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The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among summer reading camp participants' initial prosocial efficacy, reading motivation, and their reading skill changes. Despite the theoretical explanation of social and emotional learning (SEL), there is a lack of empirical studies demonstrating the complex relationships and processes among students' social-emotional competencies and beneficial academic learning outcomes. The Freedom Schools reading camp provides learning opportunities during the summer vacation for children primarily from low-income families and minoritized racial and ethnic backgrounds. This study tested the linear relationship between students' initial reading motivation and reading growth with prosocial efficacy as a moderator (n = 67). We found that initial intrinsic regulation was related to students' reading comprehension skill growth, and prosocial efficacy moderated the relationship between reading skill changes and intrinsic regulation. Results provided clues about how students' efficacy for prosocial behavior could explain the relationship between students' reading motivation and reading growth.

This article explores how the general term of assessment literacy can be specified to the area of reading through the lens of the informal reading inventory, Qualitative Reading Inventory-5. This article will investigate the common misconceptions that teachers, who were enrolled in a graduate program to become state-certified specialized literacy professionals, had when conducting and interpreting the QRI-5. The data that will be presented is from a project that examined the theories that undergird informal reading inventories, and how teachers understood these theories. We will then include recommendations for improving assessment literacy for developing specialized literacy professionals.

This article asserts that a carefully administered informal reading inventory (IRI) provides important information on low-achieving readers that is "not" provided by an end-of-grade standardized reading test. Using case studies of students' IRI performance, we address the concept of instructional level and the necessity of teaching low readers at the appropriate difficulty level--"meeting them where they are"--in the classroom and resource room. In doing so, we note that instructional-level (or below-grade-level) reading can, over time, drive low readers' print-processing skill (accuracy and rate), eventually enabling them, through purposeful practice, to "self-improve" their overall reading (including comprehension). While such improvement may not show up on an end-of-year standardized test, it will show up on an end-of-year IRI.

Students are expected to recognize the vocabulary items appearing in a text in order for reading to be meaningful. The evaluation of word recognition is commonly considered in educational applications in order for reading to be meaningful for students and to identify and correct mistakes. This study aims to exhibit the effectiveness of the inventory whose stages of preparation and implementation were process-based and which was developed for word recognition on determining the first graders' word recognition levels. For this purpose, the Type 1 development research type of design and development research model was used to develop an instrument for students' word recognition levels and thus to demonstrate its applicability. The study group was composed of 85 first graders who had been chosen in convenience sampling method. Student Information Form, Word Recognition Inventory-1 (WRI-1) and Word Recognition Inventory-2 (WRI-2) were used as the tools of data collection. Variance analysis (ANOVA) and independent groups t-test were used in comparing the students for WRI-1 inventory which met the conditions for normal distribution whereas Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney U-test were used in comparing the students for WRI-2 inventory which did not meet the conditions for normal distribution. Consequently, it was found that the inventories, whose stages of preparation and implementation were process-based and which were developed to determine students' word recognition levels, were effective in determining the primary school first graders' word recognition levels.

Upper elementary school students who have reading problems may have difficulty in one or more areas of reading, each requiring specific types of interventions. This study evaluated a short-term reading intervention for 46 fifth-grade students with poor reading comprehension. Students were randomly assigned to an intervention or no treatment control condition. The 40 session (20 hr) intervention targeted reading comprehension strategy instruction in the context of informational science texts. Analyses showed statistically significant effects favoring the intervention on two proximal measures (i.e., measures closely related to the intervention content). The effects for the outcomes were moderate (gs = 0.61 and 0.72). There were no statistically significant differences on distal measures (i.e., measures less closely aligned with the intervention). The findings provide support for the efficacy of a reading comprehension intervention that may inform short-term interventions within a Response to Intervention framework.

