[SweetTea]

Several people have mentioned using DRA. I am not familiar with this program. From reading, I understand it can be used to find a student's reading level. Can this program be used to progress monitor students? Any information would be helpful!

[sue81]

My district just purchased this for my reading program. (4-6 grade) From what I can tell from what I have read so far is that there are 4 stories at each level and a few for below 4th. It looks like you could give it several times a year to document progress, but I don't think it is set up to progress monitor every 1-2 weeks like DIBELS.

Anyone else?

[SweetTea]

Thanks for your input. I will keep watching the post for other input. We use DIBELS, but were looking for something better for comprehension.

[MrsM]

No, DRA is too involved and given one at a time. At the upper levels, there is not enough interval between levels for it to be used often. You need something much simpler and quicker for progress monitoring. I love the accuracy of the DRA but it just won't work for monitoring for interventions.

Our school purchased AIMSweb. I don't know how to say it, we purchased a membership or a subscription. Without using that, I don't know what to recommend to you for comprehension monitoring.

[MrsM]

I bought a book from Scholastic called 3-Minute Reading Assessments by Timothy V. Rasinski and Nancy Padak. These are given individually and you get results for word recognition, fluency and comprehension. There are four passages for each grade level. This may be enough for you to monitor progress. I don't see any problem with giving Forms A through D, then repeating Form A if you still need information based on the same grade level. This book covers grade levels 1st through 4th.

[dallasdeb]

You might also check out Assessment First, by scholastic. It has assessments for all 5 of the reading first areas, plus what to do with the results 9teaching ideas)

[SweetTea]

I check out the Scholastic Resource. Also I was searching through the books today in the professional library and found the Radinski 3 Minute Assessment books! I appreciate the suggestions!