• Teachers work to know their readers and writers through a series of formal and informal assessments. Having students respond to a prompt in writing or through drawing early in the school year directs a teacher's attention to a class' strengths, and using a similar prompt later in the year provides an opportunity to examine the growth of our writers. Listening to a second-grader read a few sentences, for example, during a reading conference or stopping to discuss a poem with a group of ninth-graders on the first day of school, provides powerful information to our teachers. The information and artifacts that teachers gather in class serve as a powerful complement to our formal assessments.

    Descriptions of District Formal Reading Assessments

    The School District of Clayton has adopted Star Reading Assessments as a universal screener for kindergarten through 10th grade students. Star provides a "suite" of assessments that helps teachers and specialists assess broad reading ability, aligns with Missouri Learning Standards, and predicts overall reading achievement.

    The District employs the Star Early Literacy component with K-1 students assessing phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. Students respond to a variety of audio prompts related to early learning skills.

    Second through tenth-grade students are assessed using Star Reading. The Star Reading computer-adaptive assessment tests key reading skills across multiple domains aligned to state standards. Star Reading tracks progress in five domains: Word Knowledge and Skills, Comprehension Strategies and Constructing Meaning, Analyzing Literary Text, Understanding Author’s Craft, and Analyzing Argument and Evaluating Text,

    A reading inventory can be a powerful tool in helping teachers better understand their readers. A reading inventory is conducted one-on-one between a teacher and a student. At the start of the inventory, a student reads aloud and the teacher performs a miscue analysis through a "running record," looking for patterns related to omissions, repetitions, substitutions, and insertions. Next, the teacher asks a series of retelling and comprehension questions to better understand the child's understanding of the text. Teachers and specialists have access to a variety of reading inventories; currently, elementary and middle school teachers are using the Teachers College Benchmark Assessment and Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System, and high school reading specialists are using the Basic Reading Inventory.  

    It is important to note that we do not use a single assessment to decide whether a student is below, at, or above grade level in reading. We would, however, use a single test, such as reading inventory to decide on the next steps. As a result of a reading inventory score, for example, we would encourage a student who has scored above grade level to select more sophisticated texts and then monitor his or her understanding through conferences. And, if a student scores below grade level, we continue our assessment through other objective tests. We know that one score on one day does not represent our readers. While it is tempting to use a child's reading inventory score to select books, we believe strongly in teaching our students to select appropriate books based on interest and by self-identifying how easy or difficult it is to read the book by previewing the first few pages. Book publishers sometimes include a book's Lexile level or Guided Reading level, but that score is a discrete score that may limit our readers. A child's reading level is complex. It depends greatly on interest, background knowledge, and motivation. Please do not hesitate to discuss book selection with your child's teacher.

    Additional Assessment Tools in Literacy

    At the start and end of each school year, students in kindergarten through fifth grade take an orthography assessment (spelling inventory). In kindergarten through second grade, teachers administer a Development Spelling Assessment. Teachers at the first through fifth levels administer the LETRS Spelling Screeners. Spelling inventories provide an opportunity for "feature analysis" to identify specific areas for instruction, such as short vowel sounds or consonant blends, needed by the whole class, small groups, or individual students.  

    Teachers use formal assessments in combination with informal assessments, including teacher-student conferences, monitoring of reading selection, and written assessments around specific texts and passages to seek further understanding of a reader or writer.