Related article: How Florida

Assesses Reading in Grades 3-12

Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading (FAIR)

Figuring out just how to assess student reading in grades K-2 and 3-12 is a

time-consuming, costly and headache-ridden process for many educators.

Help has arrived in Florida in the form of a $7.7 million statewide

assessment system. In collaboration with the Florida Center for Reading

Research, the state Department of Education has developed the Florida

Assessments for Instruction in Reading (FAIR), an adaptive, computer-based

formative assessment system that any public school in the state can use free of

charge (hardware not included).

FAIR offers educators in other states an instructive model in how to assess

reading in students. So far, 3,400 schools in all of the 67 districts in the

state are using FAIR, says Barbara Elzie, deputy director of the Department of

Education's statewide reading initiative, Just Read, Florida!. About 1.6 million

students have been tested with FAIR, over 1 million in grades 3-12. Use of FAIR

is optional except in kindergarten.

How FAIR Works

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:

1. the Broad Screen/Progress Monitoring Tool given to all students in 3-5 min.

2. the Broad Diagnostic Inventory, which includes comprehension and vocabulary

   tasks

3. the Targeted Diagnostic Inventory

4. 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------