| Home |
Reading | How FAIR assesses reading in grades . . .
| |
How FAIR assesses reading in grades K-2
Related article: How Florida
Assesses Reading in Grades 3-12
Florida students in grades 3-12 self-administer the Florida Assessments
for Instruction in Reading (FAIR). But, in grades K-2 teachers must administer
the assessments individually to their students 3 times a year which is
an issue for teachers, who were not involved in testing their students before,
says Barbara Elzie, deputy director of the Department of Education's statewide
reading initiative, Just Read, Florida!.
Assessment was done by assessment teams. Teachers are complaining that
testing their students is time-consuming under FAIR. Schools' use of FAIR is
optional except in kindergarten.
On the upside, teachers have access to monthly assessments for all students
making it easier to monitor students' progress towards meeting end-of-year
benchmarks. FAIR testing is expected to replace DIBELS testing at schools that
used them for Reading First.
There are four types of assessments in FAIR for K-2:
- the Broad Screen/Progress Monitoring Tool given to all students in 3-5
min.
- the Broad Diagnostic Inventory, which includes comprehension and
vocabulary tasks
- the Targeted Diagnostic Inventory
- Ongoing Progress Monitoring Broad Screen/Progress Monitoring
In kindergarten, the broad screen contains measures of letter-name knowledge,
letter-sound knowledge,phonological awareness, and word reading. Grades 1 and 2
both involve word reading tasks, with the grade 1 task as time unlimited, and
grade 2 word reading being a timed test. The screen identifies students who are
not likely to be successful on the end of year outcome test.
Broad Diagnostic Inventory
The diagnostic inventory tests for
comprehension, expressive vocabulary and spelling, administered as a group test
in in grade 2. The comprehension task consists of explicit and implicit
questions, story grammars and situation models that increase in difficulty over
the grades.
Kindergarten students are tested for listening comprehension and grades 1 and
2 for reading comprehension. The reading comprehension task also includes scores
for accuracy and fluency (i.e., words correct per minute). The expressive
vocabulary task measures the breadth and depth of a student's vocabulary.
The student is asked to label objects, actions, or attributes and is prompted
in cases where an answer requires further precision.
The spelling task in grade 2 assesses students' phonological and orthographic
knowledge of words.
Targeted Diagnostic Inventory
The following assessments are administered according to grade level to
pinpoint student difficulties:
- Kindergarten: Optional Print Awareness, Letter Name and Sound
Knowledge, Phoneme Blending and Phoneme Deletion, Letter-Sound Connections
(Initial and Final), and Word Building tasks (initial and final consonants and
medial vowels).
- Grade 1: Letter-Sound Knowledge, Phoneme Blending Phoneme Deletion
(initial and final), and Word Building tasks that progress from consonants and
vowels to CVCe and blends.
- Grade 2: The same Phoneme Deletion and Word Building tasks as those
in the Grade 1 and a Multisyllabic Word Reading task.
Ongoing Progress Monitoring
Multiple probes from the Targeted
Diagnostic Inventory are used for ongoing progress monitoring. In grades 1 and
2, monitoring includes equated, short passages for assessing oral reading
fluency in one minute.
Florida Assessment for Instruction in Reading Technical Manual 2009-2010
Edition Kindergarten - Grade 2, State of Florida Department of Education, 2009.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments
To post a
comment, click
here.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 
