The First Step
Towards Literacy
You have taken the first step towards literacy by deciding
to take the Reading Competency Test. Everyone should be able to
read what they can talk about and understand. The Reading Competency
Test is a simple, reliable, valid test developed by Dr. Patrick
Groff for The National Right to Read Foundation. It will help
you determine if your child, or someone you love is missing out
on the most important part of schooling, learning to read.
The National Right to Read Foundation was established in 1993
to encourage schools to return to the direct teaching of intensive,
systematic phonics in every first-grade classroom in America.
Scores of reading research
studies have been done over the past seventy-five years that prove
phonics is an essential first step in learning to read. We know
that without intensive phonics instruction, many children will
remain handicapped readers for life.
For most of America’s history, everyone who went to school
learned to read. But about sixty years ago, many teachers, professors
of education and publishing companies rejected common sense and
many years of successful teaching practice and adopted the “look
and say” method of teaching reading, now called “whole
language.” The result has been a disaster for millions of
children, who are now labeled dyslexic, or learning disabled,
but whose only problem is that they haven’t been taught to
read.
One way The National Right to Read Foundation is helping expose
the terrible tragedy of illiteracy is to give wide exposure to
this Reading Competency Test. The only way we can determine the
true literacy rate in America is with a reliable, valid test of
reading ability. Once you know the truth then steps can be taken
to fix the problem.
If you or your loved ones have difficulty passing this test,
then you need to take remedial action immediately. An intensive,
systematic phonics program you can use at home may be just the
help you need. Remember, teaching someone to read can be one of
the most rewarding experiences you can ever have. It is our hope
that this simple Reading Competency Test will awaken the American
people, so that together we can restore reading practices to our
schools that will make America once again, the most literate nation
on earth.
Background for
Parents and Teachers
by Dr. Patrick Groff
Dr. Patrick Groff, Professor of Education Emeritus, San
Diego State University, has published over 300 books, essays,
and journal articles and is a nationally known expert in the field
of reading.
The National Right to Read Foundation is offering an easy-to-administer
test of reading abilities that can be given to students or adults.
The Reading Competency Test is written so that anyone can administer
it and gain independent information about the reading abilities
of individuals who read poorly.
The Reading Competency Test is modeled after what is known
as the “Informal Reading Inventory” (IRI). The IRI originated
in the 1940’s as a quick and relatively simple way for classroom
teachers to determine how well their students were reading grade-level
written materials. Its use has been proved satisfactory since
the IRI has been found to be both a reliable and a valid means
to discern how well students can read materials at different grade-levels
of difficulty.
Its reliability has been demonstrated repeatedly. Anyone who
carefully follows the uncomplicated directions when scoring it
will obtain the same scores for a student as does any other administrator
of the test. The same is true for the Reading Competency Test.
The IRI also is a valid test. The IRI presents samples of reading
text at different grade levels of difficulty to determine whether
a student is reading at an (1) independent, (2) instructional,
or (3) frustration level. The Reading Competency Test follows
these same procedures.
These testing procedures have been validated by comparing them
with IRI scores gained in earlier days and with scores of widely-used
standardized reading tests. There have been significant positive
correlations obtained between the two sets of scores. Therefore,
it is reasonable to conclude that the test procedures used by
the IRI, and by the Reading Competency Test, are valid ones.
The Reading Competency Test also is a valid test of how well
students or adults apply phonics information to the recognition
of written words. In this regard, the Test presents specially-written
groups of sentences for students or adults to read which contain
carefully selected words. These special words were selected because
they can be decoded successfully by the application of certain,
discrete phonics rules. It was then determined which phonics rules
the nation’s experts in phonics teaching indicate that students
learning to read must learn. The ability to apply all these recommended
phonics rules is tested in the Test. It thus is a valid examination
of an individual’s ability to apply crucial phonics information
to read words and sentences. The Test is a unique diagnostic tool
to determine what phonics skills students and adults still need
to learn.
The Test is not intended to displace the standardized reading
tests. Rather it is designed to provide special information about
reading skills that usually are not reported to parents or the
public by the schools. The information about reading abilities
gained from the Test will add to the information parents presently
can gain from the schools. The Test is particularly useful for
examining the reading skills of adults who read poorly. Many adults
have no recent records of their general reading skills, or how
well they can read grade-level designated materials, or apply
phonics information.
Parents who administer the Reading Competency Test may find
that report-card grades are higher than the reading scores on
the Test. There are at least three possible reasons for this discrepancy.
First, a report card grade represents the teacher’s personal,
subjective opinion of a child’s reading performance. Unfortunately,
there is a tendency among today’s teachers to give inflated
grades in reading.
Second, the teacher who gives an inflated grade in reading
may have based this decision in part on the child’s previous
score on a standardized reading test. Regrettably, many publishers
adjust the grade-level norms on their tests to obtain higher average
student scores. In many cases today, no large body of students
given a certain standardized test will score below the average.
In other words, such a standardized test no longer is a legitimate
indicator of the relative abilities of children to read well.
Third, the U.S. Department of Education recently reported that
it has found that 48 percent of American adults are “functionally
illiterate.” Many adults who read poorly, doubtless had been
given good marks for reading on their report cards. It certainly
is not true that 48 percent of students receive Ds or Fs in reading
on their report cards. It seems clear, then, that schools have
given inflated grades in reading for years.
Considering these facts, it is the position of The National
Right to Read Foundation that the Reading Competency Test will
more accurately reveal true reading abilities than do some report
card grades, or the scores of many modern standardized reading
tests.
How to Give
the Test
Part 1 of the test consists of eight groups of sentences (A-H)
that contain phonetically regular one-syllable words. It will
help you determine how well the student knows phonics.
Part 2 consists of six paragraphs taken from the middle part
of school readers, grades 1-6, that were in wide use 100 years
ago—a time when children were taught to read with intensive,
systematic instruction in phonics. Each paragraph represents material
that anyone who has been properly taught should be able to read
and comprehend within their grade level. Keep in mind that grade-level
6 is equivalent to high-school level reading today.
Print two copies of the Reading Competency Test. Have the student
read aloud in his copy from the sentences and paragraphs. As you
listen, make a check mark in your copy each time the student 1)
Skips a word, 2) Substitutes a different word, even though it
may have similar meaning, 3) Inserts a non-related word, or 4)
Mispronounces a word (if the student corrects the mispronunciation,
remove the check). Stop if the student receives four or more checks
in any one group in Part 1, or five or more checks in any one
paragraph in Part 2. To continue would only add to the student’s
sense of frustration.
How
to Interpret the Results
Analyze each group of sentences in Part 1 and Part 2 separately.
Use the following guidelines for Part 1: Independent = 1 check
mark; Instructional = 2 to 3; Frustration = 4 or more. Use the
following guidelines for Part 2: Independent = 1 check mark; Instructional
= 2 to 4; Frustration = 5 or more.
If the student has completed the second grade and cannot read
all the sentences in Part 1 with one check or less in each group,
the student is in need of remedial phonics instruction. Likewise
if the student cannot read at an independent level at his or her
current grade level, the student is in need of remedial phonics
instruction.
Phonics
is the Answer
If the student does not score well on the Reading Competency
Test, it does not mean that he or she is dyslexic, or has a learning
disability, or that he or she is of inferior intelligence. It
does mean that he or she has not been taught to read with intensive,
systematic phonics.
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