Transcript The Predictive Assessment of Reading (PAR)

THE PREDICTIVE ASSESSMENT
OF READING (PAR)
February 11, 2013
Carrie Malloy & Julie Smith
Literacy
Long Term Goals
Engagement and Joy
Story Time at Secca
Story Time at Summit
History of the PAR
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Developed out of 30 years of NIH-funded research
designed to gain a better understanding of literacy
development
 How
it unfolds in typical readers
 How early intervention can ameliorate later difficulties
The National Reading Panel’s 2000 report,
Put Reading First
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Commissioned out of concern for the growing
illiteracy rate in our country
A panel of research experts analyzed hundreds of
literacy studies (a meta-analysis)
Their assessment of the research literature on
reading and its implications for reading instruction
Their Findings
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Research Supports Five Essential Components of
Reading Instruction:
 Phonemic
Awareness
 Phonics
 Vocabulary
 Fluency
 Comprehension
Phonemic Awareness
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A child’s ability to recognize that spoken words are
made up of individual speech sounds (phonemes)
and that child can hear, count, and manipulate those
sounds.
Listening for Sounds
Phonics
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Understanding that there is a predictable relationship
between speech sounds in our spoken language
(phonemes) and the letters which represent them
(graphemes). Often referred to as the “alphabetic
principle”
Phonics instruction must be taught
 Systematically
(easiest concepts to harder)
 Explicitly (to mastery)
 Should begin no later than Kindergarten
Sounds and Symbols
Vocabulary
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Development of stored information about the
meaning and pronunciation of words
 Developed
indirectly through oral language and
listening to enriched text read aloud
 Developed
directly through explicit and specific
teaching of word meanings in context, dictionary skills,
familiarity with word parts
Alfie and Annie Rose
Fluency
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The ability to read text accurately, quickly, and with
prosody. Studies demonstrate that practice and
repetition leads to automaticity.
Activities for improving fluency include:
 Monitored,
repeated oral reading practice
 Student-adult paired reading
 Choral reading
 Taped practice
 Timed drills
Repeated Stories and Singing
Comprehension

The ultimate goal of reading. The following
strategies have a firm scientific basis for improving
text comprehension:
 Teaching
students to question, predict, self-monitor as
they read
 The use of graphic organizers
 Teaching story structure
 Summarizing and visualization strategies
Expressing What We Know
Understanding
Why the PAR?
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Now that research can better shed light on how
literacy develops, rather than waiting for children to
fail, what can be done to:
 Predict
a child’s future reading outcome
 Change the course of that outcome through focused,
preventative instruction
What is the PAR?
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The PAR is not an academic achievement test, but rather an
early screening tool developed to assess a child’s skill on
basic underlying processing skills which support literacy.
These include:
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Phonological Awareness
Letter Identification and High Frequency Single Word Reading
Rapid Naming (a measure of fluency/word retrieval)
Vocabulary
It is able to predict a kindergartener’s eighth grade reading
ability with 97% accuracy.
What Can the PAR Tell Us About a
Child?

Its results can:
 Uncover
patterns of uneven skill development
 Identify early literacy and pre-literacy strengths and
weaknesses
 Provide insight regarding critical pre-reading skills,
which can be supported or bolstered to change the
course of a child’s future literacy outcome
A Look At How it’s Administered
Understanding The Results
Begin with the End in Mind