Comprehension: Part 5: Assesment Strategies

Retelling:
After the child reads a benchmark book and you record a running record, have the child do an oral retelling of the story. Ask the child to close the book and then tell you about the story in as much detail as she or he can remember. If the child has difficulty retelling parts of the story or remembering certain details, you can use prompts such as "Tell me more about (character x)" or "What happened after…." Analyze the retelling for information the child gives about the following:
1. Characters
2. Main idea and supporting detail
3. Sequence of events
4. Setting
5. Plot
6. Problem and solution
7. Response to text-specific vocabulary and language

Retelling Checklist:
1. Can the child tell you what happened in the story or what the factual book was about in his or her own words?
2. Does the child include details about the characters in the retelling? Can she or he explain the relationships between the characters?
3. Can the child describe the setting? How detailed is the description?
4. Can the child recall the events of the story, and can he or she place them in the correct sequence?
5. Can the child identify the problem and the resolution?
6. Does the child use vocabulary from the text?
7. Does the child’s retelling demonstrate minimal, adequate, or very complete and detailed understanding of the text?

Readability Counts:
Knowing the readability level of the book or story matters when doing retellings and comprehension checks. If a child functions well with the retelling, the book is at independent reading level for him/her. If the child struggles, the book may be at instructional or frustration level. Instructional level books are good for guided reading. Frustration level books are not appropriate. The purpose is to find “just right” books for each child.

A good source for leveled book lists is following website:
http://home.comcast.net/~ngiansante/. These are Guided Reading levels (Pinnell and Fountas), which are lettered. You can also find their levels in The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Book List, K-8, 2006-2008 Edition (The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Book List, K-8) (Heinemann, 2005).

You can also type in the title and author of a book to get its level at http://www.leveledbooks.com/booksearch.html. These are Reading Recovery levels, which are numbers.

For free leveled readers that can be downloaded from Reading A-Z, see http://www.readinga-z.com/newfiles/preview.html.

An excellent site to help you make sense of the various readability methods is http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/reading_levels.htm.

Remember, to determine whether a book/story/text is at independent reading level, use the following guidelines:
Independent level text—Relatively easy text for the reader, with no more than approximately 1 in 20 words difficult for the reader (95% success)
Instructional level text—Challenging but manageable text for the reader, with no more than approximately 1 in 10 words difficult for the reader (90% success)
Frustration level text—Difficult text for the reader, with more than 1 in 10 words difficult for the reader (less than 90% success)

Activity: Conduct a Retelling and a Test of Readability:
Conduct a retelling with a child at the end of a running record or after he/she has finished a story. Answer the seven questions above.

Determine the reading level of the story by using one of the websites listed above. To do this in Word, type the text into a Word document. In order to do a readability in Word, you must check the box found under Preferences/Grammar and Spelling. The readability statistics come up after you have run the spelling check on the text you typed in. Once you know the readability level, you will have a better idea of the context of the results of your retelling. What conclusions can you draw about the comprehension of the child you tested?

Informal Reading Inventories:
Informal reading inventories are assessment tools that typically consist of graded word lists and passages. Retelling or comprehension questions are included. These help determine the level of text a child comprehends. There are many of these available, including the QRI-II, Cooter and Flynt, John’s Basic Reading Inventory, Woods and Moe, and Ekwall and Shankar. An Internet search will provide details. Links to each of these can be found at the following website: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/reading_levels.htm#rigby. Some of these inventories provide both narrative passages and science and social studies passages, which allows the assessor to determine how well students comprehend subject-matter expository text.

Student Talk?
After the reading, talk to the child about some of the things he or she did during the reading. Reinforce and praise certain behavior with comments and questions that focus on specific behaviors. For example, after the child reads the text, you might focus on a self-correction and ask, "How did you know it was people and not persons?"??

-from Reading A-Z: http://www.readinga-z.com/newfiles/levels/runrecord/runrec.html