Reading is a complex skill that can break down in a number of ways, inhibiting students’ growth toward becoming proficient readers. Researchers identified five foundational skills that build upon one another contributing to proficient reading comprehension.
If left unaddressed, weaknesses in any one of these five skills will slow students’ growth and may prevent students from ever catching up with their peers. When teachers know which of the skills their students are struggling with, teachers can plan an effective individual learning path and administer a targeted intervention that will help students improve faster.
ETS Diagnostic offers 6 subtests to assess the 5 foundational reading skills and reading comprehension. ETS Diagnostic offers 3 levels of difficulty that are automatically personalized to the level of the student. The entire battery takes students 45-60 min on average and up to 84 minutes if timed. It is recommended that the battery be administered in 2 or more sessions.
The subtests can be administered together or separately, remotely or in class. ETS Diagnostic should be used 3 times a year for benchmarking and once a month in RTI settings. Teachers can assign ETS Diagnostic in Capti™, or via Google Classroom, Schoology®, Canvas, Blackboard®. Request a demo to see how easy it is to set up ETS Diagnostic in your LMS.
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Word Recognition and Decoding (Phonics)50 items: 8-11 minSight word recognition concerns the ability to accurately and efficiently recognize known words in printed text. Phonological decoding (phonics) is the process of linking letters with their sounds to read new words. Both are needed to support vocabulary acquisition and fluent reading. Low accuracy or low automaticity of decoding is the primary symptom of reading disability or dyslexia.
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Vocabulary40 items: 8-11 minVocabulary knowledge helps derive the meaning of words and their associations to related words (“forest” to “trees”). Some estimates indicate that successful reading comprehension requires knowing the meaning of 95-98 percent of the words in text; thus, students with poor knowledge of grade-level vocabulary will struggle to understand the grade-level content.
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Morphology30 items: 7-10 minMorphology involves the ability to identify and use prefixes, suffixes, and roots to recognize words, comprehend sentences, and learn the meaning of new words. Morphology is important for developing new vocabulary and differentiating nuances in a word’s meaning. Below grade-level performance could indicate poor vocabulary knowledge and/or a lack of understanding of how words are constructed.
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Sentence Processing25 items: 7-10 minSkilled Sentence Processing is the ability to comprehend sentences of varying complexity using cues such as temporal (before, second), referential (him, her, this, that), relational (less than, larger than), and causal (because, therefore) connectors and conjunctions. The ability to understand the nuanced meaning of sentences is important for grasping the overall meaning of text. Lower sentence processing skill can be due to weaknesses in the preceding skills and/or a lack of familiarity with cues.
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Reading Efficiency50 items: 9-12 minReading Efficiency concerns the ability to silently read text accurately and at an appropriate rate for understanding. Below grade performance in fluency indicates weaknesses in one or more of the preceding foundational skills and/or a lack of stamina for sustained silent reading.
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Reading Comprehension20-25 items: 15-30 minReading Comprehension is the ability to understand text by building an accurate mental model. This skill includes understanding the literal meaning, as well as making cross sentence or passage inferences. Below grade level performance indicates that the student is lacking in one or more foundational reading skills.
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Using the Science of Reading to Develop Foundational Reading Skills and Comprehension
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Capti Voice Literacy and Learning Platform with ETS Diagnostic Reading Assessment
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Capti Teacher Guide3-Steps to Improving Foundational Reading skills and Reading ComprehensionCapti Teacher Guide -
ETS Research ReportSARA Reading Components Tests, RISE forms: Technical adequacy and test designETS Research Report -
ETS Policy ReportCurbing America's Reading Crisis: A Call to Action for Our ChildrenETS Policy Report
- Assign via Google Classroom, Schoology®, Canvas, or justs use a link
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