About Reading Level Assessments

Reading level assessments give students, teachers and parents information about students' reading skills and deficits. There are many kinds of reading level assessments that check for pre-reading skills, decoding (sounding out) skills, comprehension skills and comprehensive tests that check all skills together to indicate a grade level.

Time Frame

They can begin as early as pre-kindergarten with pre-reading skills like letter identification, and extend all the way through high school with the reading assessment portions of the SAT and ACT.

Significance

Reading level assessments provide teachers with information about what students are able to do and what they need to work on; they show student progress when administered each quarter or semester.

Types

The running record is a test where a teacher listens to a child read and records mistakes and substitutions; the student reads increasingly difficult text until reaching the frustration level.

Benefits

Students today must read for information, considering the amount of research on the Internet; being able to read at grade level is extremely important for all aspects of learning.

Considerations

Reading level assessments can help teachers and tutors pinpoint exactly what the reading problems are.

Aspects of Reading

Reading encompasses decoding, comprehension, fluency and vocabulary.

Resources

• Improving Reading Skills