Assessing small improvements in word recognition and fluency requires weekly assessments. One quick and valid way for teachers to assess progress in word recognition and fluency is to ask the child with reading disabilities to read aloud, once weekly, for 60-seconds, from material at or slightly below his instructional level. As he reads, his teacher (or an aide) counts the number of words correctly pronounced. This figure is charted.
If, for several weeks, the number of words read correctly on these 60-second oral reading probes continues to increase, your child is probably making progress; if, however, it remains flat or decreases, he’s probably having difficulty. This requires school personnel to investigate the problem, collect and analyze relevant data, and probably modify his program.
Although a 60-second oral reading probe does not directly assess reading comprehension, it may provide some insight into your child’s comprehension. Here’s part of the logic. Many reading comprehension problems are caused by word recognition and fluency problems. If the child with reading disabilities is struggling in these areas, his attention and mental energy are focused on recognizing words, not comprehending. When word recognition is no longer a problem, the child can focus his attention and mental energy on comprehending what he’s reading.
For children reading above a 5th grade instructional level, a simple maze probe, which assesses basic reading comprehension and silent reading fluency, may be a better choice than a 60-second oral reading probe. Like the 60-second oral reading probe, a maze probe takes little time to administer. Here’s how the Florida Center for Reading Research describes the state’s maze probe for middle and high school students:
Mazes are group-administered measures used for progress monitoring upper grade students in reading…. The passage begins with a complete sentence. For every remaining sentence, the 7th word is replaced with a word choice. The word choice is composed of 3 words: one correct and 2 distracters. Distracters … do not place high demands on comprehension. However, students must be monitoring the general meaning of the passage to select the correct response.
Like the Florida Center for Reading Research, Erica Lembke of the University of Missouri sees maze probes as an important tool in monitoring the progress of struggling readers. She recommends that maze probes be administered monthly to “high school students, who are reading proficiently at the 6th grade level … but demonstrate a weakness in comprehension.”
She also recommends that schools use maze probes to monitor the reading comprehension of younger children. Schools should administer maze probes every two weeks to “students in grades K-8, who demonstrate proficiency in oral reading skills, but demonstrate a weakness in comprehension.”
If your child’s teachers use one or a combination of these probes and charts the results, she can often give you a good picture of your child’s progress. Keep in mind, however, that knowing is not enough. If your child’s progress appears stalled or flagging, knowing must be accompanied by doing: you and the school must do whatever is necessary to accelerate progress. If not, the problem may explode like a volcano, shooting lava every which way.
HM
no comment untill now