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Reading Fluency Assessment for Elementary Students

Digital tools give educators new ways to obtain a more complete picture of students’ early literacy and reading fluency. From kindergarten, through the elementary grades, online platforms can help teachers gather information on students and design an action plan to support their growth. I’m excited to share an online reading fluency assessment designed specifically for elementary students.

Regular followers of the blog (sign up here) know that my passion for the strategic use of EdTech tools takes many forms. This includes leveraging the power of adaptive software to gather information teachers can use to drive instruction. And at the same time, digital tools can help set a pathway for students and adapt as their needs change.

When it comes to formative assessment, there is so much you can do with digital tools to get a full picture of student understanding. You might be familiar with my book on this subject, #FormativeTech: Meaningful, Sustainable, and Scalable Formative Assessment with Technology. Online platforms can help teachers gather information on student understanding. This information can help you develop a plan for meeting the needs of all students.

Online Reading Fluency Assessment

The team behind MAP Reading Fluency, reached out to me earlier this year to share their assessment tool for elementary school aged students. Educators from around the world send me messages asking for recommendations, or to share a particular EdTech obstacle they’re facing. So connecting with NWEA, the not-for-profit creator of MAP Reading Fluency — within a few days of an email from an educator asking about online reading assessments — seemed like a techy-coincidence.

I was ready to learn more about MAP Reading Fluency and had a chance to dive into their resources. MAP Reading Fluency is the only K-3 oral reading assessment that uses speech recognition, automatic scoring, and adaptive technology. You can administer the assessment to your entire class in just twenty minutes. It assesses oral reading fluency, comprehension, and foundational reading skills.

Actionable Instructional Data

MAP Reading Fluency provides actionable assessment data for differentiated instruction — so you’ll receive information right away to help you make the most of instructional time with students. You’ll get immediate results and instructional guidance to support your students. In addition to saving time when collecting data, you can get a full picture of student understanding in your class.

This information can certainly help you see trends in your class as a whole. It can also help you decide on how to group students for intervention or monitor the progress of students on a more individual level. I strongly believe that there’s no point in collecting data you aren’t going to use. With this type of online assessment platform, you can have access to information that is actionable and connected to your instructional goals too.

How does it work?

MAP Reading Fluency is also adaptive and uses information from each student to provide actionable information for teachers. Because the assessment is adaptive, it can accommodate readers at a variety of levels. Students use a headset and microphone and work at their own pace through activities. These activities include reading passages that are read aloud and comprehension questions too.

Adaptive software is designed to help students move through a series of activities that they can tackle independently. This way you’re getting information that truly mirrors a student’s level of understanding. As you can also see in the video above, this online assessment tool is kid-friendly and collects actionable information for educators. NWEA, the creator of MAP Reading Fluency, also put together a fact sheet with more details about this online assessment tool.

MAP Reading Fluency was named the 2018 CODiE award winner for Best Student Assessment Solution. This award is granted by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). It’s the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries.

Ready to learn more? You can find more information and even request a demo of MAP Reading Fluency on this page.

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Blog Author and EdTech Consultant Dr. Monica Burns

Monica Burns

Dr. Monica Burns is a former classroom teacher, Author, Speaker, and Curriculum & EdTech Consultant. Visit her site ClassTechTips.com for more ideas on how to become a tech-savvy teacher.

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