English and Children with Special Educational Needs in Key Stages 1 and 2

Reading difficulties: assessment

Recent emphasis in primary schools has been on summative assessment through use of standardised tests, at the expense of formative assessments which inform teaching and learning. National Curriculum levels, standardised tests and QCA end of year tests do not provide adequate records for children with SEN because a) they are not fine enough to measure progress adequately b) they do not feed into teaching and learning and c) may not, because of the context of the test, reflect or discover what the child can actually do or finds difficult.

Formative reading assessments

Teachers need formative assessments which help them to assess children’s reading in a wide range of contexts and provide the basis for teaching and learning. A range of reading records might include:

reading record sheets for individual children to which both teachers and TAs/LSAs contribute
reading samples where teachers make notes about an in depth reading against a schedule
a Running Record or Miscue analysis where children’s use of reading cues and strategies is analysed
use of more finely grained criteria for monitoring progress eg P Levels or CLPE Reading Scales
a list of books read
ways of reflecting the views of children and parents

Parents and children

An important part of the SEN Code of Practice involves taking into account the views of children and parents. Reading records can include conferences with the child and the child’s own comments. For reluctant readers records might also include reading journals where children are invited to write and draw about their reading. There can also be notes on discussions or conferences with parents as well as home/school reading logs where parents are invited to write regular notes about reading with their child.

Reading record sheets and samples

Records can take the form of simple sheets for taking notes, using headings such as ‘Date, Title, Child’s strategies, Teaching strategies’. Reading samples such as those developed by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education as part of the Primary Language Record (Barrs, Ellis, Hester and Thomas, 1990) provide a structured in-depth record for reading with individual children.

CLPE Reading sample heading

Overall impression of the child’s reading

he child’s degree of confidence and independence
ways in which the child reads the text aloud (eg fluency, expression)

Strategies used when reading the text aloud:

drawing on previous experience
using book language
reading the pictures
using tunes and patterns of text
focusing on print: (directionality, 1:1 correspondence, recognition of certain words)
using semantic/ syntactic/ grapho-phonic cues
using analogy
predicting
self-correcting
using several strategies or overdependent on one
using strategies appropriate to this particular text (eg information text)

Response, understanding and analysis

How far the child is able to:

make links with personal experience and other texts, indicating preferences
explore literary meanings eg retell, predict, read pictures/diagrams
understand beyond the literal, reflect on wider meanings
discuss patterns and features of texts

Child's self-assessment and learning aims

Plan the next steps for this child as a reader (eg developing confidence, strategies, range of texts, response and understanding

Reading sample forms for Key Stages 1 and 2 can be downloaded from:
http://www.clpe.co.uk/researchandprojects/research_06.html
Scroll to the bottom of the page for downloads. Group reading records are also available.

Scales and performance descriptions

When working with children with SEN the difference between levels of the National Curriculum are too wide to adequately reflect progress. For performance descriptions for children working towards Level 1 (P Levels) in English, see Planning, teaching and assessing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties (QCA) http://www.nc.uk.net/ld/En_perf.html

The CLPE Reading Scales provide more detailed descriptions of children as readers than National Curriculum levels. They can be used to monitor the progress of the class or groups and can be downloaded from http://www.clpe.co.uk/researchandprojects/research_06.html
Scroll to the bottom of the page for downloads.

Running Record and Miscue Analysis

The Running Record and Miscue Analysis are two sampling procedures based on ‘error analysis’ which enable teachers to analyse the errors that children make as they read in order to identify children’s use of cueing systems for reading and use of other reading strategies such as self-correction.

Cueing systems (also called ‘searchlights’ by the NLS)
As children learn to read, they learn to use and orchestrate a variety of cueing systems:
Graphophonic or visual cues - applying what is known of letter-sound correspondences to decode words
Semantic or meaning cues - applying background knowledge and the context of the sentence or passage to identify words
Syntactic or sentence structure cues - applying what is known about how language works to identify words

The Running Record, developed originally by Marie Clay as part of the Reading Recovery Programme, is used with children who are at the earlier stages of reading and can be used with a known or partly known text. Miscue Analysis, developed by Kenneth Goodman, is a similar procedure and is used with children who have begun to read, with an unknown text

Both procedures allow the teacher to:

analyse children’s errors as they read
focus on specific needs by identifying what cueing systems, strategies and skills the child is using
choose books which are appropriate for a child
Discuss the text which helps the teacher to form judgements about what has been understood.
The teacher marks the script of the text – on a typed version of the text or a simple photocopy, using a marking system to denote omissions, insertions, substitutions etc. The reading and text marking are followed by a discussion about the text.

For straightforward guidance and a marking symbol guide see:
http://www.readinga-z.com/newfiles/levels/runrecord/runrec.html

Activity

Ask students to:

Tape record a child reading a text which is at the child’s level ie the child is mostly able to sustain the reading, but makes some errors
This should include talking through the text beforehand with the child (Running Record) or giving the child an opportunity to read through the text beforehand (Miscue Analysis)
To type out or photocopy the texts
To download marking symbols
To listen to the tapes in pairs and mark the text with the child’s errors
To discuss what the errors tell them about the child as a reader. (They may need support with the latter).

NB These procedures are not appropriate for children who are either at the earliest stages of reading, who cannot access a text independently, or rely only on memory, nor for fluent readers.