Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement:
Used in the Selection of Reading Recovery Students in 1st Grade
The measurement of early literacy behaviors is complex and requires a commitment to careful and systematic observation. An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement (Clay, 2002, 2006) provides a systematic way of capturing early reading and writing behaviors and is the primary assessment tool used in Reading Recovery. All of the tasks were developed in research studies to assess emergent literacy in young children.
The Observation Survey is also widely used by classroom teachers and researchers. The Observation Survey is a teacher-administered standardized assessment that adheres to characteristics of sound measurement instruments: standard tasks, standard administration, real-world tasks to establish validity, and ways of knowing about reliability of observations.
What is assessed with the Observation Survey?
The Observation Survey incorporates six literacy tasks, all of which are necessary for describing a young child’s emerging reading and writing behaviors:
U.S Norms for Tasks of An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement
The Observation Survey is also widely used by classroom teachers and researchers. The Observation Survey is a teacher-administered standardized assessment that adheres to characteristics of sound measurement instruments: standard tasks, standard administration, real-world tasks to establish validity, and ways of knowing about reliability of observations.
What is assessed with the Observation Survey?
The Observation Survey incorporates six literacy tasks, all of which are necessary for describing a young child’s emerging reading and writing behaviors:
- Letter Identification to determine which letters the child knows and the preferred mode of identification
- Word Test to determine if the child is building a personal resource of reading vocabulary
- Concepts About Print to determine what the child knows about the way spoken language is represented in print
- Writing Vocabulary to determine if the child is building a personal resource of known words that can be written in every detail
- Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words to assess phonemic awareness by determining how the child represents sounds in graphic form
- Text Reading to determine an appropriate level of text difficulty and to record what the child does when reading continuous text (using a running record)
U.S Norms for Tasks of An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement
Benchmark Assessment System 1 & 2
Using the BAS...
A benchmark assessement system is a series of texts that can be used to identify a student's current reading level and progress along a gradient of text levels over time. The word "benchmark" means a standard against which to measure something. By administering the Benchmark Assessment System
You can:
You can:
- Determine your students' independent and instructional reading levels.
- Determine reading placement levels and group students for reading instruction.
- Select texts that will be productive for student's instruction.
- Assess the outcomes of teaching.
- Assess a new student's reading level for independent reading and instruction.
- Identify students who need intervention.
- Document student progress across a school year and across grade levels.
- Inform parent conferences.