Reading is fundamental in education. Why?

"Reading opens the door to learning about math, history, science, literature, geography and much more. Thus, young, capable readers can succeed in these subjects, take advantage of other opportunities (such as reading for pleasure) and develop confidence in their own abilities. On the other hand, those students who cannot read well are much more likely to drop out of school and be limited to low-paying jobs throughout their lives. Reading is undeniably critical to success in today's society" (U.S. Department of Education, 2004).

I work at an elementary school where reading instruction is a targeted schoolwide goal. We dedicate perhaps the largest portion of our instructional day to reading. We command guided reading groups, strive for balanced reading, introduce comprehension strategies, practice decodables, and more. Basically, reading is the center of our practice whether directly with literature circles or indirectly with STEM project research.

Furthermore, most elementary schools around the country know that reading in the primary grades is crucial. "Research shows that children who read well in the early grades are far more successful in later years; and those who fall behind often stay behind when it comes to academic achievement," cites a U.S. Department of Education web page.

Similarly, my school district created a community strategic plan that calls for all students to read at grade level by third grade. To quote the goal exactly:

"All 3rd grade students will meet or exceed the end-of-year grade-level reading proficiency benchmark by SY 2017–2018. K–3 students not meeting grade-level reading proficiency benchmarks will be enrolled in a reading intervention program by SY 2016–2017.To do this, teachers must be able to comprehensively assess individual readers, identify their reading levels, and wisely choose next steps to ensure success."

At our school, we use the The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System (BAS). This reading assessment program comprehensively scores a readers fluency, decoding, and comprehension. This paper will explain the various aspects of BAS including how it is used, why it's useful, and the underlying learning theories behind it.

The BAS is intended to assess individual readers, therefore it must be administered one-on-one with each child. In a nutshell, the child reads a portion of a leveled text aloud to a test administrator, while the test administrator records a miscue analysis, or running record, of the reading. This oral reading provides the teacher with both a fluency and decoding sample. Next, the child is allowed to finish the text independently either aloud or in his/her head. When finished, the test administrator and reader have an oral discussion about the text. This discussion is used to gauge the reader's comprehension. Once the test is scored, a guided reading level is determined and lessons are planned to advance that reader.

A first grade teacher at Westside Elementary School in Utah gives a benchmark assessment.

There are two ways to assess a child's decoding with BAS. The first is to use the leveled word lists provided in the test manuals. These are words in isolation that the child reads aloud. These lists can be scored to give the test administrator an estimated guess to the child's reading level.

After the word list is analyzed, a test level can be chosen and the the child can choose a nonfiction or fiction test booklet. These booklets are regular trade books, many complete with pictures, photographs, tables, and diagrams. The idea is to make the reading authentic. The children are not reading worksheets or word lists, but a real book.

As the child reads aloud, the administrator uses a recording sheet to note any errors in the child's reading. These errors may include specific decoding errors, missed punctuation, poor intonation, monotoned expression, re-readings, pauses, or perhaps rushed reading.

The running record lets the tester know if the child reads expressively and fluently. It also lets the tester know about the reader's habits. For instance, does the reader use context to figure out unknown words. Does the reader use picture clues, or notice word endings? Does the reader have any strategy to figure out unknown words? Does the reader notice when he/she makes mistakes? Does the reader make visual errors such as reading "car" when the word is "cap"? Does the readers substitute words to make a sentence sound right (syntax and structure)? For instance, if the word is "walks", the reader may substitute the word "stroll" because it makes the sentence make sense. These are all habits and strategies, or lack thereof, that the test administrator will note in his/her miscue analysis.

So to review, both the leveled word lists and the running record provide the tester insight into a child's decoding skills. Every word a child reads is recorded until finally a percentage is taken of the overall accuracy of the text. Any text read correctly at 95% or higher (meaning 95% of the words were read correctly) is considered an independent level. That means the child could read that leveled text without assistance. Any text read correctly at 89% or lower is considered too difficult for a child. And finally, any text read between 90-94% is considered a child's instructional level. That is a level challenging enough (but not too challenging) for a teacher to provide guided reading assistance and make reading improvements.

To determine fluency, test administrators would use the oral reading sample and rank it on a rubric. Any child scoring less than a 3 would need specific instruction on phrasing, expression, or intonation. Identifying these needs provides the instructor with specific next steps for each reader.

Finally, after the text is read completely, the reader begins discussing what was read. The administrator can ask guiding questions so that a conversation develops. A comprehension scoring sheet points to specific main ideas and details that the reader should mention. Based on the conversation, the administrator would score the conversation on a comprehension rubric.

Later, all the test data can be entered into an online database where both district and school personnel can retrieve the data. The online record keeping is an added bonus because most students in one year will have taken 10 - 12 different BAS tests. All these records over time can show growth and progress. When the child graduates to the next grade, the following teacher can pick up where the last teacher left off.

As highlighted in this section, one can see how comprehensive the BAS is in its assessment of reading. It covers a variety of reading aspects that traditional standardized tests could not touch upon.

The BAS is a formative assessment administered multiple times in a year for the benefit of growth and instruction. Formative assessment is defined by Scholar student Maghan Amodei in her EPS 535 assessment work:

"Formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning targets they have not yet achieved so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support. They also help identify which students need to be challenged. The general goal of formative assessment is to collect detailed information that can be used to improve instruction and student learning while it’s happening."

BAS qualifies as formative assessment because it allows teachers to analyze their students' reading.

Each of the assessment observations above could be turned into mini-lessons in guided reading groups. These reading behaviors could not be observed in a multiple-choice paper-pencil test. By listening, observing, and analyzing, the BAS allows teachers to make instructional decisions for individual children.

