How do we know how well our students are doing? It’s important to take time regularly to assess their progress, so we can adjust instruction as needed and help ensure that no student slips through the cracks.
As students progress from kindergarten through third grade, they should be steadily developing the skills they need to become proficient readers. Students need to learn and then master their foundational skills (e.g., decoding individual words) while gradually developing the ability to understand and critique increasingly complex texts.
The Common Core State Standards, which have been adopted (or adapted) by most states, identify what students should know by the end of each grade (K-3) in order to become successful readers. Below, you can find a set of grade-by-grade charts, based on the standards, that provide a useful benchmark for the skills that, ideally, all of our students should master.
Types of assessments
To monitor student progress, schools and individual teachers conduct different types of assessments with students in Grades K-3:
Screening assessments
Given to all students at the start of the school year to determine which students are at risk of struggling with reading. They are not used to diagnose specific skill gaps; rather, they help to identify children who need diagnostic assessments, as well as children who may require supplemental intervention. Screening assessments should be relatively fast and efficient to administer. One type of useful screening assessment involves curriculum-based measures (CBMs). Examples include DIBELS Next or Aimsweb.
Diagnostic assessments
Used to assess specific skills or components of reading such as phonemic awareness, phonics skills, and fluency. The results of diagnostic assessments inform instruction and intervention. Diagnostic assessments can be formal standardized tests of children’s component reading and language abilities or informal measures such as criterion-referenced tests and informal reading inventories. Not all children need this kind of in-depth reading assessment, which is most important for struggling and at-risk readers.
- Norm-referenced assessments are formal assessments, often used as diagnostic tools. The score compares the student’s skills to a defined population used in standardizing the test (i.e., how did this student perform on these tasks compared to other students in the same grade or age range). Examples of these tests include the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement and the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test. Typically these kinds of tests should not be administered more than once a year.
- Criterion-referenced assessments are both formal and informal assessments, and are also used as diagnostic tools. The score compares the student’s skills to a defined set of skills and a goal (criterion) for mastery. These assessments are administered before instruction and after instruction to measure a student’s skill growth. An example of this type of test is the Core Phonics Survey. Usually these kinds of tests can be administered more than once a year.
Outcome assessments
Also called high stakes assessments, these are given to all students within the same grade. They measure students’ skills against grade-level expectations. Outcome assessments are used to make decisions about students, teachers, a school, or even an entire school system.
Progress monitoring assessments
Measure a student’s overall progress during the school year or progress toward acquiring specific skills that have been taught. Examples of these kinds of measures include curriculum-based measures (CBMs), criterion-referenced tests, and informal measures such as reading inventories. These tests can be given more than once a year and, depending on the assessment, sometimes quite frequently. For instance, many CBMs could be given on a weekly basis if desired.
As the list above suggests, a single assessment can sometimes serve more than one purpose or fit in more than one category. For example, a CBM such as DIBELS Next can be used as part of universal screening at the beginning of the school year to help determine which children are at risk in reading. It can also be re-administered later in the school year to help gauge a child’s overall progress in reading.
Introduction to reading assessment
This podcast from the University of Florida Literacy Institute provides a brief overview of basic concepts related to reading assessment.
Identifying students’ skill gaps to target specific weaknesses
Starting in first grade, most students are given assessments of their reading comprehension. These assessments are important, but they provide us with only a global view of a child’s reading ability. To provide useful instruction and intervention, we must be able to target instruction to a student’s specific weaknesses.
For instance, two first-graders might obtain the same low reading comprehension score, but if one student’s difficulty is mainly in the area of decoding and the other student’s main weakness involves limited vocabulary knowledge, then those students will need different types of instruction to improve their overall reading comprehension.
The simple view of reading
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) offers one useful way to think about reading and the skill gaps students might have. SVR is widely referenced in scientific studies of reading. According to SVR, good reading comprehension requires two broad types of abilities: good word recognition and good oral language comprehension.
