The Informal Reading Inventory is a very useful tool in determining reading problems in students. Several inventories exist. Most are written to incorporate a country’s cultural setting, to ensure that students have some background knowledge on text’s subject matter. This evaluation instrument helps to determine a child’s Independent reading level, Instructional reading level, Frustration reading level and Potential reading level. This is determined after students read a passage and answer questions related to the passage. Students are evaluated on their fluency in reading as well as their ability to gather Literal and Inferential meaning from the passage read.
Some Specific Reading Difficulties that may be ascertained by using the IRI
1. Word by Word Reading
2. Incorrect Phrasing
3. Poor pronunciation
4. Omissions – Word endings, Words, Phrases, Sentences
5. Repetitions
6. Reversals
7. Insertions
8. Substitutions
9. Guessing at words
10. Pointing at words
11. Poor sight vocabulary – basic sight words not known
12. Phonic difficulties – letter sounds, blends, digraphs
13.Contractions not known
14. Poor comprehension skills – literal, inferential, creative/ critical
Friday, July 30, 2010
Evaluating Reading
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Hi Syndny, Just a comment :) Informal Reading Inventories (IRI) are often recommended as instructionally relevant measures of reading. However, they have also been criticized for inattention to technical quality. Examination of reliability evidence in nine recently revised IRIs revealed that fewer than half report reliability. Several appear to have sufficient reliability for lower stakes decisions such as selection of classroom reading materials, but not for higher stakes purposes such as identification of reading difficulties. As reading specialists from a different geopolitical climate we must provide recommendations for improving IRI reliability and addresses the need for expanded guidelines for evaluating reliability, particularly for measures of score agreement on our students who use Creole.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this post I felt the information shared could easily be developed into a checklist for evaluating students reading strengths and weaknesses.
ReplyDeleteThis checklist could be used during the administration of the IRI or, it could be used before a diagnostic test is administered to guage the entry level for another specific test.