Thursday, December 13, 2007

Alternative to Oral Reading Assessment Needed?

A new study published in Reading Psychology suggests that oral reading assessments lead to a misunderstanding or misdiagnosing of some student’s reading abilities. The study suggests that schools should shift more of their ongoing reading tests to silent reading tests with followup comprehension tests and to reduce their reliance on oral based tests.

Not saying we should throw the baby out with the bathwater...but it does sound reasonable that we might need to take a look at the way we assess fluency.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071123210103.htm

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's an old saying that says "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." The same with assessments. They are just a snapshot of the child and you need a lot of snapshots to tell a story. This is an easy fix - use the running record forms we have now, but just ask the child to tell you when they start reading and when they finish. They can then answer the comprehension questions silently also. The teacher can compare oral vs. silent reading fluency and understanding. Oral assessments are important to get a handle on what the child can do - but how often after primary school do we ask kids to read aloud?

tech guy said...

Terry-
When I read the article, the first thing I thought was Dibels. Some schools are exclusively Dibels in their assessments. Your solution is an easy one and a very straightforward one....I honestly don't know how often teachers actually do our running records. I'm going to guess most kids get them only twice a year.

Mark

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