I work withclients from literacy to university in a variety of subject areas.
Here is my problem:The companies here have tests prospective employees must pass. Even if they are hired previous to writing, they must pass within a time frame. They must also pass the GED if they do not have grade twelve. People entering apprenticeships must pass an exam before Apprenticeship accepts them; others must pass the GED or DAT for employment/education. Reading require- ments range from functional literacy to grade twelve: mainly job related or technical reading except for the GED,
We have a program that increases reading speed, fluency, and vocabulary, but addresses only 2 comprehension sub-skills. We have good material to develop comprehension sub-skills, BUT not any tests that indicate what sub-skill(s) are weak. Tests I have found give overall comprehension scores, but don’t break down to sub-skill scores.
Tests that must be used by trained psychologists are out of the question, as none of our counsellors are trained for this kind of testing. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Re: reading comprehension tests
Sue, what I did to get an idea of where problems are was build a test using the Barnell Loft Specific Skill Series. My problem is twofold.
1.The test is big (page wise), but I don’t feel 2 questions from each skill is adequate for an accurate read of skills. I give 3 pages from selected booklets for each skill, using D-I levels; they choose which 2 pages to do. I use a baseline of 2 mistakes on any page as an indicator of a sub-skill deficiency.
2. I am not a reading specialist by any means so I am uncertain this is a reasonably accurate assessment.
I see these people when they first come in, and when we discuss results. Once I have the “test” scored, I assign the BL Series according to scores. Once they complete the booklets, we discuss how it went and whether or not to continue working on that skill.
In the absence of “proper” tests, is this a good “patch”, or should I try something else? I feel something is being overlooked her, but I don’t know what!
About ten years ago our school looked high and low for that, since the test we were using was getting painfully dated and was out of print.
Unfortuantely the market is for the quick & dirty big group stuff, not the diagnostics. We couldn’t find anything, then. We settled for the Stanford. (The other one had things like “inferences” “details” and another category — *and* broke down performance into the just-below-grade level, grade level, and higher passages so that when a kid’s comprehension was worse at the higher ends, we could check out the accuracy issues.)
But… I’d be searching online for info. The GORT has ocmprehension quesitons but they don’t break down well IMO. Do any of the reading programs have evaluations? I vaguely remember a promo for a college reading program.