The purpose of this article was to offer guidance to educators in evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, and most effective uses of commercial reading assessment suites. We provide three resources to help educators who are responsible for making instructional decisions in reading using formal screening, benchmark, interim, and progress-monitoring…

Over the past two decades, U.S. states have widely adopted early literacy policies. These policies have shown short-term success in enhancing K-3 literacy skills. However, the reasons behind their widespread adoption and the factors driving their success are poorly understood. This three-paper dissertation focuses on Michigan's Read by Grade Three…

The purpose of this study is to describe a new approach for evaluating the judgments of standard-setting panelists within the context of the bookmark procedure. The bookmark procedure is widely used for setting performance standards on high-stakes assessments. A many-faceted Rasch (MFR) model is proposed for evaluating the bookmark judgments of…

This study focused on the predictive validity of fluency measures that comprise Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). Data were gathered from first through third graders attending 44 schools in 9 districts or local educational agencies that made up the first Reading First cohort in Michigan. Students were administered DIBELS…

Curriculum-Based Assessment for Instructional Design (CBA-ID) provides data used to ensure an appropriately challenging learning task. One aspect of appropriate challenge measured by CBA-ID, called the acquisition rate (AR), involves the amount of new information a student could acquire and retain during initial learning. Previous research…

An overall analysis is made of the impact of Grade 3 Title I reading programs in the State of Michigan. An attempt is made to estimate the effectiveness of particular reading programs for low-scoring, middle-scoring, and high-scoring pupils for the purpose of identifying exemplary programs. In addition, a rank ordering of the various programs…