This article explores how the general term of assessment literacy can be specified to the area of reading through the lens of the informal reading inventory, Qualitative Reading Inventory-5. This article will investigate the common misconceptions that teachers, who were enrolled in a graduate program to become state-certified specialized literacy…

Within a developmental framework, this study compared the predictive validity of three DIBELS tasks (phoneme segmentation fluency [PSF], nonsense word fluency [NWF], and oral reading fluency [ORF]) with that of three alternative tasks drawn from the field of reading (phonemic spelling [phSPEL], word recognition-timed [WR-t], and graded passage…

Recent legislation such as No Child Left Behind and the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA) increasingly pressure teachers and schools to be accountable for instructional time in the form of improved test scores. As a result, students are given an increasing variety of assessments in a given school year in an attempt to measure academic…

In this article, we discuss the Informal Reading-"Thinking" Inventory (IR-TI), an informal reading inventory built on an easily recognized legacy model that also branches out into new realms. The IR-TI provides tools for assessing reading the lines, reading between the lines, and reading beyond the lines. This is a 21st-century…

In order for students to learn how to construct meaning from text, teachers must apply instructional strategies that will help readers transition from simple decoding of words to fluent word identification. This article will provide an overview of the literature related to the role of fluency in reading; explain research-based recommendations for…

This longitudinal study investigated children's performance on several informal reading and spelling tasks. Students (n = 274) in a rural North Carolina county were assessed across grades 2 to 6 on the following measures: isolated word recognition (timed and untimed), oral reading accuracy, reading comprehension, reading rate, and spelling.…

Struggling readers may regularly worry about reading at an appropriate speed and intonation. Fluency is a "hot" topic according to Jack Cassidy's annual reading survey published in "Reading Today," in which he interviews various literacy experts throughout the United States on the hot and not-so-hot reading topics. Fluency…

Describes a new system for scoring informal reading inventories that helps eliminate problems inherent in other scoring systems. (DD)

Informal inventories emphasize observing a child's behavior and performance in order to draw inferences about factors affecting his achievement in all areas. Suggestions are given for some uses of informal inventories, teacher-designed measures, and adaptations of such tests as the Minnesota Rate of Manipulation Test and the Gray's Oral Reading…

The paper examines two general methods of scoring oral reading inventories employing textual passages. Either the total number of oral alterations can be used as an index to reading ability, or only those alterations that disrupt the semantic structure of the text can be used. (Author)

The validity of Fry's Readability Graph for determining grade level readability scores was compared with the Spache Formula, the cloze technique, and oral reading in the case of seven primary-level books. Descriptions of these four indicated that to determine grade level, Fry's Readability Graph plots the total number of syllables with the total…

The Informal Reading Inventory and the Reading Miscue Inventory are compared as to purpose, origins, and methods of use. A tabular format, elaborated by an appended discussion, summarizes each inventory's purpose, materials, length, difficulty of selections, procedures in testing, types of behaviors evaluated, and resulting scores. (AA)

Agrues that the Reading Miscue Inventory (RMI) concepts are useful for analyzing oral reading errors made within the boundary set by Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) concepts.

This paper provides information on black English to be used by teachers as they score errors and miscues on the oral part of informal reading inventories. The information is presented in order for teachers to understand items spoken in black English that are equivalents to standard English and that when spoken would indicate understanding of the…

Article focuses on the learning of specific reading skills; discusses procedures for identifying individual needs, and ways to set up and keep individual pupil records; and cites sources (of). . .more detailed ideas." (Author)