Assess. Understand. Teach.
Practical reading and writing assessments—and tools to help you figure out what the evidence means and what to teach next.
The goal isn't more testing. It's better instructional decisions. Choose the assessments that answer the questions you have, look across the evidence, and use what you learn to plan instruction.
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What do you need to understand?
Use only the assessments you need.
Look across the evidence.
Make a focused instructional decision.
Don't give every test.
Assessment should answer a question. Start with what you already know about the learner, choose the measure that gives you the evidence you still need, and stop when you have enough information to make a useful instructional decision. A blank or unadministered assessment is simply missing evidence—not a deficit.
What are you trying to understand?
How is this student reading?
Look across print concepts, alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, phonics and orthography, connected-text reading, fluency, comprehension, and motivation.
Reading AssessmentsHow is this student writing?
Look across composition, spelling and orthographic knowledge, engagement, and what happens while the student writes.
Writing AssessmentsDon't stop at the scores.
Enter the evidence you actually collected. The analyzers look across measures for strengths, patterns, contradictions, and reasonable instructional priorities.
Reading Assessment Analyzer
Bring together foundational skills, spelling, connected-text reading, fluency, comprehension, and motivation.
Analyze Reading →Writing Assessment Analyzer
Bring together composition traits, spelling and orthographic knowledge, engagement, and writing observations.
Analyze Writing →Reading Assessments
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Move from foundational knowledge toward connected text and the reader beyond skills. You probably won't need everything here.
Print & Alphabet Knowledge
Concepts About Print
Look at book handling, directionality, letters, words, punctuation, and other basic understandings about print.
Letter Identification
Check uppercase and lowercase letter-name knowledge separately so you can see exactly what is secure and what still needs attention.
Letter Sound Identification
Check whether the student can connect printed letters with their common sounds. Keep letter-name knowledge and letter-sound knowledge separate.
Phonological Awareness & Phonics
Phonological Awareness Assessment
Look separately at initial, middle, and final sound isolation, blending, segmentation, elision, and rhyming.
Phonics Assessment
Look at how well the student applies letter-sound and phonics knowledge to increasingly complex word patterns. Use the student pages during administration and the teacher record to document performance.
Spelling & Orthographic Knowledge
Words Their Way
Use the inventory that best matches the student's likely spelling development. Look at feature patterns—not just the total score.
Connected Text & Fluency
Reading Revealed · Chase Young IRI
Gather connected-text evidence about word-reading accuracy, rate, retelling, and comprehension using the new Chase Young Informal Reading Inventory.
Multidimensional Fluency Scale
Look beyond speed. Consider expression, automatic word recognition, rhythm and phrasing, and smoothness.
Motivation & the Reader Beyond Skills
Elementary Reading Attitude Survey
For younger readers, look separately at recreational and academic reading attitudes rather than treating motivation as one undifferentiated score.
Reading Motivation Questionnaire (RMQ)
For older or more independent readers, gather evidence about reading motivation and the reasons students choose—or do not choose—to read.
Reading Assessment Analyzer
Enter only the assessments you administered. Blank sections are ignored and are not treated as deficits.
Analyze Reading Results →Writing Assessments
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Writing evidence should include more than conventions. Look at the composition itself, spelling and orthographic knowledge, engagement, and what you observe during the writing process.
Composition, Spelling & Engagement
Islander Informal Writing Inventory
Examine ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and observations from the writing process.
Writing Engagement Scale
Look across affective, behavioral, cognitive, and social dimensions of writing engagement.
Words Their Way
Use spelling features as another source of evidence about orthographic knowledge, then look for whether those patterns transfer into authentic writing.
Writing Assessment Analyzer
Look across the writing product, spelling and orthographic knowledge, engagement, and what happened while the student wrote.
Analyze Writing Results →Keep the learner bigger than the score.
No single assessment tells the whole story. These tools support instructional decision-making; they do not diagnose disabilities or replace comprehensive assessment. Interpret results alongside instruction, language, opportunity to learn, background knowledge, engagement, and other learner characteristics.