The aim of this study was to reveal how reading comprehension skills of elementary fourth graders who have problems in reading comprehension can be improved by means of the SCRATCH program. The study was designed as a participant action research. It was carried out within a 15- week process at an elementary school with middle socio-economic level in the Eskisehir province in the fall term of the 2015-2016 school year. The participants of the study were eight fourth graders who had problems in reading comprehension and were selected based on the criterion sampling method. Different data gathering tools were employed in different stages of the study. These were the Informal Reading Inventory, readability assessment rubric, participant selection form and identification forms for developmental level in reading comprehension for the quantitative data, and observation notes, a researcher diary, video recordings, teacher and student observation notes, and the projects the students prepared using the SCRATCH program for the qualitative data. In the study, the analysis of the quantitative data was done with correlation analysis, and Kendall W Test that shows inter-rater reliability. In addition, the identification forms for developmental level in reading comprehension were used to reveal the improvement in reading comprehension skills, and the Informal Reading Inventory was employed to score these forms. On the other hand, the qualitative data were analysed through the thematic analysis method, and MAXQDA was used for the analysis. As a result of the analyses, it was found that the reading level of the eight students who had problems in reading comprehension went up from the anxiety level to the instructional level in some forms, and even to the independent reading level in other forms; in other words, there was an improvement in the reading comprehension skills of all eight students.

Standardized testing is widely utilized to determine the levels of children's learning achievement. There has been a constant debate on how accurately standardized tests reflect children's achievement. Many practice teachers struggle with teaching to the test to meet the national criteria. An elementary teacher questioned the accuracy of the standardized test and worked with the researcher to seek an alternative form of reading assessment to determine the student's reading level. The researcher utilized reading inventory, student's learning records, teacher's and student's feedback, and a parental conference to inquire into the issue. The results revealed that although the child was categorized as a low-level reader, the child was a capable reader, only that he read too quickly and tended to miss details of the information he was reading. He adopted reading strategies to assist his reading. This study demonstrated that alternative assessing can be a valuable learning tool for teachers and students.

Singing exaggerates the language of reading. The students find their voices in the rhythm and bounce of language by using music as an alternative technological approach to reading. A concurrent mixed methods study was conducted to investigate the use of an interactive sing-to-read program Tune Into Reading (Electronic Learning Products, 2006) embedded within a heterogeneous music classroom. Measured by the Qualitative Reading Inventory-4 (QRI-4) (Leslie & Caldwell, 2006), the fluency, word recognition, comprehension, and instructional reading level of the treatment students n = 32 were compared to their counterparts n = 32 who sang as part of the regular music program. Concurrently, this investigation also provided a description of the peers' interactions during the literacy tasks assigned by the music teacher. The study findings indicated that the middle school students of varying reading levels significantly improved in their reading scores through the use of this technological approach. Students using the interactive sing-to-read program Tune Into Reading significantly outscored their counterparts who were rereading through singing in the regular music classroom. Furthermore, the use of the interactive program provided opportunities for differentiated reading level achievement. This in turn highly influenced the early adolescent's motivation, engagement, participation, and successful outcomes in reading fluency.

This action research study investigated first-graders' attitudes toward being a community of learners as a result of their involvement in constructing their classroom environment. The children's attitudes throughout the year were measured through student surveys, parent surveys, student reflections, teacher reflective journal entries, and informal reading inventories. Even though the experimental group's perceptions of helping, closeness, collaboration, and student influence decreased after their involvement in the intervention, these perceptions were still higher than those measured at the beginning of the year. These students' attitudes pertaining to positive interpersonal relationships never lessened but grew steadily stronger throughout the year. The results also indicated that the experimental group perceived itself more as a community of learners at the end of the year than did the control group. Involvement in making decisions with classmates, collaborating in learning with peers, and engaging in multi-age activities prompted feelings of community among the children. Authentic opportunities for student-driven learning, decision making, boosting self-confidence, and collaborating emerged. Notable gains in the experimental group's reading achievement were observed. The conclusions paralleled the transactive model of teaching and supported the belief that encouraging students to socially and physically create their learning environment promotes learning while building a sense of community. Limitations of the study, such as student test anxiety, were addressed. Concluding thoughts highlighted insights into how to allow the construction process to flow more smoothly and be more effective for all involved. (Contains 2 figures and 4 tables.)

