{"id":11303,"date":"2023-08-27T23:29:47","date_gmt":"2023-08-27T23:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/leadership\/to-make-progress-in-reading-we-need-to-monitor-it-differently\/"},"modified":"2023-08-27T23:29:47","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T23:29:47","slug":"to-make-progress-in-reading-we-need-to-monitor-it-differently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=11303","title":{"rendered":"To Make Progress In Reading, We Need To Monitor It Differently"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cData-driven\u201d instruction makes sense only if the data that\u2019s driving it makes sense. And much of the data used to guide reading instruction doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Throughout the school year, classrooms across the country use standardized tests to determine students\u2019 reading levels, identify where they need help, and predict their performance on end-of-year state reading exams. According to a RAND survey, 93% of reading teachers administered some kind of \u201cbenchmark\u201d or \u201cinterim\u201d assessment during the 2021-22 school year. It\u2019s a $1 billion-plus market.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to address pandemic-related learning loss, schools are relying on this data more than ever. Parents, too, often look to scores on these tests as markers of progress.<\/p>\n

And yet, there\u2019s very little outside evaluation of whether these assessments do what they purport to do. In 2016, EdReports, an organization that reviews curricula, launched a project to conduct such evaluations. But the company recently suspended the effort because it couldn\u2019t get enough test publishers to participate. Maybe some were wary of what such an evaluation would reveal about their tests\u2019 reliability.<\/p>\n

In one study, about a thousand students were given four different standardized tests to determine their reading comprehension ability. On average, only 43% of the children identified by one test as poor readers were also identified as poor readers by another test\u2014and the same thing happened when the tests tried to identify the good<\/em> readers. In other words, the chances of any two tests putting a particular student in the same category were less than half.<\/p>\n

Knowledge and Reading Comprehension<\/h2>\n

Standardized measures of progress can make sense in some areas\u2014math, for example\u2014as long as the tests match what\u2019s been covered in the curriculum. But, as I\u2019ve explained elsewhere, it\u2019s impossible to assess reading comprehension ability in the abstract, as interim assessments\u2014and end-of-year state reading tests\u2014purport to do.<\/p>\n

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Reading tests claim to measure general skills like making inferences or finding the main idea of a text, using passages on topics students may or may not be familiar with. But research has shown that the more you know about the topic you\u2019re reading about, the better your comprehension. Standardized tests\u2014including those used to determine reading levels\u2014don\u2019t take account of that. And yet these measures are routinely used to guide instruction and determine what individual students are or are not capable of doing.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say a passage on a test is about mining, and the child taking the test has never heard of mining. (This is a real-life example I heard from a parent who is also a teacher.) That child might give the wrong answer to a question that asks him to make an inference. His teacher is likely to conclude he needs more practice making inferences, using texts at his \u201clevel\u201d on random topics. But evidence from cognitive science indicates that if you\u2019d given that child a passage on a topic he knows well\u2014let\u2019s say, basketball\u2014he would have had no trouble making an inference.<\/p>\n

At some point, through learning about a series of topics in some depth, students will acquire enough general knowledge and vocabulary to enable them to read and understand passages on topics they\u2019re not already familiar with\u2014the kinds of passages they\u2019re expected to read on standardized tests. Some students are better able to do that outside of school, usually because they have more highly educated and affluent parents.<\/p>\n

Schools can build that kind of knowledge for all students, especially if they begin in the early grades. But the evidence indicates that process can take years. It makes no sense to give children standardized reading comprehension tests every few weeks or months and expect to see progress.<\/p>\n

Yet another problem is that some students score poorly on reading tests because they\u2019ve never learned to decipher, or decode, written words. Fourth-graders who scored at the lowest level on a national reading test struggled simply to decode the words, according to one study, even though the test purported to measure comprehension ability.<\/p>\n

Many interim reading assessments also purport to test comprehension rather than decoding ability\u2014or combine the two aspects of reading in ways that are hard to untangle. The result is that kids who need help with decoding are often given practice in comprehension skills instead, especially at higher grade levels.<\/p>\n

