[LIT] Informal Reading Inventories

[Kim Richard]

Hi Lee!

It's nice to see that people out there use assessment as a means to drive
instruction, rather that as a data collection tool!

I love Regie Routman!

Kim

-----Original Message-----
From: lbrazell at comcast.net [mailto:lbrazell at comcast.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 9:02 AM
To: lit at literacyworkshop.org
Subject: [LIT] Informal Reading Inventories

Kim wrote:  I think to truly assess a student's reading abilities is by
using a book of their choice, having them read aloud or silently read to
themselves (depending on what you are assessing) and then ask them questions
about what they are reading.


I would agree.  I am a reading specialist and work with middle school
students.   I often take a photo copy of several pages of a student's
independent reading book and do a running record on a portion of the text as
the student reads aloud.  I use the back of the photo copy to make notes
about the student's fluency and errors/corrections and jot down the answers
to the questions I ask.  

I like to ask specific comprehension questions that align with what the
classroom teacher is focusing on (connections, inference, determining
importance...etc) but I always ask for a summary of what the student has
read so far.  If it is a new selection I ask for predictions ( anchored in
the text).  If it is a book I haven't read I ask the student to 'reread and
find the part in the text that tells that'.  This lends an authenticity to
our 'conversation' about the book.

Regie Routman has a similar interview form in her book Reading Essentials.

This works well for me and I can also assess if the student is reading a
'just right' book and give suggestions if they are not.  

Lee

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