Pennington Publishing Blog

Years ago, my favorite elementary principal tasked me, as a freshly-minted reading specialist, to design a new reading fluency assessment for our school. We had been using the Read Naturally® program in our reading intervention lab with some success, but found the placement assessment to be weak and the program too cumbersome to implement as differentiated instruction in teachers’ classrooms. The principal wanted a more effective diagnostic fluency assessment to place students appropriately in a schoolwide fluency program. (I’ll email you the fluency assessment download free of charge at the end of the article.)

A bit of background… Reading scores at her school and throughout the district for grades 4 on up were relatively flat compared to the improving primary scores as a result of implementing science of reading-based instruction. The primary grade teachers were using their reading program narrative text fluencies.

The principal asked me (with the able assistance of 23 fellow district elementary reading specialists) to create a diagnostic fluency assessment that could be used for grades 4 on up. She also wanted the assessment to use an expository text. She had her reasons for these two requirements:

1. Using the same assessment at all grade levels would provide grade to grade data. For example, how might a student perform on the same assessment measure from, say, grades 4 to 5 to 6? Plenty of opportunities for program review!

2. Students in grades 4 on up struggled far more with expository text than narrative text. Of course, the state testing provided more expository at these grade levels than at the primary levels.

I did struggle with her first requirement. In the Read Naturally® program, the Brief Oral Screener helped place students in leveled reading passages. In other words, if a student scored at the lower fourth grade level, that student would practice repeated readings at that level with many passages until graduating to the fifth grade level. Having been trained in the three levels of reading (frustrational, instructional, independent) and Vygotsky’s Zones of Proximal Development, this made perfect sense. Shouldn’t my diagnostic assessment attempt to re-invent, but improve, that same wheel?

“No,” she reasoned. “The students are all expected to read the same texts in their classes from the district-approved literature anthology, history and science textbooks, and class novels, so fluency practice should be on the same text. It’s not the grade level that we need to differentiate for fluency practice; it’s the reading rate.”

I wisely avoided slipping in my additions regarding prosody, inflection, and attention to punctuation. But I did see her point. However, which reading grade level should I choose for the fluency assessment. A fourth grade level would be too easy for a sixth grader and the results would not be reliable indicators of fluency speed and accuracy. Conversely, a sixth grade level might be too challenging for a fourth grader.

I came up with a fluency assessment idea and brainstormed how to construct and implement it with those 23 district elementary reading specialists I mentioned previously.

I designed a fluency assessment that helps teachers observe how well a student reads at different levels of text complexity. I chose an expository text, rather than a narrative, as its text structure, syntax, and vocabulary are more likely to elicit more useful diagnostic data for older reading intervention students.

The Pets Fluency Assessment is leveled in a unique pyramid design: the first paragraph is at the first grade (Fleish-Kincaid) reading level; the second paragraph is at the second grade level… and, lastly, the seventh paragraph is at the seventh grade level. Thus, the reader begins practice at an easier level to build confidence and then moves to more difficult academic language and syntax. As the student reads the fluency passage, the teacher will be able to note the reading levels at which the student has a high degree of accuracy and automaticity.

The 383 word passage permits the teacher to assess two-minute reading fluencies (a much better measurement than a one-minute timing).

With respect to instruction, I’ve found success with two methods, both using expository texts that are designed in the same easy-to-challenging structure and length as the diagnostic. Check out my article, “How to Differentiate Fluency Practice” for useful tips.

*****

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.

SCIENCE OF READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM RESOURCES HERE for detailed product description and sample lessons.

Get the Pets Fluency Assessment FREE Resource:

Grammar/Mechanics expository reading fluency, fluency assessment, free reading fluency, reading fluency, reading fluency practice, reading fluency test

Download 2 FREE lessons (178 slides and a 15 min video) to check out The Science of Reading Intervention Program. Effective. Evidence-based. Accelerated program. Easy-to-teach. Affordable.

This evidence-based, SoR-aligned, accelerated program has been designed for struggling readers ages 8-adult. The 54 lessons each include 5 Daily Google Slide Activities:

5 Daily Google Slide Activities (55 minute lessons, 3 days per week, 18 weeks)

1. 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology: Advanced phonemic awareness drills and Greek and Latin Anchor Words to help students learn the high frequency prefixes, roots, and suffixes (5 Minutes).
2.  Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling: Continuous blending of 4-8 words to learn phonetically regular focus sound-spellings and 2 Heart Words per lesson, plus syllable and spelling rules (10 Minutes). Includes audio and video files.
3. Sounds and Spellings Practice: Independent practice with text box typing and drag and drop activities for the focus sound-spellings (10 Minutes).
4. Heart Words Practice: Independent practice with text box typing and drag and drop activities for the 2 words with phonetically irregular sound-spellings (5 Minutes).
5.  Sam and Friends Phonics Books: Decodable stories with teenage characters and plots for each daily lesson with comprehension questions, margin annotations, and word fluency practice. Beautifully illustrated by noted comic artist, David Rickert. (Slides with text box typing and PDFs in Tablet, Chromebook, and Phone Formats) 25 Minutes

Written for teachers by a teacher. Completely aligned to the science of reading.

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary decodables for older readers, Mark Pennington, phonemic awareness, phonics programs, reading fluency, reading intervention program, response to intervention, science of reading, science of reading program

“Mr. Buh-Buh-Buh-Biden, what’s that word?” a nun asked Joe Biden in front of his seventh-grade classmates.

It’s a seventh grade in a Catholic school in Delaware. The teacher, a nun, is doing a read-around of a story about Sir Walter Raleigh. Students take their turns reading out loud in front of the class. Some are nervously awaiting their turns; others, like young Joe Biden, are petrified. Why so? Biden is a stutterer. The nun calls upon Biden to read. Biden is not surprised; he knows that he is the fifth student to be called upon, because the nun is choosing students in alphabetic order. Like many students, instead of reading along silently with the other students, Biden has been practicing the paragraph he predicts will be his to read. Biden begins to read out loud and stumbles over the word, gentleman. The nun cruelly mocks him to correct his pronunciation.