The BAS kit includes a resource called The Continuum of Literacy Learning. This guide helps teachers identify specific observations and make a plan for next steps in learning. The idea is to individualized learning goals based on the assessment data. Here is a sample from the book:

These goals are available for every stage of reading, from pre-Kindergarten to fifth grade.

Below is a sample of a BAS test I administered in the spring to a third grader. We'll call him Sam. Sam started the year making mistakes without noticing them, so I focused on self-monitoring skills in the beginning of the year. You can see Sam is still using those strategies.

In his running record, Sam reread the word "tackle" as shown by the line above the text. He reread the word because it was new to him, and he didn't recognize it. This shows me that he is thinking about meaning while he reads. Sam also read the phrase "the fish line" and then corrected his mistake - another indicator that he is monitoring his reading for understanding.

Overall, Sam scored a 98% accuracy rate for his oral reading, and the top score of 3 on the fluency rubric.

This is great news because at the end of third grade, there should be far fewer decoding issues, if really any, than in the beginning of third grade. By fourth grade, students should be reading to learn more than they are learning to read.

While Sam shows sound decoding, fluency, and monitoring skills, he still has work in the area of comprehension. The BAS contains three comprehension areas: within the text (basic recall of information), beyond the text (inferences), and about the text (text features). Sam received the highest score of 3 on his recall of information, a 2 on the inference section, and only a 1 on the text features section. (Be sure to scroll right for this image.)

This test shows Sam needs more work with inferences and text features. Text features may include author's purpose, chapter titles, organization, and other concepts. The Continuum is a great reference to help create mini-lessons in these areas.

To recap, the benefits of administering the BAS to developing readers are to:

• collect observations on reading habits to guide instruction
• provide an authentic reading task
• find students' reading levels
• show progress

However, there are some drawbacks to using the BAS. Perhaps the biggest is how time-consuming the BAS is to administer. Unlike a multiple-choice test taken independently whole-class, the BAS requires a trained proctor in a one-on-one situation. Each test may take 20+ minutes to administer and often times, more than one test needs to be given to find a reader's instructional level.

In fact, the BAS was created for reading specialists. However, in my school district all general education K-3 teachers must learn and administer the BAS twice a year. Because it takes considerable time to test each child, the school district hires substitute teachers to relieve the classroom teacher to perform this task. We are now spending millions of dollars on substitute teacher hours because of the lengthy process it takes to perform this assessment.

The BAS itself is also quite pricey. Each testing kit costs $468.75, though I saw an online sale for $375. Still, this is expensive. Our school district bought every K-3 teacher his/her own classroom kit. Imagine the cost of that!

The BAS also requires enormous amounts of paper. Each BAS test includes about 6-9 pages, and by the end of the year, each student will have taken between 6-15 tests, depending on the child's reading level (at-risk readers are assessed more frequently throughout the year). One student file may be an inch thick. A classroom set fills a copy paper box... all which is shredded at the year's end. Our school only retains one test per student - the last instructional level found.

Another nuisance of the BAS is the need to administer it in a quiet atmosphere. Most teachers do not administer it in their own classrooms because the elementary school classroom can be quite active. Instead you'll see teachers in hallway nooks, in the teacher's lounge, the library - anywhere they can find a quiet space. When the whole school is giving the test at the same time, finding adequate testing environments is tricky.

But most disconcerting about the BAS is the comprehension rubric, which gives way to subjectivity in its administration. Teachers score the comprehension section using the following rubric:

Young children are not often very articulate and understanding their communication can be difficult. Because teachers at our school interpret the comprehension rubric differently, we find that we score children at different reading levels. This causes a lot of confusion from one grade to the next.

"... observations can sometimes be subjective and influenced by what [teachers] already know or believe about the students and their literacy development, so it is important to add data from more formal assessments to their observations," states a brochure on running records from the Government of South Australia's Department of Education and Children's Services.

Other assessments might include an essay-type comprehension assessment, or a even a multiple-choice one with one specific answer. So while the BAS provides insight on comprehension, it should not be the only comprehension test a teacher seeks.

Despite some of the drawbacks of BAS, the formative reading assessment is a fantastic way to observe, record, and follow a child's reading development. It's my personal opinion, running records like BAS or the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) are fundamental to being able to assess and teach reading. Without knowledge of authentic reading assessment, it's questionable if teachers would know how to authentically teach reading because, like the assessment, reading instruction is complex and multi-faceted.

Plus, the information that the BAS delivers could not be deciphered from a multiple-choice paper test. Without observation, there is no record of fluency or word-attack strategies. Even an open-answer Q and A would not reveal this kind of behavior. So a one-on-one reading scenario is key to formative assessment.

Addison Northwest Supervisory Union [image] "Phonics and Word Analysis." Retrieved from http://anwsu.org/reading%20resource/foutaswords/fountaswords.pdf.

Amodei, Maghan (2014) "Formative Assessments." Retrieved from https://cgscholar.com/community/profiles/amodei2/publications/44480.

Department of Defense Educational Activity. "Strategic Goal 1 - Student Excellence." Retrieved from http://www.dodea.edu/CSP/strategicGoals/Strategic-Goal-1-Student-Excellence.cfm.

Government of South Australia (2011) "Engaging in and Exploring Running Records." Department of Education and Children's Services. Retrieved from http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/northernadelaide/files/links/DECS_Running_Records_v5.pdf.

Heinnemann [image] "Benchmark Assessment System, 2nd Edition." Retrieved from http://www.heinemann.com/fountasandpinnell/BAS2_Components.aspx.

U.S. Department of Education (2004) "Three Questions on the Importance of Reading." Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/news/newsletters/extracredit/2004/0202.html.

Westside Wild Cats Elementary School [image] (2012) "Benchmarks." Retrieved from http://westside.nebo.edu/news/benchmarks.