Assessment of reading accuracy

At the word level, high frequency word lists are useful for assessing accuracy, as are lists of the vocabulary needed for particular subjects or personal interests. However, natural reading involves the reading of passages and our ultimate aim is for a child to achieve the fluency needed to enable understanding to take place.

There are different ways to measure reading accuracy, these include:

At a simple level to measure a child’s accuracy on given texts

• To help analyse the mistakes a child is using
• Standardised tests
• Provide measures of accuracy in addition to diagnostic information

These are one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to assess accuracy. The reader reads their book whilst the listener ticks a photocopied sheet of the text.

Or use a 10x10 grid - this is harder to carry out if the child is a fluent reader; but easier to calculate the scores.

At the end of the grid a score out of the 100 words gives a percentage accuracy score. If using a photocopy of the text, count up the first one hundred words and place a red mark after the hundredth word. The easiest way to do this is to count each word on each line and write the cumulative total at the end of each sentence. That way if you lose count you do not need to start counting from the beginning, this also makes it easier to total the final score. The number of words read correctly out of 100, gives you the percentage accuracy reading for that piece of text.

Judgements can be made about the suitability of the texts using the percentage score: 89% or less – book is too challenging 90-95% - appropriate instructional level 96-99% - appropriate for independent reading 100% - book is too easy.

Children need to read some texts with 100% accuracy so that they can focus on becoming fluent, expressive and understand what they are reading. However, if they are always reading with 100% accuracy they will have no challenges and no new words to learn.

He scores from the assessment are only one part of the overall assessment that takes place but can help you to identify what the issues might be. For example:

Jack is reading with 100% accuracy but does so in a faltering, slow manner – he will need support to help him to become more fluent (reading at a quicker pace) and more expressive. Most struggling readers will have low accuracy and speed scores – they will need support for word recognition as well as having texts modelled for them.