“Mr. Buh-Buh-Buh-Biden, what’s that word?” the nun asks.

Biden says he rose from his desk and left the classroom in protest, then walked home. The family story is that his mother, Jean, drove him back to school and confronted the nun with the made-for-TV phrase ‘You do that again, I’ll knock your bonnet off your head!’ I ask Biden what went through his mind as the nun mocked him.

‘Anger, rage, humiliation,’ he says. His speech becomes staccato. ‘A feeling of, uh… it just drops out of your chest, just, like, you feel … a void.’

“What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say,” John Hendrickson, The Atlantic

Other sources confirm that bullying was not limited to this one instance with the nun: “As a child, Biden struggled with a stutter, and kids called him ‘Dash’ and ‘Joe Impedimenta’ to mock him. He eventually overcame his speech impediment by memorizing long passages of poetry and reciting them out loud in front of the mirror” (https://www.biography.com/political-figure/joe-biden).

Biden recounts how he coped with reading out loud in front of the class when students would take turns reading a book, one by one, up and down the rows: “I could count down how many paragraphs, and I’d memorize it, because I found it easier to memorize than look at the page and read the word. I’d pretend to be reading,’ Biden says. “You learned early on who the hell the bullies were” (Hendrickson).

Did you know?

“In the most basic sense, a stutter is a repetition, prolongation, or block in producing a sound. It typically presents between the ages of 2 and 4, in up to twice as many boys as girls, who also have a higher recovery rate. During the develop­mental years, some children’s stutter will disappear completely without intervention or with speech therapy. The longer someone stutters, however, the lower the chances of a full recovery—­perhaps due to the decreasing plasticity of the brain. Research suggests that no more than a quarter of people who still stutter at 10 will completely rid themselves of the affliction as adults” (Hendrickson).

Vice-President Biden largely overcame the repetitious stammering that is widely understood as stuttering. With the help of brief speech therapy and practice, Biden’s stuttering is nowhere near as pronounced, nor as problematic, as that of King George VI. You no doubt have seen the Academy Award Winner, The King’s Speech and the king’s struggles with public speaking. However, Biden still blocks on certain sounds. In The Atlantic article quoted above, Biden describes in detail and models how he prepares for speeches and debates. He writes out key phrases and clauses and uses his own coding system of marks and slashes to indicate accents, pauses, and breaths. When speaking extemporaneously, Biden uses circumlocution (word or phrase substitution) as a coping strategy to switch to more easily pronounced sounds. Often, people notice what appear to be unnatural pauses as Biden searches for alternate words. Occasionally, these substitutions produce forced syntax (the order of words in a sentence) or even gaffes. Obviously, Biden’s stuttering doesn’t explain all of his verbal miscues, but perhaps more can be attributed to this challenge than we think.

For our purposes, Joe Biden’s story can be instructive as we teach and practice reading in the classroom. 

A few points from this M.A. Reading Specialist (yours truly), who of course, loved to read out loud in class:

Why Reading Out Loud is Important

Reading out loud helps developing readers practice their reading skills. Only by practicing reading out loud can students hear and adjust to pitch, vocal variation, accents, and attention to punctuation (Shakthawatt). Additionally, reading research confirms that reading out loud improves automaticity in terms of sounding-out phonetically regular words, blending multi-syllabic words, and recalling sight words (non-phonetic memory words). These skills do transfer to silent reading fluency.

Reading out loud is a necessary social skill. Students need to be prepared for public speaking. Adults will be called upon to read in front of audiences in meetings, business, church, etc. Again, allowing student to practice in advance, as Vice-President Biden does, affords optimal performance and less stigma.

When teachers listen to students reading out loud, the teacher can provide helpful feedback and correction. Obviously, teachers can’t correct a student’s silent reading.

What Kind of Reading Out Loud is Effective

Assessment: 

Most teachers use individual fluency assessments (download a free diagnostic at the end of this article) in which students read out loud for a set time. Teachers record the number of words read during the prescribed time, less the miscues, on a progress monitoring matrix. reading assessments to monitor reading fluency progress are we, but the one student-teacher reading is a controlled experience. Ensuring that the assessment is administered privately, away from the class, will reduce student anxiety and produce more accurate results.

Many teachers use running records to analyze and correct student miscues during guided reading. Suggestion: Rather than pulling aside a student to read individually, why not sit behind or next to the focus student and listen in as all students in the group are reading?

Practice:

Use choral reading fluency practice in which students are grouped by fluency levels. The student reads with others, not to others.

Practice reading with a modeled reader. Online readings at the students’ challenge levels is helpful and improves fluency, including accuracy and speed. Check out my reading intervention program below, which includes 43 YouTube expository articles, read at three different speeds for ideal modeled reading practice.

Repeated readings out loud produces transferable gains to cold, unpracticed reading. One effective technique is for a guided reading group to non-chorally read with six-inch quiet voices (not whispering) short texts over and over again. In other words, students read at individual paces, not in unison with others. To facilitate, the teacher can stagger start times. Students get used to the white noise of others quietly reading, and teachers can listen in to individuals and even take running records.

Paired reading out loud can be beneficial if care is provided to match students, in terms of reading fluency levels, and compatibility.

What Kind of Reading Out Loud is Not Effective

Isolated reading out loud in front of peers is counter-productive, not only for stutterers, but also for below grade level readers, ELL, ESL, ESOL students, special education students, shy students, etc. Traditional methods of isolated reading out loud include the following: round-robin (take turns in a certain order to prevent surprise), popcorn (call on students to intentionally surprise and ensure that they are following along), and guided reading, in which students take turns and the teacher completes running record assessments of the individual readers.

Don’t use individual students to read through a story (even if students volunteer to read). First, calling on individuals to read interrupts the flow of the reading and reduces listening comprehension. Second, why select a non-fluent reader, who will make mistakes, or even the best student reader in class and so ensure less than optimal listening comprehension? Instead, to facilitate optimal listening comprehension and the best modeled reading, the teacher or audio book narrator should read the story out loud with occasional pauses to discuss a passage. To build independence, avoid reading every line of text out loud. 

