Reading Assessments in the Reading Playgrounds!
We are excited to announce several new assessment offerings within our Countdown, Blast, and HD Word Reading Playgrounds:
- Beginning of Year (BOY) Assessments to assess background knowledge before instruction
- Middle of Year (MOY) Assessments for progress monitoring
- End of Year (EOY) Summative Assessments to assess overall mastery
- Formative Assessments with additional instructional recommendations
Beginning of Year (BOY) Assessments
The purpose of the BOY Assessment is to help you determine students’ background knowledge in the phonological and phonemic awareness and phonics concepts taught in Countdown, Blast, or HD Word. It will also allow you to anticipate the amount of additional support, if any, your students may need to be successful in your lessons. It will take most students between 15 and 30 minutes to complete the assessment and can be done in one sitting or broken up into multiple shorter sessions. There is an optional 1:1 Oral Decoding portion of the assessment that allows you to hear your students read words aloud and track their miscues.
Countdown BOY Assessment
What is tested? How do my students access it?
Learn which content is assessed by game to give you insight into your students’ background knowledge at the start of your Countdown instruction. Get step-by-step instructions for accessing the assessment and the results and see how the skills assessed align to the Common Core State Standards.
Blast BOY Assessment
What is tested? How do my students access it?
Learn which content is assessed by game to give you insight into your students’ background knowledge at the start of your Blast instruction. Get step-by-step instructions for accessing the assessment and the results and see how the skills assessed align to the Common Core State Standards.
HD Word BOY Assessment
What is tested? How do my students access it?
Learn which content is assessed by game to give you insight into your students’ background knowledge at the start of your HD Word instruction. Get step-by-step instructions for accessing the assessment and the results and see how the skills assessed align to the Common Core State Standards.
Middle of Year (MOY) Assessments
The purpose of the MOY Assessment is to gauge how well your students are progressing in the phonological and phonemic awareness and phonics concepts taught in the first half of Countdown, Blast, or HD Word. The results can help you determine if any students need additional practice or reteaching with specific concepts.
Countdown MOY Assessment
What is tested? How do my students access it?
Coming Soon
Blast MOY Assessment
What is tested? How do my students access it?
Coming Soon
HD Word MOY Assessment
What is tested? How do my students access it?
Coming Soon
End of Year (EOY) Summative Assessments
We are excited to announce a new End of Year (EOY) Summative Assessment offering within our Countdown, Blast, and HD Word Reading Playgrounds. Measure students’ overall mastery of the specific skills taught in Countdown, Blast, or HD Word using a series of short games that the students will play, one after the other. In total, the combined results of these games will assess the major phonemic awareness and phonics skills taught, as well as how students are able to use their phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge to decode and encode controlled words. It will take most students between 15 and 30 minutes to complete the assessment and can be done in one sitting or broken up into multiple shorter sessions.
This cumulative and controlled assessment can indicate how well a student has retained the foundational literacy skills you have taught this year and whether the student may need additional practice and reinforcement to reach mastery. Learn more below and download a description and directions on how to access the EOY assessments in the Reading Playgrounds:
Countdown EOY Assessment
What is tested? How do my students access it?
Learn which content is assessed by game, as well as the number of items for each game and a summary of the directions students hear at the start of each game. Get step-by-step instructions for accessing the assessment and the results and see how the skills assessed align to the Common Core State Standards.
Blast EOY Assessment
What is tested? How do my students access it?
Learn which content is assessed by game, as well as the number of items for each game and a summary of the directions students hear at the start of each game. Get step-by-step instructions for accessing the assessment and the results and see how the skills assessed align to the Common Core State Standards.
HD Word EOY Assessment
What is tested? How do my students access it?
Learn which content is assessed by game, as well as the number of items for each game and a summary of the directions students hear at the start of each game. Get step-by-step instructions for accessing the assessment and the results and see how the skills assessed align to the Common Core State Standards.
Formative Assessment in the Reading Playgrounds
The first three Reading Playground games from each unit can be utilized as formative assessments. The games were chosen for their ability to showcase your students’ abilities as accurately as possible without face-to-face interaction. Each game assesses a unique skill taught within the current unit. Teachers can use the benchmark scores given in the Formative Assessment Overview documents below to determine which students are on their way to proficiency and which students would benefit from additional instruction and practice. A chart of possible methods for this instruction and practice is provided, as well as alignment of the skills assessed in these games to the Common Core State Standards.
Countdown Formative
What is tested? How do my students access it?
See which games are best utilized as formative assessment in unit, as well as instructional recommendations for students who need more practice or re-teaching to master the target skills. You will also see how the skills practiced in these games align to the Common Core State Standards.
Blast Formative
What is tested? How do my students access it?
See which games are best utilized as formative assessment in unit, as well as instructional recommendations for students who need more practice or re-teaching to master the target skills. You will also see how the skills practiced in these games align to the Common Core State Standards.
HD Word Formative
What is tested? How do my students access it?
See which games are best utilized as formative assessment in unit, as well as instructional recommendations for students who need more practice or re-teaching to master the target skills. You will also see how the skills practiced in these games align to the Common Core State Standards.
