The DORA the 2nd Time Around: Not What We First Thought

It has been a year since I first had the boys take the Diagnostic Online Reading Assessment (DORA) from Let's Go Learn so we found a few good days recently and took it again. I remembered our experience last year and this time spread it over two days. Which was better for the kids, and worse for my nerves, as anyone who follows Sceleratus Classical Academy on facebook can attest to. But day 2 arrived and the boys finished and I eagerly/dreadingly looked at the results. Because it saves your account information and test results, I thought that being able to compare the results would give me even more information that last year's would. My biggest fear for Builder Boy was that his results would not show a year's worth of progress. My fear for Early Bird was that last year's test results were just a guessing fluke, and he'd score much lower this year.

DORA Review

This is a continuation of my attempts to figure out my boys' reading ability.

7 months ago, before Lady Bug was born and before I was officially ordered on bed rest, I tried several different ways to assess where exactly they were. I really wanted to do an online test, but couldn't spare the money at the time. Well, out tax refund came in, so I purchased two DORA assessments from Let's GO Learn for $35 (price for two.) The tests were online, did not expire, and the results were instant. It is adaptive, which means it's not stuck on just the grade level you register your child at but instead goes (I've read) all the way up to 12th grade. They test several different areas of reading in various ways. They do try to make it game like/fun for the kids, which is nice because it took my boys an hour (of testing time) to complete all the parts of the test.

8 Tips for Giving the DORA to Children

1. Do not attempt this test all at one time with young children. I can not stress this enough. I did not know how long this test was going to take, and I did not know how many parts there are. I would say, anyone under 3rd grade or age 9 should spread it over two days, or at least spread it over the whole day.
2. Take breaks when it's clear your child needs it. Even if it's in the middle of the test section. All but the first one are NOT timed, so it's okay. Also, clicking the "Stop" button will save your child's progress, even in the middle of the section. If you want the test to be accurate, let them take breaks. In between during these breaks let them do whatever they want (within reason, of course.) I let mine play the Wii or computer games that are their reward for finishing school. Which brings me to 
3. Cancel homeschool for the day(s) and just do the test. I did this and I am so glad I did.
4. Make sure they've recently eaten, have gone to the bathroom, and have water to drink near by.
5. Don't be afraid to bribe. Ice cream is the only thing that got us to finish this in one day. Reward and encourage frequently, especially if your children are unused to testing.
6. If you have more than one child doing this, don't let them watch or distract the other. Probably obvious, but I'm going to put it on the list anyway.
7. Watch them take the test. This will give you a lot of insights that are not on the final assessment report. For example, there is one part of the test that was very different from the rest of the tests. Early Bird did very poorly in this area, I think mostly due to the format. On things I know he knows because I have done similar things with him. If I had not watched, I would not know known it was the format throwing him and giving him such a poor score. Also, if you're watching you can catch them when they're making silly mistakes from not paying attention enough, or notice when they really need an unscheduled break.
8. Remember that their testing level might be higher than their working level. Just because they test at, say, a 4th grade level, does not mean they can pick up a 4th grade book and read it all by themselves. But it can give you a good idea of strengths and weaknesses and give you an idea if changes need to be made or not. 

The results and further suggestions were very helpful, and I am very glad I did this. It was worth the money for me. (If you're a member of The Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, you can get it at a reduced price. I'm not a member but I may join.)

If you don't already have Acrobat Reader, you WILL need to install it (for free) to read the results. Pay attention when installing and unclick the McGee (or whatever it is) Security install that comes along with it, or your computer tech husband might get annoyed...

Workbooks as Year End Testing

With our last half of our 2012-2013 being more un-schooling than anything else, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when this weekend I told Builder Boy he was finished with 1st grade and was going to be a 2nd grader and he didn't really seem to think anything of it. At least Early Bird was excited to hear he was finally a kindergartener, though he worried about how that would effect his placement at kids' church. (We place him there by age rather than grade, so it won't change.)

Last year at the "end" of Builder Boy's kindergarten year I got a kindergarten skills workbook to see how he did in comparison to public school standards and to check for gaps and weaknesses. It actually taught him some things that I didn't think to teach him, so I was doubly glad we did it.