Don’t practice any individual reading out loud that takes away from the entire class reading out loud. Any form of individual reading in which a student only reads out loud for 30 seconds in a 15 minute read-aloud is not adequate practice.

Not all choral reading practice is ideal. When students, led by the teacher, are expected to read chorally, the teacher is forced to read too-slowly for the fluent readers, just right for some readers, and far too quickly for less fluent readers. Teachers can’t put what belongs in a small group or individual box into a whole class box. Only practice choral reading in the context of level reading fluency groups, in which each student is reading at a certain reading fluency.

Get the The Pets Fluency Assessment FREE Resource:

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.

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary Biden gaffes, fluency assessments, guided reading, Joe Biden, John Hendrickson, Mark Pennington, popcorn reading, read alouds, reading fluency, reading out loud, round robin reading, running records, science of reading, silent reading, Teaching Reading Strategies, The Atlantic, What Joe Biden Can't Bring Himself to Say

Silent Reading Fluency

A bad habit is hard to break, especially when it’s a bad reading habit. However, replacing bad reading habits with good ones can significantly improve silent reading fluency. In other words, you’ll read faster and with better understanding. Check out these four tips to build comprehension.

1. Improve your reading posture. Your body position affects how well you understand what you read. For good reading posture, sit up straight in a straight-backed chair at a desk or table with good lighting and keep your feet flat on the floor. Place two hands on the reading. Keep the distance from eyes to book about the same distance as that of your forearm. Don’t angle the book too much so that you can keep your head straight.
2. Improve your concentration. When reading at home, put away your phone, get away from the television and computer, and find a quiet room. Anything competing with full concentration reduces reading reading comprehension. Good reading cannot include multi-tasking. Stop taking mental vacations during your reading. For example, never allow yourself a pause at the end of a page or chapter–read on!
3. When reading silently, don’t pronounce the words quietly or in your head, and don’t move your lips. These sub-vocalizations interfere with your understanding of the text. Focus on the meaning of the text, not on saying and hearing the words. Some students find that clenching their teeth or reading with a clean pencil in their mouths helps break the lip movement habit.
4. Establish a rhythm in your silent reading. The reading pace should be hurried, but at a consistent pace. To pace your reading, place your left hand on the left page and the right hand on the right page. Put three fingers together and place your hand under the first line on the page. If right-handed, place your index finger under the first letter of the line. If you are left-handed, place your ring finger under the first letter of the line. Now, slide your hand underneath the first line at a comfortable, but hurried pace while reading the words on the line. When the index (or ring) finger reaches the last letter of the first line, quickly slide the hand back to the first letter of the line and drop down to the second line. Continue to read in the same manner, but slow down your pace when you sense that your comprehension has decreased because of difficult text.

Using the pacing hand prevents re-reading, skipping lines, and daydreaming. Shortening the stroke of the hand across the page, after practice, will also help expand your peripheral vision across the page. This is important because reading research tells us that good readers have fewer eye fixations per line. When the eyes move from fixation to fixation, there is little reading comprehension. So, focus on the center of the page and use your peripheral vision to view words to the left and right as you are reading.

FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource: 

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.

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary bad reading habits, dyslexia, reading comprehension, reading eye movement, reading fluency, scanning, science of reading, silent reading, skimming, speed reading, tracking reading

Grades 2-8 Reading Fluency Norms

Working years ago as a reading specialist in a large and diverse Northern California school district, years ago, I was part of cadre of talented reading specialists and literacy coaches. Following recommendations of the National Reading Panel, we began exploring means to explicitly teach and practice reading fluency.

Our first task was to find out how our students were performing relative to national norms. Using  Hasbrouck and Tindal’s grades 1-6 fluency norms, followed later by middle school norms, we selected grade level expository texts from our district reading series. Most all of the schools bought into completing one-minute baseline, end of first trimester, end of second trimester, and end of school fluency assessments with these district-adopted reading passages. We analyzed student data vis a vis the fluency norms and discussed the need to provide fluency intervention programs at each of our 30 elementary sites. From these data we determined that we needed to establish fluency interventions for grades 3-6 students. However, we also recognized the fact that using a grade-level passage as a screener had plenty of limitations.

Placement criteria, based upon the grade level baseline assessment, were determined by the school site and varied greatly. We selected the Read Naturally® program as our district-wide fluency program. Once placed within the fluency intervention, students were further assessed with Read Naturally’s Brief Oral Screener (a series of short sentence groupings with instructions to test up or down according to how well students read) was administered individually to establish an instructional reading fluency level. For many students, this second assessment placed them at grade-level, time of year, reading norms, and so these students were quickly exited from the program.

Reading specialists trained teachers and paraprofessionals and at some sites helped staff the interventions. Instructional delivery varied from school to school. Some schools ran Read Naturally® fluency labs as half-hour pull-out programs during the two-hour literacy block; others did so during social studies or science instructional periods; still others did so during early-late ability groups times; and some built the program into after school programs. Funding varied from Title 1, to PTA sponsorship, to general education allocations.

In the original Read Naturally® program, each grade level had one or two sets of fluency passages with a few short recall comprehension questions and the timing sheet. The basic practice included taking a cold (unpracticed) timing on a new reading passage, reading along with modeled reading cassette tapes (using headphones) over and over again. The modeled readings were all recorded at one speed. Of course, since that time the program has evolved with online placement, more grade level passages, and multiple speed modeled readings. The reading fluency interventions were widely perceived as successes. However, they were expensive in terms of materials, personnel, and instructional time.

To address these expenses, I began developing procedures and materials to streamline fluency instruction and bring it into the classroom.

I began developing a diagnostic fluency assessment which would “kill two birds with one stone.” My goal was to screen for fluency deficits and establish an optimal instructional fluency level in the same assessment. After plenty of trial runs and critiques from fellow reading specialists and literacy coaches, I completed the “Pets” Fluency Assessment. This assessment (download for free at end of article) is a two-minute (much more accurate than one-minute) expository passage with the first two paragraphs at third grade, the next two at fifth grade, and the last two at seventh grade level. As the teacher listens, it’s quite easy to determine an instructional fluency level as well as establish a baseline fluency. Plus, the initial lower reading level provides a confidence-builder which elicits more accurate data for the succeeding paragraphs. So much better than handing a grade-level fluency passage to a vulnerable reader! And it provides both screening and teachable data.

