Reading Assessment: Reading Fluency, Reading Fluently, and Comprehension—Commentary on the Special Topic

Over the past few decades, reading assessment has been pushed to the forefront of the national discussion about education. The most recent reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1994, 2001) made assessment a priority as administrators and teachers are attempting to meet increasing accountability standards, but measuring reading ability is a difficult task (Anderson, 1972; Duke, 2005; Pearson & Hamm, 2005; Sweet, 2005). Part of the difficulty lies in the complexity of the reading process itself. Reading is most often viewed as a multidimensional construct, as suggested by models of reading that focus on different levels of understanding (Davis, 1944, 1968; Kintsch, 2004; Perfetti, 2007). Moreover, reading is a complex process that changes depending on the type of text, purpose for reading, and reading topic (Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Pressley, 2000; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002). The complexity of the reading process makes it challenging to assess exactly what is happening when readers read and understand text. Part of this challenge could be that research into the assessment and treatment of reading difficulties has developed a focus on maximizing intervention effects. Though ensuring that reading interventions have the strongest impact on student performance, the focus on performance has arguably migrated the field away from interventions that are based on reading theory (Compton, Miller, Elleman, & Steacy, 2014). In fact, reading assessment may have been developed to maximize differentiation of students over theory (Suchey, 2009). Both theory and student performance are important foci, but maximum effect sizes in intervention research and maximum differentiation in assessment research could drift to align more closely over time as intervention research uses the tests designed to differentiate. This could potentially narrow the functioning construct of reading in assessment and intervention to become unidimensional, which could lead to ignoring important aspects of reading that are more difficult to measure or change through intervention. In this article, we provide an overview of the need for and purpose of reading assessment, summarize each of the articles in the special series, and explore the need for assessment and intervention that is aligned with specific components of reading, as well as general reading ability. Developing Appropriate Reading Assessments Because reading is a complex process to assess, it is difficult to develop measures that result in reliable data and valid decisions (Campbell, 2005). The most commonly used assessments for accountability that report reliability and validity data, such as the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT10; Pearson Assessments, 2007) and the Iowa assessments (Hoover et al., 2003), are norm-referenced tests. Despite the fact that these types of reading outcome measures have normative data and data on reliability and validity, they are not meant to be used to provide information on individual students' reading abilities that may help teachers make instructional decisions (Salvia, Ysseldyke, & Bolt, 2012; Wixson & Carlisle, 2005). It is critical to use reading assessments that can be used to help teachers make instructional decisions because teachers can better address the instructional needs of their students by assessing their students' reading abilities and differentiating their instruction (Fuchs, Deno, & Mirken, 1984; Fuchs, Fuchs, & Stecker, 1989). State-mandated reading assessments, whether norm-referenced tests or state-developed criterion-referenced tests, are limited in their instructional relevance primarily because they are not designed to be used diagnostically. Instead, the purpose of these tests is to evaluate instructional programs and provide information on educational accountability (Hambleton & Zenisky, 2003). In addition, subtests of criterion-referenced tests are not generally reliable enough to examine specific skill strengths and deficits (Hambleton & Zenisky, 2003; Salvia et al. …