This weekend we got the 1st grade workbook for review for Builder Boy and I got the LeapFrog Kindergarten Skills workbook for Early Bird since he loves LeapFrog so much. We started doing some yesterday and all ready I've realized that while un-schooling worked for science, history, and reading, it did NOT work for handwriting. I think Builder Boy has forgotten the "correct" way to write at least half of the letters. And a page of just addition or subtraction problems was something he was NOT used to and felt overwhelmed by. Our chosen math curriculum has been much more hands on manipulatives and very little writing and no worksheets like that, so it was definitely a new experience for him. Early Bird did just fine on his pages, though he got tired of the color by number page and didn't finish it.

So to get into the swing of a more structured schoolwork routine before our official year begins in the fall, we will finish our current workbooks and then move into others that I have on hand. The timing all depends on when Lady Bug starts sleeping long enough for Mommy not to be completely exhausted during the day.
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The picture of the workbook we used last year is an Amazon affiliate link. The LeapFrog link is not.

LTR 2 RTL Part 2: Our Home Library and Guided Reading Levels

Our home library. Before we moved I had three full bookshelves in the master bedroom, two half-sized bookshelves in the boys' room (one held toys,) and shelves downstairs for homeschooling books. None of the full bookshelves survived the trip in the moving van. Two completely fell apart (they were the put together yourself sets from Walmart) and the third split in half with one half okay and the other in pieces. Of the three half-sized bookshelves we had, two survived mostly intact, one fell apart. (And when I say "fell apart" I mean there's no putting these things back together.) And because of the move, we're broke until the next tax return next year, so no replacement shelves for almost a year. (I'm not buying cheep this time around!) With 1/3 the book holding capacity that we used to have, that means all of "my" books are staying in boxes. The homeschooling books are in an armoire in the play room and the kids' books are the only ones who get any shelf space. Because I've been so sick, there are still a LOT of unpacked boxes hanging around. And some of them must be unlabeled holding kid books, because I know I have to have more than what's on the shelves now (and what's in the boys' room bedtime reading basket and in Builder Boy's bed. Yup, you read that right, my 6 year old insists on sleeping with his nine Magic School Bus books.)

Builder Boy's Bed of Books

Thursday I sat down in front of my home library to label the books with their Guided Reading Level. I got this idea from Jen at TeachingMyBabyToRead.com and her "Learning to Read' to 'Reading to Learn" suggestions. However, my past super pickiness when it comes to purchasing books and the fact that I'm still missing some boxes of books means that I didn't have many books on the list I was suppose to be working from. So instead of taking a book off the shelf and looking it up on the alphabetical list, I scanned the 1st and 2nd grade lists by level and when I saw the title of a book I knew I had I pulled it off the shelf and labeled it. That may not work for most people, and certainly not for someone who has more common books than I do, but it worked for me. I don't have enough books that I felt I needed to Organize My Home Library like Jen suggests; but when I acquire more books and my kids get older, I probably will. For now, what I have works for me. I do love her idea of having a "return" basket so the books are returned to their proper place and as a way to keep track of what your child is reading independently. Trouble is, my kids don't read independently. Yet. That's one of the things we're going to be working on. And now that I have at least a few books labeled with their levels, I can more confidently say to Builder Boy "I know you can read this all on your own; I really want you to try."

I was hoping that I could use the Guided Reading Levels books to further assess Builder Boy's reading level, but labeling the books left me somewhat skeptical. So far the various assessments I have used seems to place Builder Boy at a late 2nd grade/beginning 3rd grade level. But looking at the levels they placed some of the books we have, the list seems to have a higher expectation of 1st and 2nd graders than the other assessments I was using. Part of this is probably because I am very strict about phonics only because of my sight word phobia. But when I put several books next to each other that were labeled with the same level, I was even more skeptical.

Is Hop on Pop really the same level as a Franklin book? Early Bird could read Hop on Pop....eons ago! (Okay, maybe just a year or so ago.) Does that mean he can also read a whole Franklin book? He read half of Franklin's Halloween to me the other night, but there were still words in there he didn't know. Hop on Pop is all decodable phonics with short sentences, big type, and only two sentences at the most on a page. Franklin books are much smaller print with paragraphs on every other page, and a lot of more advanced/complex words. (These are level J, beginning of 2nd grade)

Then I saw that Doctor De Soto and the Magic Tree House books were considered the same level (level M, 2.75) and I really couldn't believe it! That little picture book was the same level as a chapter book? But when I sat down with Builder Boy and read it I remembered that there are a lot of technical terms in that book. That made a bit more sense, and then I wondered if the average 2nd grader really could read it on their own.