Working at three elementary schools, I imposed upon a dozen or so grades 3-6 teachers to experiment and re-design a four group, 15-20 minute, instructional fluency program that would meet the needs of below, at, and above grade level students within the class room. The kids loved the fast-paced reading practice and teachers saw significant improvement in all levels of students’ fluency scores as indicated by the trimester district assessments. Check out the details of this in-class fluency program design.

The two-in-one assessment and in-class instructional design helped solve the problem of expensive pull-out intervention programs.

Reading Fluency and Comprehension Toolkit

At the encouragement of teachers, I began writing expository passages, based on every student’s favorite subjects: animals, with the same tiered design for practice. As class sets of relatively inexpensive Chromebooks and iPads became more accessible, I recorded the passages at three different speeds to challenge students in their individual zones of proximity as indicated by the “Pets” Fluency Assessment. These 129 modeled reading passages have been widely used to provide individualized modeled reading fluency practice.

Later, I developed vocabulary and comprehension questions for each of the animal fluency passages.

*****

The print copies of the Animal Fluency Articles include challenge words in the upper right corner for the teacher to pre-teach. Word counts are provided in the left margin for fluency timings. The YouTube videos of each article include a picture of the animal and a modeled reading, but do not include the challenge words or word counts.

Additionally, the Animal Fluency Articles are available as YouTube videos for individualized fluency instruction. Each article has been recorded at three different reading speeds (Level A at 95-115 words per minute; Level B at 115-135 words per minute; and Level C at 135-155 words per minute) to provide modeled readings at each of your students’ challenge levels. A total of 129 videos!

Get the Pets Fluency Assessment FREE Resource:

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.

PROGRAM RESOURCES HERE. 

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary fluency assessments, Mark Pennington, Reading Comprehension and Fluency Toolkit, reading fluency, reading fluency norms, Teaching Reading Strategies

Every teacher and parent has heard about transformers: the movies, the action characters, etc. If you’re a parent of a younger child, you know all about Bumblebee.

Since the dawn of the Transformers in 1984, the spunky little Autobot called Bumblebee has been a fan favorite. Why? He was the underdog. He was small, and he was one of the weaker Transformers, but his heart was huge and he showed great bravery on the battlefield. As a result, he was an admired and gentle friend not only to humans, but to his peers as well. And it didn’t hurt that his alternate mode was a cute little yellow Volkswagen Beetle. He now has at least six other transformations! https://screenrant.com/bumblebee-transformers-last-knight-solo-trivia-facts/

What if we could apply that same transformer concept to beginning reading, reading intervention, and multi-syllabic word work? We can with Syllable Transformers.

Syllable Transformers

As a reading specialist working with struggling older readers in the 1990s, I had the pleasure of learning from the late Dr. John Sheffelbine from California State University at Sacramento. John was a self-described “phonicator” and developed both the BPST (Basic Phonics Skills Test), the Scholastic Phonics Readers, and the SIPPS program. One powerful set of lessons that John developed dealt with open (long vowel) and closed (short vowel) syllables. An open syllable is one which ends in a long vowel e.g. bay; a closed syllable ends in a consonant and the vowel is short e.g. bat.

John hypothesized that the best way to learn these open and closed syllable rules was to practice them together: to see how the vowel sound transforms from one syllable pattern to another. Additionally, because educators were transitioning from the whole language/balanced literacy philosophy to a phonics-based approach, many students over-relied on sight words and syllables, rather than upon applying sound-symbol correspondences. The instructional implications were clear that practice in real syllable patterns would not solve the problem for these “look and say” syllable guessers. The answer was to use nonsense syllables. Brilliant!

I tried John’s “Syllable Transformations” and they worked wonders. However, I could see the power of expanding John’s idea to other syllable patterns. I also tweaked his approach to make the methodology a bit more “user-friendly” and “technologically-savvy” (I typed them up and displayed them on a machine we used to call the overhead projector.)

Of course, John’s “Syllable Transformations” prefigured what we now refer to as flexing the vowel and applying set for variability. Years later I developed my own comprehensive reading intervention program (promo below), and I included Syllable Transformers as a quick warm-up activity before multi-syllabic word work. Teachers and students love this fast-paced whole-class response activity.

Examples (Open and Closed Syllables): ba-bam-bay-tay-tat

In my Pennington Multi-Syllabic Strategies for Familiar and Unfamiliar Words I expand the strategy of flexing the vowel to adjusting consonant sound variations, syllable types, syllable division guidelines, common syllable patterns, vowel and consonant accent shifts, and conventional spelling rules to provide a bank of problem-solving choices for decoding and encoding.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 6 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Phonics and Heart Words Practice 4. Word Chains 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables for olders). 6. Elkonin Sound Box dictations, Personal Sound Walls, and Multi-Syllabic Word Work. 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.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills base words, consonants, CV, CVVC, digraphs, diphthongs, encoding, Greek and Latin word parts, Mark Pennington, morphemes, multi-syllabic word work, open and closed syllables, phonics, reading fluency, sight syllables, sound-spellings, spelling, spelling games, spelling patterns, spelling rules, spelling skills, spelling sorts, structural analysis, syllable rules, syllable transformations, syllable transformers, syllables, Teaching Reading Strategies, transformations, transformers, VC, vowel digraphs, vowel teams, vowels, word attack, word parts, word recognition, word sorts

AR or RC?

