten-criteria-for-effective-elareading-diagnostic-assessments/
Diagnostic assessments are essential instructional tools for effective English-language Arts and reading teachers. However, many teachers resist using these tools because they can be time-consuming to administer, grade, record, and analyze. Here are the criteria for effective diagnostic assessments.
ESL Reading Assessments
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/esl-reading-assessments/
What’s the Value of Individual Reading Assessments?
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/whats-the-value-of-individual-reading-assessments/
Individual reading assessments are time-consuming and inefficient. Effective reading assessments are 1. comprehensive 2. diagnostic and 3. They must be easy to give, easy to grade, and easy to record. Essentially, effective reading assessments can be delivered whole class as accurate screening tools.
Quick Reading Assessments
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/quick-reading-assessments/
At the start of the school year or when they get the inevitable transfer students, veteran teachers realize that they can’t depend solely upon previous teacher or counselor placements with regard to student reading levels. Teachers don’t want to find out in the middle of a grade-level novel that some students are reading two or more years below grade level and can’t hope to understand the book without significant assistance. The best quick initial reading assessment? Reading. Specifically, a short reading fluency passage, but one that gives you not just a reading fluency number, but one that also gives you a good ballpark of what grade level the students can independently access. You’ve never seen anything like this before.
Assessment-based Re-teaching
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/assessment-based-re-teaching/
- It just hit me. I cared more about the quality of what I taught and how I taught it, than what the students needed to learn and if the students learned it. The focus isn’t a distinction without a difference. It’s a game-changer. If you are willing to re-teach what you’ve already taught (and not yet taught) this year, check out my 14 FREE diagnostic ELA and reading assessments with recording matrices. These quick, comprehensive, whole-class tests will give you teachable data to re-teach students what they need.
Mastery Learning in RtI
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/mastery-learning-in-rti/
What if a shaky foundation is what we’re dealing with now? We can’t do anything about the past. Teachers can start playing the blame game and complain that we’re stuck teaching reading to students who missed key foundational components, such as phonics. All-too-often, response to intervention teachers are ignoring shaky foundations and are trying to layer on survival skills without fixing the real problems. Instead, teachers should re-build the foundation. Teachers can figure out what is missing in the individual student skill-sets and fill the gaps… this time with mastery learning. Get Pennington Publishing’s set of diagnostic reading assessments absolutely FREE with the link in this article.
Pre-teach before Assessment
https://blog.penningtonpublishing.com/reading/pre-teach-before-assessment/
Call it what you wish: summer brain-drain, poor retention, a learning disability, problem with learning styles, developmental delay, or lack of motivation or practice… some students just seem to forget what they have learned before. Good assessments catch students at their best. That’s why it makes sense to pre-teach before teachers assess to help students retrieve prior knowledge and get the assessment results that will help us design efficient instruction.
Bookmark and check back often for new articles and free ELA/reading resources from Pennington Publishing.
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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)
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SCIENCE OF READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM RESOURCES HERE for detailed product description and sample lessons.
description and sample lessons.
Grammar/Mechanics, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary
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