I think it is so convenient that we are taking this particular class at the beginning of the school year. Though it would have been great to know all of this material beforehand, this class is making me look at my reading assessments this year much differently. School for my third graders and me started last Wednesday. On Friday, I began to assess my students using the QRI-4. I like to do the word lists for everyone first, so that I can immediately group the students based on their decoding abilities. I realize that reading word lists are much different than reading paragraphs and short stories. However, this quick glance at the word list assessment is very helpful in helping me get a rough idea for where my students are as readers. It also allows me to have some one on one interaction with the students and set the tone for our reading “appointments” that we will have throughout the school year (I follow the Daily 5 CAFE curriculum from the Sisters). *Side note, I changed CAFÉ to the “FACE of a reader” in my classroom, thanks to a blog that I saw online. I think it is much more relatable for my third graders to think about the FACE of a reader than a CAFÉ menu.* Anyway, I’m almost done with the word lists. When I have the word lists complete for each student, I’ll assess my more struggling readers first. I know that this year I have a very wide range in abilities, and I’m guessing that about 6 of my students are one or two grade levels below where they should be at this time.
As I anticipate doing the full QRI-4 assessment, I am so grateful that I have access to it and that I am familiar with how to give this assessment. I like QRI-4 much better because it doesn’t seem to take as long as the DRA. Though I like the colorful DRA books, I find the written portion of the DRA to be quite overwhelming for my third graders. For instance, when the students are asked to write a summary of what they read, my students do very poorly. When I ask them to tell me orally what they remember (similar to the retelling in the QRI-4), then my students are able to recall more information and more importantly, communicate that information. When you mix in writing with the reading comprehension, the scores do not accurately reflect their ability to remember what they read. Some students are natural and gifted writers and can write great summaries at the beginning of third grade, but the majority of my students look at the DRA packet like a huge, daunting task. Plus, from my standpoint, it takes so much time for them to read the book and fill out the questions and summaries! On the other hand, when I had my students retell me last year what they remembered, my hand was about to fall off from writing so quickly what they were saying! There’s not really a win-win in this situation, is there? I love the DRA and think it’s a great tool, but it’s not as practical for the reality of our teacher world in which we have over 25 students to assess and limited time before the rest of our class goes crazy while we work with one student at a time.
The upside of the DRA is that it has actual levels, such as 28, 30, 40, etc. In this case, it’s great because I can level all my classroom books with the DRA levels so that I can more easily recommend good fit books to my students, and they can also be mindful of the kinds of books they are reading. In my classroom, I either looked the book’s DRA level up online, or I found its lexile measure and used a guide to determine what the DRA level would be. I’m not sure if the QRI-4 has any kind of measurement that I could then transfer to my books in the classroom. If so, I definitely want to know what it is for next year!
I completely agree with you, here. Although the information from the DRA is great, the writing piece often gives more information about a child's writing ability (or their dislike for it) than their reading skills. As a middle school teacher, I also have to note that many of my kids roll their eyes if they see the little books from a DRA kit, simply because the books look like they are meant for young readers. I often avoid this because the last thing I want to do is to make a kid that already dislikes reading, or who has a bad view of themselves as a reader, even worse.
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