Maureen & Leslie,
I go back far enough to have started with DRA 1, which of course was
just called DRA at that time. In its inception, there were no scores
attached. The only number, really, was the child's level. All the
rest of the information was necessarily descriptive. Little by little
scores and rubrics have crept in, and now there's this timer thing,
which I don't do. I figure I can hear if a child is reading fluently.
And when a child is disfluent or slow, what is more helpful to me
than a number is to listen closely for what is causing the
disfluency. A few years ago I had a child who read slowly because he
kept going back to reread, adjusting the intonation until he got it
just right. It slowed him down, yes, but it also showed how much he
understood about the author's use of language, and what a good ear he
had.
I also don't do the written summaries (grade 3) because I want the
assessment to give me valid information about the children as
readers--how well they understood the story, not how well they can
write answers to questions or summarize the story in writing. So I do
it all as oral interview, including the retelling, which is how the
old DRA was always done. Of course that is more time consuming. We
get some coverage to do DRAs, but it's never enough, so I figure out
creative ways to make the time. I really cherish those one-on-one
meetings with the children, like an extended reading conference where
I can really focus in on each child.
I couldn't agree more with this comment from Maureen:
So in breaking the rules, you get more of the info you need
to help each student move on in the different aspects of literacy.
The absurdity is that reading assessments have rules that get in the
way of learning about our students as readers. Looking-glass world,
indeed.
--Ellen
At 6:28 AM -0400 9/8/09, Maureen Morrissey wrote:
Leslie,
I do the same with several students, ie, giving them the fluency test and
comprehension tests at different levels to see where they fall. You get
some decent info from a DRA2, but it certainly has many faults and the one
you mentioned is huge. The fact that fluency dictates which level
comprehension is tested upon makes no sense at all. The goal of reading is
comprehension; fluency does not correlate with comprehension in a
predictable fashion and nor is fluency causational in relation to
comprehension. So in breaking the rules, you get more of the info you need
to help each student move on in the different aspects of literacy.
The other huge issue in the upper levels is the summary writing. I have
children who can answer verbal and written questions that demonstrate both
literal and inferential level understanding; they have difficulty with
writing a summary. Once again, valuable information, but it does not show
up on the DRA2 numbers.
Best,
Maureen
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