I love reading this discussion of Aimsweb! I was so frustrated when
our district used this program last year. It goes against EVERY single
thing I know about reading instruction and reading assessment.
Remember: "What gets measured, gets done!" I knew I did not want
teaching for fast reading to get "done" in our district. I even
emailed Tim Rasinski last year and got a great response about how he
felt these 1 minute assessments were a travesty!
We (reading specialists) decided to write our own progress monitoring
assessments that actually assess real reading: ALL aspects of fluency,
accuraccy, comprehension (literal and inferential). We bought rigby
texts and have created over 150 tests from levels 3-34. I don't think
we knew what we were getting ourselves into when we started (over 800
pages of assessments!), and I'm not sure we would do it again. Now
that it is done though, we are happy we did! We feel we actually get
useful information this year. Yes, it does take longer to administer
(although we don't do them every week), but as the IRA says, we
shouldn't sacrifice quality for efficiency.
I say that anyone who is really unhappy with what they are using should
keep speaking up and searching for something that makes sense!
Tricia Burke
Reading Specialist
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