Concerns at this Point...

Part of my baseline information is the Lexile reading levels of my students.  This year, our English department offers four levels to our juniors: Advanced Placement, Advanced, Regular, and EMA (Emerging Acheivers).  As mentioned in an earlier blog, the class I have chosen for this project is a an EMA class.  Throughout the course of the year, my students have been given the STAR test four times (3 in the fall and once in January)  The STAR test is also new to our school this year as it replaced the MAP test.   I have taken the January test results to determine lexile reading levels of each student in this study and included this information in the chart below:

As you can clearly see, according to this assessment, the majority of this class reads on a 6th grade level, and not one of the students is reading on a high school level.

My next step is to complete the San Diego Quick Assessment (SDQA) & I can't wait to see what the comparison reveals.

The SDQA measures a student's ability to read and recognize grade-level words as they are viewed out of context.  The test consists of 13 lists of equally difficult words that correspond to designated grade levels.  When conducting this test, the proctor is to begin with a list that is 2 or 3 levels below the reading level of the student.  As the student reads each list, the examiner is to note which and how many of the words in the list that the student mispronounces.  Once errors begin, they can be interpreted as follows:

1 error  = Independent Reading Level
2 errors = Instructional Reading Level
3 errors = Frustrating Reading Level

Today, I was able to give the SDQA  to student #4 and found that there was certainly a correlation between the two assessments with this student.  Her Lexile level score on the STAR test indicates that she reads on a 5th grade level, and when reading the words below, she went from reading independently with the 4th grade words but shot straight to the frustration level with the 5th grade words.  I feel like these are so close that when looking at the two, I have a fairly solid understanding of where she is.  It's nice to know this and makes me really excited to see what this reveals with the other 20 students in my study!

On February 26th, I was able to give the SDQA to the students in the study and have some interesting results.

I followed the instructions on the SDQA and had each student begin reading the word list that was two grade levels below the Lexile level indicated on the last STAR test.  For instance, if the STAR indicated that a student read on a fifth grade level, that student began reading the 3rd grade level list. 

The test indicates three levels of reading: Independent, Instructional, & Frustration.  

INDEPENDENT LEVEL OF READING

This first chart reveals a comparison between the student's Lexile reading level and the students level of reading INDEPENDENCE, according to the SDQA.  

• 84% of students are reading independently ON or BELOW their Lexile.
• 68% of students are reading independently BELOW their Lexile.
• This is very interesting to me, and I am so surprised that so students many are reading INDEPENDENTLY below their Lexile.  I know that this is the "be-all/end-all" of reading level assessment, but I think such a close correlation between the two assessments does indicate some truth.  

INSTRUCTIONAL LEVEL OF READING

This second chart reveals a comparison between the student's Lexile reading level and the student's level of reading INDEPENDENCE, according to the SDQA.  

This is definitely the most interesting finding! How weird is it that 73% of students' assessments did not indicate an instructional level...  They were cruising right along, and then they were stumped completely.   I have included a couple of kids' assessments to give a visual of what was going on here on their sheets.  

• 22% of students are reading on  an instructional level that is ON or BELOW their Lexile.

FRUSTRATION LEVEL OF READING

This third chart reveals a comparison between the student's Lexile reading level and the student's level of reading FRUSTRATION, according to the SDQA.  

• 58% of students were found to be at the frustration level on or below their Lexile level.  
• 41% of students were found to be at the frustration level above their Lexile level.