Builder Boy is currently very close to loosing a tooth, and this has made him extra emotional and getting him to read a "whole" one of these books to assess his Guided Reading Level has not happened. It's made me realize that while he has a good reading vocabulary, his fluency, expression, and stamina have been neglected. I haven't encouraged independent reading before now because I wanted to make sure he was reading all the words right and wasn't skipping. But I need to step back and encourage him to start reading on his own or I'm going to inhibit him and keep him from developing confidence in his abilities. In that sense, this assessment has probably taught me more about myself and my parenting/teaching than it has about what Builder Boy is capable of. Most of all, it's giving me a good idea of some gaps and what I need to work on.

"Learning to Read" to "Reading to Learn" Part 1: Assessments

So, on my way to figuring out how I'm going to help Builder Boy make the transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn," (hereto after shortened to "LTR 2 RTL") I realized I should probably start with knowing where exactly he is now. But how?

Reading Eggs has a Parent's Dashboard where parents can keep track of what their kids are doing on the program and where developmentally the program thinks your kid is. The problem for me, however, is that the Reading Eggs levels only go up to what they consider to be "age 7." That doesn't give me a grade level, and I already know that these levels were nothing new for Builder Boy.

Looking to my curriculum isn't much help either. We use The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and supplement with Hooked on Phonics. Unfortunately, OPGTR doesn't come with grade levels labeled, even though it is described as a complete K-4 curriculum. I did a match up of the two, using HOP to decide where grade levels in OPGTR is, but HOP only goes through 2nd grade. And both kids finished those 6 months ago. (Interestingly, those HOP levels cover pretty much the same stuff as Reading Eggs, which puts Reading Eggs at a K-2 level as well.)

A few weeks ago or so I was reading something on The Well Trained Mind Forum and saw a link to the San Diego Quick Reading Assessment. It gives you a list of ten words per grade level and has kids read them. If they get 9/10, they "pass" that level of reading. Personally, that seems a bit....incomplete for a reading "assessment," not to mention that it seems to be mainly sight words since they have "play, see, look, here" on the pre-school level! Out of curiosity I showed it to the boys (independent of each other) and they both passed the 2nd grade level, but not the 3rd (which had words like "frightened" and "exclaimed.")

At the beginning of our "school year" I purchased 3-Minute Reading Assessments: Word Recognition, Fluency, and Comprehension: Grades 1-4 at the referral of Jen at Teaching My Baby to Read. This book of assessments is MUCH more thorough than the Sand Diego Quick Assessment. It is intended for classroom use, but as it's one-on-one it works just fine for a homeschool setting (assuming you can get your other kids to leave you and the one child alone for 5 minutes.) It has four different reading passages per grade level, so you're always testing them on something they haven't read before. There are clear directions on what to listen for, how to conduct the assessment, and scoring charts and record keeping devices that are very nice. The pages don't tear out, so it's a bit of a pain to scan in the pages perfectly straight, but the book isn't all that thick, so as long as you don't have a problem with breaking the bindings on books like this, you're fine. They recommend that you give the assessment at different times throughout the school year so you can track improvement and spot areas that need working on. I gave this test to Builder Boy at the beginning of the "school year" and then with the move and being sick from being pregnant forgot about it until last week. I gave a 1st grade assessment to each of the boys (again, individually) since tecniclly we're still "1st grade" and they both passed on word recognition accuracy and reading fluency-automaticity, but I forgot to rate their expression or test their comprehension. Since they did so well I gave Builder Boy a 2nd grade assessment informally. I just had him read the passage to me out of the book without me keeping track of every mistake and he did very well on that as well. (Early Bird got distracted by something and didn't want to go on when it was his turn.) I will probably next Monday give him another of the 2nd grade assessment tests formally, and try to make sure I rate his expression and comprehension as well.

Since I'm trying to follow the steps (just maybe not in order) that Jen lays out in her "LTR 2 RTL" blog post, as part of assessment I also need to figure out Builder Boy's Guided Reading Level. More on that tomorrow.