The purpose of this article on Reading Counts! is threefold: 1. To briefly summarize the basics of the Reading Counts! (RC) independent reading management program 2. To analyze three key claims made by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMS) regarding the efficacy of the RC (formerly Scholastic Reading Counts!) program and provide counterclaims by reading researchers, librarians, students, teachers, and Yours Truly. 3. To promote my own reading intervention program at the end of the article with free teaching resources 🙂

Background

I previously ventured into the deep waters of independent reading management programs a number of years ago with my article, The 18 Reasons Not to Use Accelerated Reader. Accelerated Reader™ is the most popular independent reading management program with 180,000 book titles (January 2019) assigned a Reading Practice Quiz. RC is the second place challenger with 45,000. Teacher comments on my article tend to focus more on the abuses of the program, and less so on the program itself. Many teachers are quite defensive about their use of the AR program. Understandably so. We teachers view our instructional choices as reflections of our professionalism. Curriculum is personal. In anticipation of similar comments to this article on Reading Counts!, I would like to preemptively respond by saying, “I’m sure that you are doing your part to adapt the Reading Counts! program to the needs of your kids, and I respect your professional judgment that you know your students best.” Please don’t shoot the messenger! However, as I re-read “The 18 Reasons Not to Use Accelerated Reader” in preparation for this article, I would have to say that most of the problems in the AR program are applicable to the RC program, as well. I won’t cover the same ground in this article. However, I will analyze three of the claims made in the RC program, which I see as being more exclusive to this program. But first, a brief overview of how the RC program works.

How Reading Counts! Works

• A school or district pays a school start-up fee of $375.00 and is assigned a sales representative. The RC software management program is licensed for an annual fee of $4.00 per student (a lower price for 2019). The reading placement and monitoring assessment, recently re-named the Reading Inventory (RI), costs an additional $4.00 per student. So, if my math is correct, that’s $4,000.00 for a 500 student elementary school every year. Plus, more money…
• The school and/or district re-allocate portions of their budgets to purchase books included within the RC program. Currently, RC has about 45,000 titles, but unlike the books in the AR program, the company makes money from each sale, because HMH publishes them! These purchases will necessarily become an every-year budget item. 
• The HMS sales representative in-services school librarians, teachers, and administrators (lots of online help, as well) on how to implement the RC program. Suggestions as to how to inform and work with parents and corresponding resources are provided. The program resources are relatively easy to use, but time-consuming.
• The classroom teacher or librarian administers the computer-adaptive Reading Inventory (RI) as a reading placement test to all students participating in the RC program. This test provides a Personal Lexile® score for each student.
• Teachers use the Student Achievement Manager (SAM) data and management system to generate student and class reports. The reports list the results of the RI as a Personal Lexile® number (level or measure) for each student and a class Lexile average. A higher Lexile number indicates a higher reading level ability.
• The reports also list the students’ optimal Lexile text readability levels (a numerical range). A text’s Lexile level is determined by its semantic and syntactic degree of difficulty and sentence length. Once students know their reading levels, they can select books from the Search Book Expert Online ,within these reading levels. Although the RC is a Lexile-based program, it also includes grade-level equivalency and guided reading levels in this search engine. Additional filters include grade-level interest (K–2, 3–5, 6–8, high school, and high interest/intervention), fiction and non-fiction, subject areas, genre, and curriculum-integrated books. Note that the HMS reading intervention programs, READ 180 Next Generation® and System 44® include some RC titles for their independent reading rotations.
• Teachers and students set reading goals in terms of a point system. Each book is assigned a specific point value based upon its length and text complexity. Many teachers establish a monthly points requirement.
• Once students have finished their books, they take a corresponding quiz on the computer, or the teacher may choose to print the quiz. Although the test bank for each quiz includes 30 items, the default number of questions is 10. The RC authors and sales representatives make much ado about the larger quiz bank of questions compared to that of the AR program. They claim that is less easy for students to cheat due to the randomized 10 question default when students are sitting side-by-side. This may be true; however, a quick search indicated plenty of RC quiz “cheat sites,” as are found with the AR program. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Students are allowed to examine their incorrect responses, but there is no pay-off for doing so if the quiz re-takes use different questions. 
• If the students achieve a predetermined score (mastery criteria set by the teacher), they receive a “congratulations screen” and an opportunity to rate the book they read on the “Read-o-Meter.” Students can also check their own RC Student Progress Report. Points are awarded based upon the percentage of quiz questions answered correctly. If the students do not achieve mastery, the teacher may require them to read the book again and retest or re-visit the students’ RI Lexile level range and the level and content of the book. Students are able to take the 10-question quiz 3 times, because there are 30 questions.
• Teachers generate reports on students’ quiz scores and track the amount of reading and student test scores. They can also receive alerts when a student has not taken a quiz within a given period.
• Once individual student point goals (usually set monthly) have been mastered, the student receives a certificate of achievement.
• The Reading Counts! Educator’s Guide provides plenty of reproducibles to supplement the quizzes, such as reading logs, story charts, book reports, parent letters (in several languages), and guides for teachers to write their own quizzes (if the school library does not have the RC book).

Claims and Counterclaims

Claim 1: Students improve their reading more when the complexity of the text they read matches their reading ability. The best test to measure that optimal match or zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978)? The HMH Reading Inventory. Why? The RI is a criterion (compared to a fixed goal, such as a Common Core Standard) and norm-referenced (compared to other students) test. This is important because the test design allows teachers to administer the RI twice more within the school year to monitor progress. The Lexiles, which RI uses, have improved readability assessments (standard errors of measurement have been minimized and the amount of comprehension variance that can be explained by text difficulty has been improved. Accelerated Reader’s STAR test doesn’t have those advantages.

Counterclaim: Given that the RI is state of the art, in terms of Lexile levels and matching students to texts, and given that the ability to administer the test three times per year does provide a valid measure to monitor progress. But, the entire design of the RC programs begs the question. It assumes what has yet to be proven. As noted reading researcher, Dr. Tim Shanahan asserts,

…Lexiles have greatly improved readability assessment … and yet we are in no better shape than before since there are no studies indicating that if you teach students at particular Lexile levels more learning will accrue. http://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/shanahan-on-literacy/teaching-books-students-reading-levels

…we have put way too much confidence in an unproven theory. The model of learning underlying that theory is too simplistic. Learning to read is an interaction between a learner, a text, and a teacher. Instructional level theory posits that the text difficulty level relative to the student reading level is the important factor in learning. But that ignores the guidance, support, and scaffolding provided by the teacher. [In doing so, educators] have striven to get kids to levels where they will likely learn best with minimal teacher support. https://shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/rejecting-instructional-level-theory

Matching the right books to readers is simply more complex than the quantitative Lexile approach RC uses. Content, theme, and sophistication of thought matter, as well as the age and maturity of the reader are critically important factors to consider when students select books for independent reading. Most would find the following strictly quantitative Lexile measurements, listed in parentheses, to be inappropriate criteria for these grade levels.