How to Monitor Progress Accurately<\/h2>\n

If we want to monitor progress accurately\u2014and guide instruction effectively\u2014we need tests that are more specific and that are clearer about what they\u2019re measuring.<\/p>\n

First, we need to measure decoding ability separately from comprehension ability. No amount of comprehension instruction will turn a student who struggles with decoding into a proficient reader.<\/p>\n

Second, we need to ground \u201creading comprehension\u201d tests, including interim assessments, in content that has actually been taught. But there are at least two potential problems with that.<\/p>\n

One is that most elementary schools aren\u2019t actually trying to teach content. Instead, they\u2019re focusing on comprehension skills in the abstract, year after year, and marginalizing content-rich subjects like social studies and science in order to do so. That\u2019s partly because of the mistaken assumption that reading tests measure those skills.<\/p>\n

In addition, many educators have long been trained to believe, contrary to cognitive science, that teaching comprehension skills rather than content is the way to turn students into proficient readers. So changing the system requires more than just eliminating standardized reading tests\u2014although that would help.<\/p>\n

Another problem is that many educators apparently don\u2019t even think of testing kids on content they\u2019ve actually learned, at least at the elementary level. That kind of assessment is seen as low-level regurgitation of facts rather than \u201chigher-order\u201d synthesis or analysis.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, of course, we do want kids to engage in higher-order thinking, just as we want them to be able to read and understand passages on topics they don\u2019t already know something about. But the only way to enable them to do those things is to give them access to information about a bunch of specific topics\u2014ideally in a logical order\u2014guide them to think analytically about that content, and assess what they\u2019ve learned and how well they can reason about it.<\/p>\n

When testing is grounded in content covered in the curriculum, it helps teachers determine what students have or haven\u2019t understood about what they\u2019ve taught, and what their future instruction should focus on. It also helps students learn, through something called retrieval practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cTesting not only measures knowledge,\u201d a couple of experts in the area have written, \u201cbut also changes it, often greatly improving retention of the tested knowledge.\u201d Eventually, as students retain more and more knowledge\u2014with the help of content-specific testing\u2014their general reading comprehension will improve.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s a teacher to do if a parent insists on knowing her child\u2019s reading level, as one teacher recently told me some parents do? It would help to explain to the parent why those measures aren\u2019t reliable.<\/p>\n

And, if the teacher is building the child\u2019s knowledge\u2014ideally through a content-rich curriculum\u2014he could show the parent how the child did on a test grounded in content covered in class. A knowledge-building curriculum should come with assessments that test not only whether students have retained information that has been taught but also whether they can do things like make inferences about it. (The Knowledge Matters Campaign describes several effective such curricula on its website. I serve on the board of its parent organization.)<\/p>\n

And if students are also being taught the basics of writing\u2014including how to construct sentences and create linear outlines\u2014having them write about what they\u2019ve learned monitors their progress, reinforces the knowledge they\u2019ve acquired, develops their analytical abilities, and familiarizes them with the complex syntax of written language. These are the kind of interim assessments schools should be using.<\/p>\n

A final caveat: At lower grade levels, standardized interim assessments may seem to show that a child is getting better at skills like \u201cfinding the main idea.\u201d But texts at lower grade levels generally don\u2019t assume much sophisticated knowledge and vocabulary. When those students reach higher grade levels, where the texts suddenly do assume that kind of knowledge, they may find their supposed skills are no longer enough to enable comprehension. If they lack the background knowledge needed to understand more complex texts, they\u2019ll hit a wall.<\/p>\n

And \u201cdata-driven\u201d reading comprehension instruction, well-intentioned as it may be, ensures that for many kids, that\u2019s exactly what will happen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cData-driven\u201d instruction makes sense only if the data that\u2019s driving it makes sense. And much of the data used to guide reading instruction doesn\u2019t. Throughout the school year, classrooms across the country use standardized tests to determine students\u2019 reading levels, identify where they need help, and predict their performance on end-of-year state reading exams. According […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leadership"},"yoast_head":"\nTo Make Progress In Reading, We Need To Monitor It Differently | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cData-driven\u201d instruction makes sense only if the data that\u2019s driving it makes sense. 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