[EDLING:1169] Reading assessments at the secondary level

[Joseph Gallagher]

 I was wondering what assessment tools are being used at various secondary level schools out there, with what pros and cons.

 I am an ESL teacher at a high school in a small city in Central Virginia. We have a growing ESL population made up mostly of refugees from various countries. They tend to come to us in blocks of 3 to 10 students from a particular country at a given time. The next year (or even the same year) we may get a new group from a new country. We also have a growing population of Spanish speaking students. This gives us quite a wide variation in English levels, L1 literacy, educational backgrounds, etc. that has made finding an appropriate reading assessment tool extremely difficult. Conversations with other districts in the region seem to show that most others are confronting similar issues. 

We want to give every secondary ESL student a quarterly reading assessment so we can determine the progress being made. What should we use with adolescents who are emerging to developing readers? We are looking into the Frye word list, Marie Clay's Reading Recovery, PALS, Dibbles, DRA, and QRI. We, however, are not sure they will give us the information we need for secondary students and in an acceptable amount of time.

 Any help with guiding us towards better assessing our ELL's in reading would be greatly appreciated.

 Thank you in advance for any assistance




Joseph Gallagher
ESL 
Charlottesville High School
434-245-2709