• 2nd Grade: Night – Wiesel (570)
• 3rd Grade: The Sun Also Rises – Hemingway (610); Twisted – Anderson (680); Incarceron – Fisher (600)
• 4th Grade: Grapes of Wrath – Steinbeck (680); The Color Purple – Walker (670)
• 5th Grade: For Whom the Bell Tolls – Hemingway (840); Kite Runner – Hosseini (840); A Farewell to Arms – Hemingway (730); Cat’s Cradle – Vonnegut (790)
• 6th Grade: As I Lay Dying – Faulkner (870); The Sound and the Fury – Faulkner (870); To Kill a Mockingbird – Lee (870); Fahrenheit 451 – Bradbury (890)

http://www.unleashingreaders.com/?p=8891

Additionally, the authors of the Common Core State Standards, with their emphases on text complexity, specifically challenge the notion that reading instruction should focus solely on texts at student ability levels. The authors cite research suggesting that with such scaffolds as close reading, even struggling readers can access significantly more complex text than that to which they have been traditionally given access. https://achievethecore.org/content/upload/Implementation%20-%20Issues%20With%20a%20Leveled-Only%20Text%20Approach[1].pdf

“Below are bibliographic citations for the 26 studies referenced in Shanahan (2014) regarding students making gains with more complex text when given appropriate scaffolding. In addition abstracts and full-text PDF’s of all studies are available as well. These references were provided by Shanahan in “Building Up To FrustrationLevel Text” in Reading Today Online available here:”

https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2014/09/02/building-up-to-frustration-level-text

Furthermore, reading research has repeatedly demonstrated the important variable of prior knowledge with respect to reading comprehension. When readers have significant prior knowledge on a topic, familiarity with the genre, or experience with the author’s writing style, even high Lexile level texts can be accessible. Prior knowledge and scaffolding relevant content and context can often trump the quantitative challenges of complex semantic and syntactic text for students.

Motivation is another significant variable in matching readers to text that can override the limitations of the RC Lexile levels. My youngest son was in 4th grade when the last Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, came out. Clearly, the quantitative Lexile level of 880 should have prevented his MA reading specialist father (me) from purchasing this “frustration level” book. Instead, I dutifully ignored the quantitative data and waited in line with my fourth grader for the midnight release of this treasured book. My son plowed through the book with a high level of comprehension. By the end of fourth grade, my son was reading significantly above grade level. Thanks to motivational influence of J.K. Rowling and the dozens of peers who were concurrently reading and discussion that book during recess.

Others would agree that reader motivation is far more important than instructional reading levels in book selection. From Ricki Ginsberg’s article, “This is my Anti-Lexile, Anti-Reading Level Post” (Ginsberg is Assistant Professor of English Education at Colorado State University):

I’m a 6th grader and when I took a Lexile test for my grade, I got stuck with books I hate so much. We had to search for books in my Lexile. I am so bored of those books. I want to read whatever I want to.

I took my grandson (a few years ago) to his book fair to purchase some books with him. He chose a few, and then we went back to his classroom to get his things, where I met his teacher. She took a look at the books he had chosen, and was excited about, and said, “Oh, I think these are too hard for you. You need to choose ones more at your level.” She didn’t know that I was a teacher, and I didn’t tell her. I almost hit her, but I didn’t do that either. She was the one who pretty much stopped his excitement about reading…

As a librarian, I have fought for years against leveling books. I was supported my district years ago against AR, but my job as a librarian was shifted to support classroom curriculum instead of supporting reading enjoyment, reference process, and library skills. Now a new deputy superintendent, whose old District used a Lexile based reading program, is spending money on a program that is Lexile leveled. While library books are hardly given any budget money, tens of thousands are being spent… The skills that teachers built by learning how to “fit” a book to a student and teaching students to self-select challenging and interesting reading material is being prostituted to paying publishers for poorly written formulaic books dressed up with attractive level numbers. It is a disservice to our students that ultimately destroys their confidence in becoming independent readers.

Used with permission www.unshelved.com

Claim 2: RC provides the accountability to ensure that students are reading independently.

At the heart of this powerful program is the practice provided by its quizzes. Unlike other reading assessment programs, no two quizzes in Reading Counts! are the same, struggling readers have the opportunity to retake quizzes, and quiz settings can be customized based on individual students’ needs for extra support or challenge. This quiz quality leads to more accurate and actionable data to keep students on track for success.

[Reading Counts!] automatically generates a quiz that meets each student’s reading needs. Because every quiz provides a true formative, curriculum-based assessment, As a computer-based program, RC provides immediate feedback and unique opportunities for mastery. Students can review questions that were incorrectly answered. Because each quiz is drawn from a database of up to 30 questions, students not showing an expected level of mastery can retake quizzes with a different set of questions. Research shows that when students are provided with immediate feedback, they are able to self-correct and make academic progress (Branford, Goldman & Vye 1991). https://www.hmhco.com/programs/reading-counts

Counterclaim: While the reading research is clear that students who read independently are significantly more likely to outperform peers who do not read on their own (Anderson, Wilson & Fielding 1998), and those who read more independently score higher on reading tests compared to those who read less (Juel, 1988; Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986; Stanovich, 1986), the research does not support the claim of the RC authors and editorial board that the type of accountability that the program uses (quizzes) is necessary to achieve optimal reading gains.

Each of the 45,000 RC quizzes includes a test bank of 30 questions. They are primarily recall questions with some vocabulary and a minimum number of inferential questions. Few of the questions are relevant to the big ideas or themes of the corresponding books. In essence, the quizzes are designed to hold students accountable for reading their books.