We examined which of two instruments (Text Reading and Comprehension inventory [TRC] or a traditional informal reading inventory [IRI]) provides the more valid assessment of a primary-grade student's reading instructional level. The TRC is currently the required, benchmark reading assessment for students in grades K-3 in the state of North Carolina. The TRC and IRI were administered to 196 students in grades 1-3. Results showed that the TRC, when compared to the IRI, (a) underestimated students' reading instructional level, and (b) took three times as long to administer. Suggestions for improving the instrument are offered.

We explore whether (a) teacher ratings of texts' cultural relevance along various dimensions differ from those of students, (b) these ratings reflect a single construct, and (c) ratings of specific dimensions are related to specific reading outcomes. Fifty African-American students were each administered two text protocols for a total of 100 protocols. Teachers and students rated each text along multiple dimensions of cultural relevance. Factor analyses showed that teachers' cultural relevance ratings formed a coherent construct, but students' ratings did not. Multivariate, multilevel, mixed response analyses showed that students who rated places and experiences as culturally relevant had higher critical evaluation and connection scores. When researcher ratings were higher, students' word recognition meaning-maintenance, rereading at miscues, and literal comprehension scores were higher.

This study investigated the reliability and validity of Part 1 of the Informal Decoding Inventory (IDI), a free diagnostic assessment used to plan Tier 2 intervention for first graders with decoding deficits. Part 1 addresses single-syllable words and consists of five subtests that progress in difficulty and that contain real word and pseudoword components. The IDI was administered to a sample of 94 first graders who attended three high-poverty schools in a rural district located in a South Atlantic state. The "Test of Word Recognition Efficiency-Second Edition" (TOWRE-2) was given in the same session. Internal consistency (Cronbach's a) exceeded .70 for the total scores and all but one subtest. Total scores for real words and pseudowords correlated highly with TOWRE-2 subtests. Confirmatory factor analysis substantiated the five-factor structure of the IDI, and mean comparisons affirmed the order of the subtests in all cases but one. Overall, this preliminary study affirmed the reliability and validity of the IDI. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Within a developmental framework, this study compared the predictive validity of three DIBELS tasks (phoneme segmentation fluency [PSF], nonsense word fluency [NWF], and oral reading fluency [ORF]) with that of three alternative tasks drawn from the field of reading (phonemic spelling [phSPEL], word recognition-timed [WR-t], and graded passage reading [grPASS), an oral reading fluency measure). Two cohorts of students (n = 319) were assessed with the aforementioned tasks multiple times across a four-year period--middle of kindergarten through end of third grade. The results were clear and closely replicated in the two cohorts: (a) phSPEL (moderate) outperformed DIBELS PSF (weak to moderate) in predicting future orthographic-unit processing; (b) WR-t (very strong) outperformed DIBELS NWF (moderate) in predicting future oral reading fluency; and (c) DIBELS ORF and grPASS were equally good predictors (moderately strong) of future reading comprehension.

This study investigated the complexity of leveled passages used in four classroom reading assessments. A total of 167 passages leveled for Grades 1-6 from these assessments were analyzed using four analytical tools of text complexity. More traditional, two-factor measures of text complexity found a general trend of fairly consistent across-grade progression of average complexity among the four assessments. However, considerable cross-assessment variability was observed in terms of the size of increase in complexity from grade to grade, the overall range of complexity, and the within-grade text complexity. These cross-assessment differences were less pronounced with newer, multi-factor analytical tools. The four assessments also differed in the extent to which their passages met the text complexity guidelines of the Common Core State Standards. The authors discuss implications of the differences found among and within the classroom assessment systems, on one hand, and among the measures of text complexity, on the other.