Both of these domains — word recognition and oral language comprehension — incorporate other specific abilities. For example:
Word recognition encompasses:
- Phonological and phonemic awareness
- Phonics skills (both knowledge of letter sounds and decoding unfamiliar words)
- Automaticity of word recognition
- Reading of common phonetically irregular words
Oral language comprehension encompasses:
- Oral vocabulary (including morphology, i.e., understanding meaningful word parts such as common roots)
- Background knowledge
- Sentence (syntactic) comprehension
- Pragmatic language (use of language in a social context, including subtler aspects of language usage such as understanding sarcasm or idioms)
[Note: these are key examples, not an exhaustive list.]
Students need both types of abilities to read and comprehend well — just one will not do. For instance, children who have excellent language comprehension, with the ability to understand sophisticated stories read aloud by the teacher, still will not have good reading comprehension if they cannot read individual words.
Conversely, a child who reads words accurately and automatically but who does not have good oral comprehension will also not have good reading comprehension. This latter type of child might be able to decode a sentence perfectly, such as The gorgeous lady with the flowing white robe and the golden crown was confined to the attic of the castle. However, if the child does not know the meanings of words such as gorgeous, confined, and attic, or if he or she cannot understand the somewhat complex syntax of the sentence, then reading comprehension will nevertheless be impaired.
This article provides an excellent discussion of the Simple View of Reading and what it means for good reading instruction.
Children who can read grade-appropriate passages accurately, with ease and appropriate speed, as well as with good oral expression, generally have good language comprehension as well. Other cognitive abilities, such as working memory and executive function, also influence reading comprehension. Classroom teachers do not typically assess these other cognitive abilities as part of a reading assessment, but they can be important to consider in individual cases, such as when a student has a disability that affects reading.
Severe weaknesses in either word recognition or oral language comprehension may require assessments conducted by special educators, reading specialists, or psychologists (e.g., using Woodcock Johnson IV or the WIAT-III). If we are concerned about particular students, we should confer with specialists and with their school’s administration.
Determining the profile of reading difficulty and identifying specific skill gaps
The Simple View of Reading has been used to identify four profiles of young learners: a profile for students who are at or above grade level and three common profiles of students with reading difficulties. Among others, Catts and his colleagues (e.g., Catts, Adlof, & Weismer, 2006), Moats (2006), and Spear-Swerling (2015a, 2015b) have discussed these profiles:
- Students who have good or adequate language comprehension and good or adequate decoding. Children with this profile are most likely at or above grade level in reading.
- Students who have good language comprehension but poor word recognition/decoding skills.This profile is termed specific word recognition difficulties (SWRD), because the child’s reading problems are specific to word recognition, not language comprehension.
- Students who have poor language comprehension but good word recognition/decoding skills. This profile is called specific comprehension difficulties (SCD), because the child’s reading problems are specific to comprehension and do not involve reading words.
- Students who have weaknesses in both language comprehension and word recognition/decoding skills. This profile is often called mixed reading difficulties (MRD), because the reading problems include both word recognition and comprehension.
When teaching struggling readers, identifying the individual student’s profile can help insure that intervention strategies are effective:
- Students with the second profile, good language comprehension but poor word recognition (SWRD), typically need phonics intervention. For most of these children, effective phonics intervention, if accompanied by adequate levels of fluency, should enable children to achieve grade-appropriate reading comprehension
- Students with the third profile, poor language comprehension but good word recognition and decoding (SCD), do not need phonics intervention. They require comprehension interventions that address their specific needs in the domain of comprehension (e.g., vocabulary, background knowledge, inferencing).
- Students with the last profile, weaknesses in both language comprehension and word recognition/decoding (MRD), require both phonics intervention and intervention addressing their specific comprehension needs.
We can use the Simple View of Reading to identify the child’s profile of reading difficulty. From there, we should conduct more fine-grained assessments to determine the child’s specific skills and how to target instruction.
At each grade level, certain types of difficulties will likely be common, which means that children can be grouped together for differentiation of instruction in small, flexible groups. For example, in a typical third-grade class, difficulties with word-recognition and decoding would often involve decoding two-syllable or multisyllabic words, and children with these needs could be grouped together. Children with grade-appropriate decoding but comprehension needs involving vocabulary and background knowledge (another common weakness) might be in a second group.