Some researchers such as Dr. Stephen Krashen, argue that free voluntary reading, without accountability, produces greater reading gains than independent reading programs with accountability, as with the quizzes in the RC program. You may wish to check out my dialogue with Dr. Krashen on in-class independent reading and accountability. I disagree with Dr. Krashen and support independent reading with accountability.

My take is that we teachers have much better methods to hold students accountable for independent reading that also reinforce effective reading practice. For example, as a middle school teacher, I use online peer book clubs and student-parent discussions for my middle school students. I’ve also taught high school ELA and supervised elementary teachers doing the same. Plenty of accountability and practice, using the motivating social nature of reading. And no in-class independent reading. It’s all homework. I’m no guru, but I’m persistent, and I get between 80–90% participation (more the first semester than the last).

I teach students and their parents how to self-select reading, informed, but not limited by word recognition measures. However, challenging books need not be the only books students read. Reading at multiple levels has clear advantages and reflects real-world reading. I also train students how to discuss their reading in their online book clubs with their peers (one daily post and two comments required using the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks… download follows… to prompt), and I pop in to add my 2 cents. At Back-to-School Night (I require at least one family member to attend, and arrange infinite make-up sessions until I meet with every parent or guardian), I train adults how to hold 3-minute student-led reading discussions and parents assign points for their kid’s 5-days-per-week independent reading and discussion. I’m in a lower, poverty-challenged school with 75% free and reduced lunch, multi-ethnic, multi-languages, etc. If you have tricks up your sleeves to hold students accountable for reading that don’t require additional teacher correction or huge amounts of time, please add to the comments section of this post. At the end of this article, I link to a nicely organized list of articles and free resources for ELA and reading intervention teachers with quite a few more ideas on independent reading.

In the RC program, the SAM management system tracks individual and class quiz scores and also the number of words students have read in each book. If a student doesn’t pass the quiz after three attempts, she or he loses credit for having read the book. This means that the number of words the student has read is not tallied, and the student doesn’t receive a reward certificate as quickly. If it’s the independent reading that reinforces comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and fluency, why doesn’t the student receive credit for doing so? The bottom line is that students receive positive reinforcement for mastering quizzes, not for reading. Reading is not rewarded; passing the quizzes is.

Claim 3: RC EMPOWERS educators with reports and actionable data at the student, school and district level. As a supplementary reading program, RC REINFORCES comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency skills. 

Counterclaims: The reports do provide information to the teacher regarding who read what, at what Lexile levels, how many pages read, what quiz scores were achieved, who hasn’t taken a quiz for awhile (alerts), and more. Plenty of information about what your students are and are not doing with respect to their independent reading. All interesting information, but information which takes time to input, analyze, and report (whoever says that technology is a time-saver is crazy); and information which RI administrators (like your principal) can access and compare to that of your colleagues. Although not advocated by the authors of the RC program, most teachers do use this data in various ways to provide incentives for participation in terms of rewards and/or grades. Of course, the incentives can become problematic. See my article, The 18 Reasons Not to Use Accelerated Reader for examples. In short, the SAM reports do provide data collection and management functions (ones which could be done by paper and pencil or a simple Excel® spreadsheet in less time at no cost); however, none of these data informs reading instruction.

Next, let’s take a look at the claim about empowering educators with actionable data. Remember, the two assessments of the RC program are the three-times per year, Lexile-based HMH Reading Inventory (used for initial placement and subsequent progress monitoring) and the 45,000 quizzes. To my mind, actionable data should mean teachable data derived from prescriptive assessments that are reliable and valid. Let’s examine whether these two assessments provide information which is teachable.

For example, let’s say the students in your class take the RI during the first week of school. One of your bright students, Amanda, scores an above grade-level Personal Lexile score of 700, while  your class average is 550. With the SAM management software, you are able to use that data to match readers to books. However, other than that use (which we’ve already shown to be of questionable value), those initial RI Lexile scores provide no data to inform our reading instruction. On the RI given 3 months later, Amanda improves to a 750 and her average quiz scores from 80–90%, but your class averages the same 550 Lexile level and has not improved its 70% quiz average.

What does that data indicate? Something appears to be helping Amanda improve her reading, but we have no idea what it is. It could be the RC program; it could be the independent reading, itself; it could be the reading instruction you are doing in class, though you may not know exactly what instruction is helping; it could be what her parents are doing at home. Regarding your class, average Lexile and quiz scores, something appears not to be working. But what is the something so we can do something about it? We don’t know. You could look at subgroups and find out that your girls have improved more than your boys, or one ethnic group over the other, etc. But how does the Lexile and quiz data inform our instruction? The short answer? It doesn’t. The RI and quizzes provide no information about which reading skills have not yet been mastered and which have been mastered by Amanda or class as a whole. Neither assessment offers the teacher any specific data regarding what to teach and what not to teach. So why test if it does not provide actionable data?

A good question. Of course, teachers have been creating diagnostic and formative assessments for years that do inform their reading instruction in specific sub-skills. Good teachers are more than willing to test when the data pinpoints what needs to be taught and practiced and what does not require repeated instruction. Like many teachers, I’ve developed my own assessments to inform my instruction. I’ve written and field tested 13 diagnostic reading assessments with recording matrices and audio files, which provide teachable data. I provide them free of charge to help your students, and because some teachers would prefer not to re-invent the wheel by creating their teaching resources to correspond to each assessment item. Yes, you can buy those instructional resources from Pennington Publishing. Simply click the link and look in the header to download and print the free assessments. Additionally, skim the Articles and Resources to find over 700 articles of interest to the ELA and reading teacher, including a slew of articles on how to create your own no-cost independent reading program that I think does a better job for students than either the Accelerated Reader™ and Reading Counts! programs.

Both the Accelerated Reader™ and Reading Counts! program authors are careful to label their independent reading management programs as supplementary programs, as they should. However, as every teacher knows, instructional time is reductive: if you add on this, you have to take away that. Because both programs are designed for in-class and home practice, AR and RC supplant other instruction, most always reading instruction. Accepting at face value the RC claim that RC REINFORCES comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency skills, my question to teachers would be… Which would help your students improve their reading more? REINFORCING or TEACHING? Feel free to download my SCRIP Comprehension Strategies TEACHING resource at the end of this article as a reward for slogging through this rather long diatribe. I look forward to your comments.

