An informal reading inventory is a survey that is personally given to a student to determine the reading levels. It helps in determining the student’s ability to recognize words, their meanings, reading methods and capability to understand. The inventory is in a form of a test that contains information and materials needed to assess the student. Before assessing a student one should inform them that it is not an examination and also during the session the teacher should encourage the student by applauding to a well read text. The teacher should also consider the emotional status of the child, prior knowledge and other professionals who have previously tutored the student. There are many types of reading inventory teachers are allowed to use any that bet fits the students. Reading skills is the ability to comprehend fluently what is written on paper. They include word attack skills, fluency skills, comprehension and critical thinking skills. Below is reading inventory for a second grade child to analyze his reading abilities using the various assessment tools. An informal inventory Types of texts            Story book             Fictional text         Dialogue text Word accuracy             4 words per a hundred  7 words per a hundred  10 words      Comprehension level       90%                    80%                    48%           Rate of words per minute  50 words               40 words               29 words      Reading level             independent            Instructional          frustration    Some of the errors made were: hose instead of house; sow instead of slow; is instead of has; he instead of she; pig instead of big; there instead of their; and were instead of where. The type of mistakes made is important because it helps the teacher in strategizing on how to help the student further. A miscue is a mistake made while reading; not all mistakes are termed as errors the major miscue are: misprounuciation, skipping words and silent reading whereby a child just stares at pictures but doesn’t read what is written down. In assessing a child, the first step should involve choosing various types of texts depending on the grade of the child. The texts should have a variety of topics and writing skills to cater for the students different needs. The next step is to determine the approximate reading level of the student. There are three ways of doing that: the rule of thumb method, the publisher’s work and the fry’s method. The thumb rule involves asking the student to place a finger on those words that are complicated and if all fingers are placed then the text is too difficult for the student read. In the publisher’s method the reading level and the interest levels are indicated on the book making it easier for the teacher determine which book is fit for the child which depends on the grade as said earlier. The fry’s method involves using a graph to estimate reading levels. It depends on the length of words and sentences on a text, and it is best fit for texts without dialogue (Gillet, 2007). After choosing the text one should prepare a list of questions which are knowledgeable and understandable. The next step is to determine the errors made by the student; in doing this there are four types of assessments: Independent assessments, which means the student can read on his own without much assistance, the child is fluent, has good comprehension ability,