Children with needs in both areas could participate in both groups. This plan might not meet the needs of all children, such as those who are very far behind in decoding, but it would provide helpful differentiation of instruction for most children in a class.
Profiles of three struggling readers
Millie
Consider a third grader, Millie, who eagerly participates in classroom discussions. She can recall details from videos and passages read aloud. She correctly uses new vocabulary in speech. But Millie’s oral text reading is not fluent. She reads slowly, needs to laboriously sound out many words, and lacks prosody (i.e., the ability to read aloud with expression). She also lacks grade-appropriate spelling skills, although she can spell phonetically. For example, Millie spells the word thought as thot. How would we categorize her skill gap?
Does Millie have grade-appropriate language comprehension? Yes, she appears to have strong language comprehension; she follows conversations, remembers details, and uses vocabulary correctly in speech.
Does Millie have grade-appropriate word recognition? No. The description suggests a lack of reading fluency related to word recognition that is not automatic. Millie is able to spell phonetically. That means she has strong phonological awareness, as well as some basic phonics skills (e.g., knowledge of single consonant and short vowel spellings). For example, she correctly hears the sounds in the word thought. Her spelling difficulties suggest she has weak orthographic skills; that is, Millie lacks knowledge about common letter patterns used in spelling. She may also have difficulty reading multisyllabic words, which require knowledge about many common letter patterns including those connected to roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
Millie has the first profile of reading difficulty, SWRD (specific word recognition difficulties), involving grade-appropriate oral language comprehension but difficulties in the domain of word recognition.
Millie’s teacher should assess her ability to read and spell words with common letter patterns expected at her grade level, in order to determine how to target instruction for her. She should also look for ways to improve Millie’s reading fluency, such as re-reading of familiar text.
Data for Millie from a standardized reading measure with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 21.06 might look like this:
| Subtest | Score |
|---|---|
| Listening Comprehension | 61 |
| Reading Comprehension | 35 |
| Vocabulary | 39 |
| Word Attack | 34 |
| Word Identification | 37 |
| Spelling | 31 |
Notice that all the scores are below the mean of 50 except for listening comprehension. The listening comprehension score documents Millie’s strong language comprehension skills. Listening comprehension does not require any skills in decoding. The other scores, which require adequate decoding, demonstrate Millie’s poor decoding and word recognition skills.
Curtis
Consider Curtis, another third grader. Curtis reads third-grade text accurately and fluently, but he rarely participates in classroom discussions. He struggles to answer questions, especially inferential questions. Curtis’s teacher has noticed that he often does not know the meanings of words typically known by third graders. She has observed these problems in Curtis’s own reading, during class discussions, and also in Curtis’s writing. Although Curtis has grade-appropriate spelling skills, his word choice in his writing is a significant weakness. How would we categorize his skill gap?
Does Curtis have strong language comprehension? No, he struggles with following a conversation and answering inferential questions. The description of Curtis suggests that vocabulary weaknesses may account for at least some of his comprehension problems. Lack of background knowledge, often associated with vocabulary limitations, may also be an issue. His difficulties with inferencing could be connected to these weaknesses.
Does Curtis have grade-appropriate word recognition? Yes, his grade-appropriate oral reading fluency indicates that he does not have problems with word recognition. His grade-appropriate spelling also supports this idea.
Curtis has the second profile of reading difficulty, SCD (specific comprehension difficulties), involving poor language comprehension coupled with good word recognition and decoding.
Curtis requires more in-depth assessments of specific language comprehension skills such as vocabulary and background knowledge. Because Curtis’s word recognition and text fluency are not an issue, these aspects of Curtis’s comprehension could be evaluated in the context of his reading as well as his listening. For example, his teacher could examine Curtis’s performance on different types of questions during an informal reading inventory or during classroom discussions.
Data for Curtis from a standardized reading measure with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 might look like this:
| Subtest | Score |
|---|---|
| Listening Comprehension | 85 |
| Reading Comprehension | 85 |
| Vocabulary | 89 |
| Word Attack | 108 |
| Word Identification | 108 |
| Spelling | 100 |
Note that all of Curtis’ scores for anything related to language comprehension (listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and vocabulary) are below the mean of 100. The scores that require adequate decoding (word attack, word identification, and spelling) are at or above the mean. The data support the profile of poor language comprehension but good word recognition and decoding.
