QUESTION: Assessing Student's Reading Levels

[Steve Thanos]

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to accurately assess student's reading levels. I know that one test will not tell me much and that a series of tests is much better. How do I know if I have an accurate account of my student's reading levels? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks,

Steve 

[Amy]

Hi Steve, Our textbooks we ordered (Hougton Mifflin) have tool kits, etc. with them - they include assessments of reading levels, etc. Also we use MAP computer program/testing- which assesses student reading levels and lexile levels as well. I am not aware of tests online- but googling - "Reading Level" +assessment (or test) might yield some results free online.
Amy-KY

[Kim Wildman]

Does your school library use Accelerated Reader? You can do it through that program. Rough, but gives you some sense...

[Brendan Cooney]

Hi Lina, could you share some samples of the PROBE?

[Shirley Durr]

You might try finding students' lexiles as we did at my previous school. I believe Scholastic has an online test -- Scholastic Reading Inventory -- but it's not free. Someone else in this discussion describes it. It's most helpful at determining if a book might be too difficult or too easy for a student to read.

Where I currently teach we use NWEA's MAP test (for both reading and math). It's an online test and it breaks down specific areas for improvements. It even provides resources for each student and keeps records of their scores over the years. I believe it was designed by teachers and it's free (but I'm not sure about the latter).

[chowsir]

I am also searching for an assessment for my English Language Learners, mostly beginner level, to inform me of what recreational reading I can direct them to.

[Brendan Cooney]

This interests me a lot, too... I'm in China teaching ESL English and even though my students are all relatively high levels, it's so challenging to know where the line is between do-able and impossible for them with regards to their reading styles. Having a few different tools here would be great.

[D Keliipuleole]

Hi, Steve. Our elementary school recently purchased San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability. This book includes a variety of tests that assess phonemic awareness, knowledge of high frequency words, reading fluency, etc. There is a test that will also give you an approximate grade level. These assessments are fast and dirty. For more comprehensive information that yields more diagnostic data, you'll want to use another test. For me, the quick and dirty works because I only wanted a general sense of where my students' abilities lay. For progress monitoring, I use DIBELs.