My dd was assessed with SRA Corrective for decoding. she had to read 3 different passages. It was determined at the 3rd one that her level could be determined. On this particular assessment we were told that she was at a high 3rd, around 3.8 reading level.
To me the passages seemed very easy and they gave a significant amount of time for reading them. What I’d like to know is if anyone finds that this test seems to inflate the students ability compared to other tests. The main things that were assess were ability to decode and fluency.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thank You,
SuseyQ
The Corrective Reading placement test is for determining what level of the program is appropriate for the student to begin instruction. You are correct that none of the passages are particularly difficult. Level A of Corrective Reading is for non-readers or those who have only memorized a few words and decode very little or not at all. Level B gets into more complex decoding skills involving vowels and word endings (among other things); Level C gets into some fairly complex text and includes instruction in word analysis (morphemes, prefixes, etc.) along with more complex sentence structure, vocabulary and so on.
The test does NOT give any grade levels as results of the placement test (at least not in my version of the test, which I believe is the most recent). So those numbers must have been opinions from the school personnel.
What the placement test reveals is what level is an appropriate starting place for your student. Given what you say, it would appear that she should begin at Level C. However, the grade level of her current performance would have to be assessed by some other means — the GORT (Gray Oral Reading Test), Woodcock, or something similar.