The current study has been conducted to improve the reading disability of the subject "F" who is a 3rd grade primary school student. The study consists of detection, diagnosis and treatment stages and is an "action research" in line with qualitative research design. The Informal Reading Inventory was used to determine the reading disability of the subject. Interviews were held with the subject, his teacher and parents in order to learn more about him. In addition to interviews, the results of "Sociometry" and "Who is this?" surveys, an autobiography written by the subject, the teacher's notes about the subject, the questionnaire form filled out by the subject's father, the classroom journal and some test results of other lessons were also utilized. According to the test results based on the Informal Reading Inventory, the subject's reading level was found at frustration level. As a result of the interviews, it was concluded that the subject had a negative attitude towards reading. "F" does not have any mental or emotional problems. During the treatment stage, a number of practices were primarily conducted to help the subject overcome these negative attitudes. At this stage, interviews were held with the teacher and parents and agreed upon how to deal with the subject after the treatment. In the second stage, the "Audio-Recording Method" was used to help the subject overcome his word recognition difficulties. The practices lasted 11 weeks. During the practices, the subject was asked to read a text aloud and his reading was recorded. The subject was asked to listen to his own recording to find and correct his reading miscues. According to the results of the final test performed after the treatment practices, it has been found that there are improvements regarding the subject's word recognition and comprehension level and his negative attitudes towards reading.

This article describes a Tier 2 intervention program for fourth graders that is well suited to supporting implementation of the Common Core State Standards. Screening assessments and miscue analyses were used to clarify students' strengths and challenges. Students then attended only classes that were suited to their particular literacy needs, spending the remainder of their time participating in classroom lessons that integrated language arts throughout content area curriculum. This program supported struggling readers in effective and efficient ways. A Tier 2 class in prosody is explained in depth. Findings demonstrate clear growth on progress-monitoring assessments and overall reading gains as measured on an informal reading inventory. The study has implications for adjusting RTI protocols to better suit contemporary literacy practices.

This study examines how elementary teachers (grades three through five) in dual-language, bilingual programs (Spanish/English) view informal reading inventories (IRIs) to support their students' reading growth. The research, conducted in an urban district in the Northeastern United States, draws on interviews with 20 teachers in these programs. One significant finding is that although teachers in the sample collected IRIs in the two languages of instruction, they did not examine English and Spanish reading assessment data side by side in order to construct a unified portrait of their students as bilingual readers. This study highlights the finding that IRIs are currently viewed as monolingual assessments rather than as a lens into students' biliteracy, thus bypassing a powerful way to assist teachers in making instructional decisions in support of students' bilingual reading development.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were adopted by most states by 2010. Yet, many teachers still lack confidence in their ability to integrate these standards into their classroom instruction and this uncertainty undermines their effectiveness. This article presents findings from a study of a fourth grade literacy curriculum informed by the CCSS. The study mobilized the Vygotskian notion of mediation as it applies in a literacy learning context and addresses the following research questions: (a) What were fourth grade student English language arts achievement levels and beliefs about literacy prior to and following the implementation of a CCSS-based curriculum? (b) What was the collaborating teacher's response to participating in the implementation project? and (c) What roles did mediating tools play within this literacy learning system? Several types of data were collected: unit assessments from the core curriculum; scaled scores from the state standards test; Informal Reading Inventory and interview responses from six focal students; and teacher interview responses. Analysis demonstrated (a) gains by all students, particularly those who struggled, on all assessment measures, (b) increased metacognitive awareness and positive changes in beliefs about reading on the part of focal students, (c) the teacher's growing confidence in and commitment to the new curriculum, and (d) a growing use of mediational tools by students. These findings support the argument that a structured CCSS curriculum, adapted by classroom teachers, can serve as an important tool serving to mediate the space between students and literacy achievement.

