Assessment is More Than a Silent Reading Test

Reading profiles are useful tools for designing instruction for the learners in your classroom. Now we'll use three reading profiles to illustrate what is, perhaps, the most important principle on this site: a silent reading score alone does not give you enough information about your learners' abilities to teach them effectively!

The three reading profiles given below are taken directly from the ARCS^RR research; we have changed the names of the learners to protect their privacy.

First, here are the profiles in a table. All scores are given in grade equivalents (GE).

As the table above shows, "Andrew," "Barbara," and "Carla" have identical Silent Reading Comprehension scores of GE 8.0, but they have different abilities on the other components. Each learner needs a different focus of instruction to become a better reader.

The line graph below better illustrates these learners' differing abilities. A descriptive narrative about each of these learners is given below the graph.

Andrew is a native Spanish speaker whose pattern of scores shows good decoding ability with fairly even scores on the other components. His high Word Recognition score is typical of many literate native Spanish speakers. Because Spanish is perfectly phonetic, decoding is not difficult - all words are regular. Andrew, like other native Spanish readers, applied the same decoding process when learning to read English words. However, he also has learned sight words (non phonetic words) and recognizes syllable patterns as shown in his high Spelling score. Andrew attended school in Mexico through the 12th grade, coming to the U.S. at age 20. Andrew, now 22, has made excellent progress in the two years that he has been learning English in the United States. Andrew needs to increase his English vocabulary through direct instruction and independent reading. He learns quickly and could be expected to pass the GED examination within a short time.

Barbara's pattern of scores shows a dyslexic's profile; there is a significant difference between her low scores on print skills (Word Recognition and Spelling) and higher scores on meaning skills (Word Meaning and Silent Reading Comprehension). Barbara, age 54 and a native speaker of English, has had a history of reading problems since the first grade. She left school after the 8th grade and has just begun attending reading classes in the past two years. Her vocabulary levels, both on the DAR Word Meaning subtest and on a test of listening vocabulary (the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test) are high enough to support her present Silent Reading Comprehension level. However, unless she can learn to decode more difficult words, she will not be able to read with comprehension at a high school level. Her best hope for progress is with an individualized, sequential phonics program such as Lindamood or Wilson along with continued independent reading.

Carla's pattern of scores is also one of low print skills and higher meaning skills. However, the difference between these abilities is not significant and not unlike that of many adult intermediate readers. Carla, age 33, is a native speaker of English who left school after the 10th grade. She reports that she repeated the second grade but did not have trouble with reading in school. Her low print skills contradict her self report; other tests given in the ARCS show that Carla has poor word analysis skills and only a beginning reader's ability to isolate sounds of letters and syllables. She would benefit from a systematic approach aimed at filling in the gaps in her reading skills. Primarily she needs stronger print skills. A word analysis test such as Sylvia Greene's Informal Word Analysis Inventory (available on this website; click here for more information about this inventory) would indicate the letter combinations she has mastered and which need to be learned. Carla's is a profile of a reader with some reading disability but also with a need for wider vocabulary knowledge. She has attended a few other programs for short periods of time, raising issues of motivation and persistence that should be addressed.

Learning other facts about a reader's language and educational history is part of a diagnostic assessment. Information about Andrew, Barbara and Carla, beyond what can be learned from their reading skills profiles, comes from other ARCS tests and from their ARCS questionnaires. Each participant in the ARCS was given a lengthy questionnaire about their educational, linguistic, family, and health history. A shortened version of the ARCS questionnaire can be downloaded from this website as a PDF file.

Click here to go to the "Introduction to Match a Profile" next.