Bella
Consider Bella, a talkative first grader whose intervention teacher says she reads accurately. Bella can retell stories and answer questions during discussions. In class, Bella reads many words sound by sound, then looks at the teacher and says the whole word as if asking a question. At the end of the paragraph, Bella has no memory of what she has read even though she has read every word accurately.
Does Bella have strong language comprehension? Yes, she can understand discussions, and she can retell stories. She engages in discussions during class.
Does Bella have strong decoding? Are her orthographic skills strong? She is capable of associating the sounds with the letter patterns. This is not the area of primary weakness. She has weak phonological awareness, likely at the phonemic awareness level. She has to hear herself say the sounds in order to blend them into a word. Even then, she is unsure if she has done this correctly. This is so effortful that she exhausts her working memory reading the words. She cannot comprehend what she reads because of the effort required to sound out words. Phonological awareness should be assessed to find where instruction should start.
Summary
By looking at reading errors through the lens of the Simple View of Reading, we can categorize the area of weakness. From there, we can administer skill-level assessments to find the student’s lowest level of skill. That is where instruction should start.
Seeking help
While assessments can help identify a student’s skill gaps, there will be times when we need additional support. For example, language comprehension skill gaps may be as simple as building a student’s vocabulary, or they may be far more complex. A student’s decoding issues may appear to be simple phonemic awareness gaps but prove difficult to strengthen.
As such, it is important not to wait but to seek help for that student as quickly as possible. Seeking help may start by asking fellow teachers for advice or may require referral to a specialist. This will vary by school and school district.
It is critical, however, to act quickly. Students who struggle with reading fall behind grade level content at an alarming rate. When a student does not respond to intervention almost from the start, we should err on the side of seeking additional support.
Foundational reading skills and comprehension benchmarks: what children need to know
The following charts provide a concise summary of what students should know by the end of each grade (K-3) in order to become successful readers. The charts are derived from the Common Core State Standards and represent a useful benchmark for the skills that all students need. They include foundational reading skills as well as broader comprehension benchmarks. Without foundational skills, reading comprehension cannot occur. It is critical for elementary teachers to address these foundational skills and for children with poor skills to receive needed interventions.
End of kindergarten benchmarks
By the end of kindergarten, students should be able to:
| Foundational Reading Skills | Text Reading | Text Reading | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Print Awareness | Phonological Awareness Skills | Reading Skills | Literature | Informational |
| Know that words in print are separated by spaces. | Recognize and produce rhyming words. | Name all upper- and lower-case letters accurately. | With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. | With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. |
| Know that we read from top to bottom, left to right, and page by page. | Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words. | Track text left to right, and return again to the left on the next line down. | With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details. | With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text. |
| Know that words are separated by spaces. | Add or substitute individual sounds in simple one-syllable words. | Have a basic knowledge of the letter-sound correspondences. | With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story. | With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text. |
| Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does). | Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text. | With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text. | ||
| Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.Read words with common suffixes. | Recognize common types of texts (e.g., storybooks, poems). | Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book. | ||
| Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding. | With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts). | Name the author and illustrator of a text and define the role of each in presenting the ideas or information in a text.. | ||
| With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences in familiar stories. | With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in which they appear (e.g., what person, place, thing, or idea in the text an illustration depicts). | |||
| Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding. | With prompting and support, identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text. | |||
| With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures). | ||||
| Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding. | ||||
End of first grade benchmarks
By the end of first grade, students should be able to:
| Foundational Reading Skills | Text Reading | Text Reading | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Print Awareness | Phonological Awareness Skills | Reading Skills | Literature | Informational |
| Recognize the features of sentences (e.g., capitalize the first letter, end with ending punctuation). | Distinguish between short and long vowel sounds in single-syllable words. | Know the spelling-sound correspondences for all consonants and common consonant digraphs. | Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. | Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. |
| Blend phonemes to form single-syllable words, including words with consonant blends. | Know the silent-e spelling pattern for representing long vowel sounds. | Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson. | Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text. | |
| Isolate and pronounce the initial, final, medial, and vowel sounds in single-syllable words. | Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a word. | Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details. | Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text. | |
| Segment single-syllable words into individual sounds. | Decode and syllabicate two-syllable words following basic patterns. | Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses. | Ask and answer questions to help determine or clarify the meaning of words and phrases in a text. | |
| Read words with common suffixes. | Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading of a range of text types. | Know and use various features (e.g., headings, tables of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text. | ||
| Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words. | Identify who is telling the story at various points in a text. | Distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text. | ||
| Read grade-level texts accurately, fluently, and with purpose and understanding. | Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events. | Use illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas. | ||
| Use context to confirm understanding, and self-correct and reread as necessary to fix comprehension. | Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories. | Identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text. | ||
| With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for Grade 1. | Identify basic similarities in and differences between texts on the same topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures). | |||
| With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for Grade 1. | ||||
End of second grade benchmarks
By the end of second grade, students should be able to:
| Foundational Reading Skills | Text Reading | Text Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phonics and Word Recognition | Fluency | Literature | Informational |
| Distinguish long and short vowels when reading regularly spelled one-syllable words. | Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding. | Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. | Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. |
| Know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams. | Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings. | Recount stories, including fables and folk tales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral. | Identify the main topic of a multiparagraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text. |
| Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels. | Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary. | Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges. | Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text. |
| Decode words with common prefixes and suffixes. | Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song. | Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text relevant to a Grade 2 topic or subject area. | |
| Identify words with inconsistent but common spelling-sound correspondences. | Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action. | Know and use various text features (e.g., captions, bold print, subheadings, glossaries, indexes, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently. | |
| Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words. | Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud. | Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe. | |
| Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot. | Explain how specific images (e.g., a diagram showing how a machine works) contribute to and clarify a text. | ||
| Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures. | Describe how reasons support specific points the author makes in a text. | ||
| By the end of the year, proficiently read and comprehend literature, including stories and poetry, in the text complexity band for Grades 2-3, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. | Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic. | ||
| By the end of the year, proficiently read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the Grades 2-3 text complexity band, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. | |||
End of third grade benchmarks
By the end of third grade, students should be able to:
| Foundational Reading Skills | Text Reading | Text Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phonics and Word Recognition | Fluency | Literature | Informational |
| Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. | Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. | Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers. | Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers. |
| Identify and know the meaning of the most common prefixes and derivational suffixes. | Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding. | Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral, and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text. | Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea. |
| Decode words with common Latin suffixes. | Read grade-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings. | Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events. | Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific concepts, or steps in a technical procedure in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect. |
| Decode multisyllable words. | Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary. | Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language. | Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a Grade 3 topic or subject area. |
| Read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words. | Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections. | Use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently. | |
| Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters. | Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text. | ||
| Explain how specific aspects of a text’s illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (e.g., create mood, emphasize aspects of a character or setting). | Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur). | ||
| Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters (e.g., in books from a series). | Describe the logical connection between particular sentences and paragraphs in a text (e.g., comparison, cause/effect, first/second/third in a sequence). | ||
| By the end of the year, independently and proficiently read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the Grades 2–3 text complexity band. | Compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two texts on the same topic. | ||
| By the end of the year, independently and proficiently read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the Grades 2–3 text complexity band. | |||
See all the Common Core English Language Arts Standards .
References: profiles of struggling readers
Catts, H.W., Adlof, S.M., & Weismer, S.E. (2006). Language deficits in poor comprehenders: A case for the simple view of reading. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49(2), 278-293.
Catts, H.W., Compton, D.L., Tomblin, J.B., & Bridges, M.S. (2012). Prevalence and nature of late-emerging poor readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(2), 166-181.
Spear-Swerling, L. (2015a). The power of RTI and reading profiles: A blueprint for solving reading problems. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing Co.
Spear-Swerling, L. (2015b). Common types of reading problems and how to help children who have them. The Reading Teacher, 69(5), 513-522.
Assessing reading skills
At the Stern Center in Williston, Vermont, struggling students get a leg up on reading and other skills.