The present study investigated some psychometric properties of the Basic Reading Inventory (BRI), a widely used informal reading inventory. The BRI and Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) probes were administered to 149 third, fourth, and fifth graders. Test--retest and alternate forms reliability analyses indicated adequate levels of reliability for low-stakes decisions. Concurrent validity analyses indicated strong correlations with DIBELS, an established measure of reading fluency. These results are discussed in light of implications for use of the BRI for making instructional grouping, universal screening, and progress monitoring decisions.

Many adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) experience difficulties reading. To improve reading outcomes for these students, research has demonstrated the importance of providing students with appropriate texts. Appropriate texts are those that match both the reading and interest levels of students and are often credited with reducing frustration and facilitating comprehension. This article presents research on selecting appropriate texts and provides teachers with practical suggestions and resources to use when supporting selection of independent reading material for adolescents with LD. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

This study examined how effectively candidates in an MSEd in literacy education with a focus on reading program used the results from the Basic Reading Inventory to develop key instructional recommendations. The results indicated that, overall, candidates made about two thirds of the key recommendations suggested by an expert in the area of reading and reading assessment. Candidates needed to increase the specificity of strategies related to the recommendations and to decrease the number of low-priority recommendations. This article delineates suggestions regarding how teacher educators can help their candidates improve the quality and specificity of recommendations. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

In this article, we discuss the Informal Reading-"Thinking" Inventory (IR-TI), an informal reading inventory built on an easily recognized legacy model that also branches out into new realms. The IR-TI provides tools for assessing reading the lines, reading between the lines, and reading beyond the lines. This is a 21st-century assessment instrument that reaches out to track critical aspects of social and cognitive development. The IR-TI includes innovative prompts for gathering data on schema activation, personal-emotional responding, elaborative thinking, engagement, metacognition, and response to text writing. The optional IR-TI tasks shed light on overlooked student strengths as well as student needs. The instrument urges fresh thinking as it points out unexpected strengths in weaker readers and weakness in seemingly proficient readers. Seeming outlier findings such as these stimulate new knowledge as they challenge popular but ambiguous theories and practices. (Contains 1 table.)

With the increasing amount of testing taking place in classrooms, teachers may question how appropriate those assessments are for the growing numbers of English language learners (ELLs) in the United States. One of the assessment options for classroom teachers is the informal reading inventory (IRI), which is the most frequently used assessment tool for all students. Because of disagreement regarding the reliability and validity of IRIs for use with native English speakers, teachers should exercise greater caution when using them with ELLs, both in choosing the specific IRI and in interpreting the results based on the influence of students' accents on word pronunciations, familiarity with culturally specific content, the kinds of questions asked, and the relevance to classroom instruction and to students' culture. In addition, teachers should evaluate students' reading ability using several measures rather than a single assessment. Other informal assessments are available for use with ELLs. (Contains 1 table.)

Over time, criticisms related to the technical rigor of informal reading inventories (IRIs) have led many to question using these assessment instruments for high- or low-stakes purposes. In this article, I examine reliability evidence reported in 11 new and updated IRIs and make comparisons with Spector's earlier analysis that revealed fewer than half of the IRIs reported reliability. Based on the findings, I discuss ways in which IRIs have changed and use criteria recommended by Nitko, Salvia and Ysseldyke, and Spector to consider various educational uses of IRI data. (Contains 6 tables and 1 figure.)

In order for students to learn how to construct meaning from text, teachers must apply instructional strategies that will help readers transition from simple decoding of words to fluent word identification. This article will provide an overview of the literature related to the role of fluency in reading; explain research-based recommendations for fostering fluency with struggling readers; discuss the use of repeated readings, in particular Readers Theatre, as an instructional strategy for developing fluency; and present the findings of a study in which a third-grade teacher applied Readers Theatre to improve the fluency levels of her struggling readers.

This study draws from a number of researchers who push for critical literacy and a critical stance to question power, inequality, and the status quo; to understand scholars' own participation in power structures; and to reframe and retheorize scholars' beliefs and understandings. In this article, the author uses the critical stance framework to analyze preservice English language arts teachers multigenre inquiry projects, projects that were meant to engage them in reflection, critical thinking, and action. The qualitative analysis of classroom-based work is guided by the following questions: To what extent do preservice teachers go beyond answering a question of interest to adopting a critical stance, and what does this critical stance look like? (Contains 1 table, 2 notes, and 8 figures.)

