How should we assess in The Read Side by Side Reading program?

There are multiple measures you can use to assess your students at the beginning of the year.

CIA Assessment and Intervention Guide_cover_2 (dragged)-3

The Assessment and Intervention Guide is a great resource and guide for which assessments to use, when to use them, how to interpret their scores, and what to do with that information to help your students.

Table 1.2 in the Assessment Guide provides a suggested assessment schedule.

Plan to use a nationally normed assessment in the fall to get baseline data on your students (such as the MAP Reading Growth test, iReady, Star Assessment). We suggest that whichever assessment is used, that it provide a percentile rank for one of its reports. More information about the types of scores reported can be found in Chapter 3 of the Assessment and Intervention Guide.

In addition, at the beginning of the year you can learn a lot about your students by using the Reading Motivation Questionnaire, the Survey of Reading Interest, and by conferencing with students.

Questionnaires, surveys and conference forms can be found in the back of the Assessment Guide or online under Programs > Assessment.

Before beginning book clubs, you will need to assign students to appropriate books. Start with the percentile rank from your fall nationally normed assessment. Use the percentile rank sorting sheet to rank order your students and then follow the guidelines in Chapter 3 of the Assessment Guide to determine the students with which you will complete running records. These will help you refine your groups.

As the year progresses you will have other opportunities to assess your students. More information on this can be found in the Assessment and Intervention Guide.