The Informal Reading Inventory Was Given to Hager Alshaif on Two Separate Days

Kathleen Childress

RE 5715

April 12, 2010

The Informal Reading Inventory was given to Hailey Childress a first grade student at Yadkinville Elementary School on Saturday, March 27, 2010. The word recognition flash test was administered first in order to determine where to begin the oral reading passages. I began the oral reading passages for Hailey at the third grade level because this is where she scored 80% on the flash word recognition. Hailey’s scores prior to this were 95% for second grade, and 100% for first through pre-primer. I did test Hailey at the fourth grade level in word recognition however; here she scored 50% on the flash test. A score of 50% on word recognition flash is in the gray area, as a result, I continued with the fifth grade word list. It was at this point Hailey scored 30%, which is clearly frustration.

Since third grade is the point she scored 80%; this is the level I chose to begin the oral reading part of the IRI. I began Hailey’s silent reading at the second grade level since this is one level below the level Hailey achieved an instructional level at oral reading. The completed scores for Hailey have allowed me to set both her frustration and instructional reading and spelling levels.

The administration of the oral reading passages of level 3 and level 5 of form

A had testing irregularities. Hailey missed a line of text in both of these passages.

Upon recommendation of my instructor Hailey was retested using form C at level

3 and 5 on April 5, 2010. Hailey’s frustration level for reading is fourth grade. I determined this level by first looking at Hailey’s oral reading scores. The frustration level for oral reading is below 90%. Hailey scored 97% on her oral reading at the fourth grade level.

While this is within the instructional level for fourth grade she made 4 errors with

4 of these being meaning change errors. I then looked at her scores from her word recognition flash test. The frustration level for word recognition is below

50%, Hailey scored 50 % on the flash part of word recognition. This score is in the gray area. After looking at Hailey’s oral reading and word recognition scores,

I also considered the rate in which she read orally and silently. Ideally oral reading rate at the fourth grade level should be 110-150 words per minute.

Hailey’s reading rate was 109 words per minute, which is lower than the recommended rates. Hailey’s silent reading rate should be 135-185 words per minute however her rate was 87 words per minute. Oral and silent reading comprehension is the final part of the assessment to consider. The frustration level is 50% and below. Hailey scored 33% on her oral reading comprehension this is clearly at the frustration level and 67% on her silent reading comprehension which is in the gray area. Considering all the Hailey’s scores I feel fourth grade is her reading frustration level.

After determining fourth grade as Hailey’s frustration level I then evaluated her scores at the third grade level. Hailey scored at the independent level for oral reading with a score of 98%. She made 5 errors with 1 of these being meaning change errors. When I looked at Hailey’s word recognition flash test she scored within the instructional levels of 70-85% with a score of 80%. She also scored 100% on the untimed part of the flash test, this score along with the 98% oral reading accuracy indicate Hailey has good decoding skills. The next parts of the assessment to consider are reading rates both oral and silent. The oral reading rate for the third grade is 95-135 words per minute. Hailey’s reading rate was 83 words per minute, slightly lower that the recommended rates. Hailey’s silent reading rate should be 120-170 words per minute however her rate on this passage was 106 words per minute. Reading comprehension both oral and silent is the final part of the assessment to consider. Hailey scored at the instructional level of 75-89 % with an oral reading comprehension score of 75%. Hailey’s silent reading comprehension was within the instructional range of 75-89% with a score of 83%.

Due to Hailey’s reading rates being slightly lower at third grade I did decided to test her oral reading at the second grade level. The second grade oral reading levels were at the independent level of 100%. She scored 95% at word recognition which is instructional. Then looking at her reading rates orally she scored above the recommended rate of 80-120 words per minute with a rate of

134 words per minute. The silent reading rates for second grade are 95-145 words per minute. . Hailey was instructional here with a rate of 128 words per minute. It is at second grade she also scored independent on oral reading comprehension with a score of 100%. Her silent reading comprehension was within the instructional area of 80%. After evaluating this information and the information from the third grade assessment, I feel confident in determining Hailey’s reading instructional level is third grade. Hailey will need to work at increasing her reading rate through repeated readings of instructional passages.

The spelling assessment is the last part of the IRI. I began the spelling assessment with words from level one and proceeded to level two, three and finally level four. I stopped at level four because this is the level in which Hailey missed eight words.

Hailey’s spelling scores indicate frustration at the fourth grade level. It was at this level she scored 33%. Frustration level is below 40%. The main area in which Hailey appears to be having problems is with doubling consonants; for example poped instead of popped, slamed instead of slammed and r-controlled syllables; scery rather than scurry, stered for stared.

Hailey’s spelling scores are instructional at the third grade level. It was at this level she scored 50%. Instructional level for spelling is 50-89%.It appears Hailey has a good understanding of CVVC patterns.