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:

Literacy Centers, Reading accelerated reader, AR quizzes, ATOS, comprehension, content area reading, content based reading, DEAR, diagnostic assessments, diagnostic reading assessments, dibels, fluency, free reading assessments, independent reading, independent reading management programs, instructional levels, international reading association, lexiles, literacy, readability, reading assessments, reading comprehension, Reading Counts, reading fluency, reading incentive programs, reading intervention, reading inventory, reading program selection, reading programs, reading remediation, reading skills, remedial reading, Renaissance Learning, response to intervention, Scholastic Reading Counts, Scholastic Reading Inventory, SSR, STAR reading test, word recognition

Ah… the final episode of ELA and Reading Assessments Do’s and Don’ts. Will they or won’t they kill off the hero? Of course, in the movies or on television, a final episode may or may not be the last. With the plethora of reunion shows (Roseanne last year and Murphy Brown this year) we all take the word final with a grain of salt. If you’ve missed one of the following got-to-see episodes, check it out after you watch this one.

In case you were up in the lobby for part or all of the previous five episodes, we’ve previously covered the following assessment topics in Episodes 1–20:

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.” 

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).

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.

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.

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: Assessments

Today’s topics include the following: 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.

Let’s kick your feet up (if you’re in one of those new theaters) and grab a handful of popcorn to read further. And make sure to stay until the end to download our FREE reading fluency assessment with recording matrix.

DO use both diagnostic and formative assessments.

Good teaching begins with finding out what students know and don’t know about the concept or skill before instruction begins. So often we assume that student do not know what we plan to teach. We start at the beginning, when a brief diagnostic assessment might better inform our instruction. You wouldn’t hire a contractor to remodel a bathroom without seeing the existing bathroom. Nor would you think much of a contractor who insisted on building a new foundation when the existing foundation was fine and ready to build upon.

When teachers complete a diagnostic assessment and find that 1/3 of their class lacks a certain skill, say commas after nouns of direct address, they have three options: 1. Skip the comma lesson because “most (2/3) have mastered the skill.” 2. Teach the whole class the comma lesson because “some (1/3) don’t know it and it won’t kill the rest of the kids (2/3) to review.” 3. Provide individualized or small group instruction “only for the kids (1/3) who need to master the skill” while the ones who have achieved mastery work on something else. As a fan of assessment-based instruction, I support #3.

However, if we just use diagnostic assessments, we miss out on an essential instructional component: formative assessment. Formative assessment checks on students’ understanding of the concept or skill with the context of instruction. Following instructional input and guided practice, brief formative assessment informs the teacher’s next step in instruction: Move on because they’ve got it. Re-teach to the entire class. Re-teach to those to have not mastered the concept or skill.

Need an example of an effective formative assessment?

Write three sentences: one with a noun of direct address at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end of a sentence.

DON’T assess to determine a generic problem.

Let me step on a few toes to illustrate a frequent problem with teacher assessments. Most elementary school teachers administer reading fluency assessments at the beginning of the year. Yes, middle and high school ELA teachers should be doing the same, albeit with silent reading fluencies. However, teachers select (or their district provides) a grade-level passage to read. Teachers dutifully compare student data to research-based grade level norms. Some teachers will re-assess throughout the year with similar grade-level passages and chart growth. All well and good; however, what does this common assessment procedure really tell us and how does it inform our reading instruction? Answer: The fluency assessments only tell us generically that Brenda reads below, Juan reads at, and Cheyenne reads above grade-level fluency norms on a grade-level passage. 

All we really know is that Brenda has a generic problem in reading grade-level passages. What we don’t know (but would like to know to inform our instruction) are the following specific data: Brenda has a frustrational reading level with grade 5 passages, but is instructional at grade 4 and independent at grade 3. Brenda. That specific data would inform our instruction and pinpoint appropriate reading resources for Brenda’s practice (as well as for Juan and Cheyenne).

Of course, you could follow the initial assessment with other grade level assessments to get the specificity, but why would you if an initial assessment would give you not only grade-level data, but also instructional level data? You’ll love our FREE download!

In other words, if you’re going to assess, you might as well assess efficiently and specifically. Knowing that a student has a problem  is okay; knowing exactly what the student problem is is much more useful.

DO review mastered material often.

The Common Core State Standard authors speak often in Appendix A about the cyclical nature of learning. Beyond the normal forgetting cycle, students often require re-teaching. Once mastered, always mastered is not a truism.

Additionally, Summer Brain Drain is all-too-often a reality teachers face with a new set of students each year. Frequently, last year’s assessment data provided by last year’s teacher may seem to indicate starting points higher that what the students indicate on even the same assessments given on Day One. Sometimes the new teacher may assume padded results from the previous year’s teacher to impress parents and administrators. However, who loop with their students are often surprised by how much re-teaching must be done to get students up to where they were.

The Test-Teach-Test-Teach-Test model is what assessment-based instruction is all about.

DON’T solely assess grade-level Standards.

I once taught next door to an eighth grade teacher whom the kids adored. He was funny, bright, and cared about his students. He was also glued to the Standards. So much so, that he only taught grade-level Standards. Irrespective of whether students were ready for the individual Standard; irrespective of whether students were deficit in much more important concepts or skills (such as being able to read); and irrespective of whether students already knew the Standards.

His philosophy was “if every teacher taught the grade-level Standards, no remediation would be required.” He said, “I’m an eighth-grade teacher and I teach the eighth-grade Standards, nothing more and nothing less.”

One day I got up the nerve to ask him, “Wouldn’t it make more sense if your philosophy was “if every student learned the grade-level Standards, no remediation would be required”?

His middle and upper kids did fine, although I suspect they had some significant learning gaps. The lower kids floundered or were transferred into my classes.

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FREE DOWNLOADS TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

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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.

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