Secondary Reading Assessments
How to place students in appropriate reading intervention instruction with secondary reading assessments? Teacher/counselor/parent/cumulative file recommendations and normed or even criterion referenced tests to narrow things down (hopefully in the context of a well-structured site-wide MTSS or RtI decision-making team to start.
Thereafter, instead of a screener, I administer three diagnostic assessments: phonics, spelling, and fluency. Teachers want teachable data i.e., they want to know which long /e/ sound-spellings have and have not yet been mastered. They don’t want to know generically that the student has “phonics issues” from a random sample screener. Moreover, teachers hate to “waste class time” assessing for assessment sake.
Of course, after initial assessments, those data will indicate the need for further testing. However, having taught reading intervention at the middle school, high school, and community college levels, I have learned that these older students who struggling with word recognition and language comprehension are qualitatively different learners as opposed to their elementary counterparts. Duh! I’m a slow learner.
Often, secondary students have had a smattering of literacy intervention over the years. Some non and poor readers to squeak through without help, but many have been in remedial reading interventions year after year.
My thought on further diagnostic assessment and differentiated instruction? Wait a bit.
I have found success with accelerated, foundational, explicit word recognition (with PA and some morphology) instruction (whole class), followed by administering mid-year diagnostic assessments. For the balance of the years, those data drive small group instruction, coupled with a language comprehension emphasis.
Waiting a bit on some diagnostic assessments and/or repeating some allows secondary students to piece together past learning. Don’t we want to assess students at their best?
Waiting to assess and differentiate instruction according to the data makes far better sense than assessing from Day One. A thorough A to Z crash course often fills gaps and reminds students of what they have learned. Accelerated instruction makes use of that prior knowledge. My take is that after a coherent “refresher/reminder/a-bit-more-practice” course of instruction, the diagnostic assessments yield much more accurate data. Those data help us know what our students truly don’t know–and we can plan more efficient and targeted instruction without repeating what students have “learned” year after year.
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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.
SCIENCE OF READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM RESOURCES HERE for detailed product description and sample lessons.