To examine the second-language reading development of 45 fourth-grade Latino bilinguals, a sequential mixed methods study was conducted in two phases (Creswell, 2009). The quantitative data collected in the first phase generated an index of the group's reading performance based on two grade-level assessments, a state-mandated standardized reading assessment and an informal reading inventory (IRI) of a grade-level passage written in English. The qualitative data collected in the second phase informed in depth about each bilingual's reading process and use of comprehension strategies. The findings indicated that while both reading performance scores paralleled the varying school-designated English-proficiency classification represented among the participants, the bilingual readers also shared similar reading strategies without distinction when they read difficult text. Guided reading that integrated explicit cross-linguistic and cross-cultural knowledge was found to mediate comprehension of the grade-level passage for all the participants regardless of their reading performance scores and designated English-proficiency classification. Implications for providing responsive literacy instruction for bilingual readers are outlined. (Contains 2 tables.)

The present study investigated the relationship between rapid recognition of individual words (Word Recognition Test) and two measures of contextual reading: (1) grade-level Passage Reading Test (IRI passage) and (2) performance on standardized STAR Reading Test. To establish if time of presentation on the word recognition test was a factor in predicting contextual reading performance, four computerized presentation times were used: 300 msec, 650 msec, 1000 msec, and 2000 msec. Regression analyses revealed that, for both third- and fourth-grade students, there was evidence that presentation times of less than 1 second better approximated performance on the two contextual reading measures. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

This longitudinal study investigated children's performance on several informal reading and spelling tasks. Students (n = 274) in a rural North Carolina county were assessed across grades 2 to 6 on the following measures: isolated word recognition (timed and untimed), oral reading accuracy, reading comprehension, reading rate, and spelling. Statistics (means and standard deviations) were reported for each measure each year. Overall, the results tended to support traditional performance criteria in reading diagnosis. Two findings that deserve further study were (1) word recognition-timed proved to be a good predictor of oral reading rate at each grade level (median r = 0.68), and (2) both oral and silent reading rates, after increasing steadily from grade 2 to 4, began to taper off between grades 4 and 6. This second finding is in contrast to previous reading-rate data reported by Hasbrouck and Tindal and by Taylor. (Contains 2 figures, 10 tables, and 1 note.)

Participants (115 low-socioeconomic-status [SES], inner-city, high-school students) were exposed to three reading conditions: (1) a control condition in which students silently read brief selected passages; (2) an experimental condition in which students were prompted to perform a three-part (Ask, Read, and Tell [ART]) comprehension enhancement exercise before, during, and after reading the selected passages; and (3) another experimental condition in which ART was followed by peer discussion (PD) of the reading. Students answered 10 comprehension questions after reading passages under each condition, which served as the dependent variable. Results of a repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect, and follow-up analysis showed significantly higher levels of comprehension on ART + PD passages relative to either the control or ART passages. Discussion focuses on using PD to enhance comprehension and future research to determine which combination of intervention components are necessary to occasion enhanced comprehension. (Contains 1 table.)

The purpose of this article is to report the results of a study that examined young readers' metacognitive processes and strategies while reading. An interview procedure was conducted while 109 children (high, average, and low readers) in kindergarten (three classrooms) and first grade (four classrooms) read familiar and unfamiliar text. Qualitative analyses were conducted on the interview data. A three-way Hierarchical Log-Linear analysis was also conducted to examine the associations between three variables, that is, grade, level of students within the grades, and mark (number of observations). Two-way Chi Square analysis revealed that the children across grades and different reading levels within grades used strategies to understand text. Most of the children could report the use of one or more strategies (i.e., pictures, words, or sounding it out). (Contains 8 tables.)