Literacy Assessments

Assessments I have learned so far in this class that I will be applying to my own teaching are the Qualitative Reading Inventory, the Names Test, and Words Their Way spelling inventory. Besides the several other assessments that I learned about in this course, I feel like these three will be the most beneficial in my third grade classroom. These three assessments will be useful to me because each assess components of literacy including comprehension, fluency, phonics, and spelling patterns.

The Qualitative Reading Inventory will be an assessment that I will use to identify which reading level my students are at which is a very important piece to my guided reading groups. Besides fluency it is also important to know which level a student is at for comprehension. Assessing comprehension was an area that I did not do as much of or as often, so I am very excited about this informal inventory. Some specific resources that are useful are from Reading Rockets which explains what a qualitative reading inventory is and gives materials to use for testing. http://www.readingrockets.org/article/informal-reading-inventory-qualitative-reading-inventory

A great book for the Qualitative Reading Inventory is Qualitative Reading Inventory-5 by Lauren Leslie and JoAnne Schudt Caldwell.

The Names Test is a test that will identify decoding skills in a student such as initial consonants, initial consonant blends, controlled vowels, long and short vowels, and final consonants. I currently don’t use a test that assesses these components of literacy so it will be very helpful to me. I envision using this test for my emerging readers and then taking the data and making a specific plan for our reading groups. This was an area that I struggled with last year and didn’t have many resources to assess phonics so I am very excited to use this assessment! A link to an example of the Names Test and what it is: http://www.academia.edu/5348510/Names_Test_Quick_Assessment_of_Decoding_Ability_The_Names_Test_Names_Test

Words Their Way spelling inventory is another assessment that will very useful to my literacy instruction. This past year I had a group of students who struggled with spelling patterns and I did my best to help them, but truly didn’t have an assessment like this to identify specific patterns. I was also unaware that there were spelling stages including emergent, letter name-alphabetic, within word pattern, and syllables and affixes. These stages will help me with my spelling instruction and give me direction as to where my students need help. There is a great book called, Words Their Way, which gives great resources for word studies, phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction.  Here is an example of a Words Their Way spelling inventory.