Successful schools are experts at using meaningful data to drive instructional decision-making. There are four critical assessments to improve reading outcomes:
- screening
- diagnostic
- progress monitoring
- end-of-year state assessment
These should measure student progress on the subskills of word recognition (i.e., phoneme awareness, phonics, decoding, encoding, fluency) as well as their ability to understand and comprehend oral language. Theoretical frameworks such as Scarborough’s reading rope and the quadrant model serve as guides for understanding students’ individual and group needs.
As an administrator, it is critical to participate in training along with staff to understand whether existing assessments are valid, reliable, and evidence-aligned and to learn how to properly conduct them.
Resources
What Administrators Need to Know About Assessment
A Reading League overview of assessment basics for school leaders.
Building Coherence Across Tiers of Literacy Instruction in an MTSS
A blog post on aligning assessment and instruction across tiers.
Purposeful Assessment: A Leadership Responsibility
A blog post on leading with purposeful assessment.
Types of Reading Assessment Data Used in Schools
A quick reference on the types of reading assessment data schools use.
Understanding What Assessments Measure
A handout on what different reading assessments actually measure.
Measuring What Matters: Understanding What Reading Assessments Really Tell Us
A guide to understanding what reading assessments tell you.
Measuring What Matters: Understanding What Reading Assessment Really Tells Us
A video walkthrough of the Measuring What Matters guide.
Additional Resources
NCIL Screening Tool
An NCIL tool for choosing academic screening measures.
Massachusetts Department of Education Screening Guide
Massachusetts guidance on selecting and using early literacy screeners.
NCTQ Four Pillars to Reading Success (Pillar 2)
The NCTQ brief on assessment as a pillar of reading success.
Evidence-Based Assessment in the Science of Reading
An article on evidence based reading assessment.
Why Educators Need Assessment Data Now More Than Ever
A piece on why assessment data matters for instruction.