Read Naturally Live: Evaluating student progress

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Evaluating student progress is one of the most important things you do as a Read Live educator. Personal knowledge of your students, as well as the objective data you collect via the graphs and reports built into Read Live, allows you to make informed instructional decisions and effectively communicate to parents or guardians. 

In addition to graphs and reports, the Data Mentor feature built into the Read Naturally Live Sequenced series monitors student performance by analyzing student data and, when appropriate, making suggestions to teachers for adjusting a student’s level, story goal, or comprehension instruction. Data Mentor distills years of data analysis experience into a built-in tool designed to support teachers and improve student outcomes.

In Read Naturally Live, the Students At-a-Glance Report offers a quick way to analyze student progress, and the Progress Letter is an easy way to communicate student progress with parents. 

1. Analyze Read Naturally Live Students At-a-Glance Report Results

For directions on how to create a Students At-a Glance report, see the Read Live User Guide.

First, look at the number of levels the student has completed. Steadily advancing through levels is an indication of a student's reading progress.

Then analyze the goal, and the cold-timing, quiz, and word list scores for each level. The Students At-a-Glance report shows the average score in each of these categories for the first three stories completed and the last three stories completed. Compare these two averages, and note the following:

• An increase in the cold-timing score is an indication of progress in fluency, especially if the cold timing is done by the teacher.
• An increase in the goal is an indication of progress in fluency.
• An increase in the quiz score is an indication of an improvement in comprehension. Quiz scores of 80% or higher indicate adequate comprehension for the level.
• An increase in the retelling score is an indication of improved recall and/or improved writing ability.
• In the Phonics series, a decrease in the number of seconds to complete a word-list is an indication of an improvement in decoding.

In any of the above categories, an improved average score from the first three stories to the last three stories within a level is an indication of improvement. An increase across levels is a stronger indication of improvement.

2. Print a Read Naturally Live Progress Letter for Parents

You may want to print a Progress Letter for parents or guardians, giving them easy-to-interpret information on their child’s progress.

For directions on how to generate a Progress Letter, see the Read Live User Guide.

3. Analyze Benchmark Assessment Data

In addition, scores from oral reading fluency assessments offer critical information about performance in fluency. Compare the student’s initial WCPM with his or her current WCPM score. An increase in the WCPM score is an indicator of improvement in fluency. Use the Hasbrouck-Tindal Oral Fluency Norms Table to compare the student's performance to national norms.