Equivalence of Benchmark Texts
This Project was designed to identify the equivalence of two sets of levelled texts used to take Running Records of students’ reading ability in the years from Preparatory to Grade 2. The first set of texts, often referred to as the CECV Benchmark Kit, and including texts from the PM Series of readers, is being phased out from the end of 2007 by the Catholic Education Office Melbourne (CEOM). The second set of texts, the AlphaAssess Kit, is being introduced from the beginning of 2008. In this report, the CECV Benchmark Kit is referred to as the “Old” set, and the AlphaAssess Kit as the “New” set.
The CEOM organised access to schools for the Assessment Research Centre (ARC) Team. Ethics permission procedures were followed in line with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans (HREC No. 0719482). The participating schools provided copies of the Old and New benchmarking kits for assessments to be implemented. Data collected included records of teacher estimates of instructional reading levels of students, gender, grade, and the reading assessment results from administration of the benchmarking texts. The ARC Team included academic staff and field workers who received training specific to the project.
Running Records are designed to be taken as a child reads aloud from a text. If Running Records are taken in a systematic way they provide evidence for how well children are learning to focus their knowledge of letters, sounds and words to understand meaning in text. Usually Running Records are taken based on short story texts. It is essential that when the Running Records technique is used for benchmarking purposes, the administration and scoring conform with standardised guidelines. In order to ensure this standardisation, the decision was taken to have trained field workers collect the data.
The field workers were graduate educational psychology students trained in individual psycho-educational assessment. They also participated in specific training for this project led by by an experienced trainer in the use of Running Records as a reading assessment technique. The initial workshop training was followed by individual practice and supervised peer practice, including reading back and reviewing records. The initial training sessions were focused on the understanding of procedures for using Running Records as an assessment of text reading. Field workers were familiarised with how to take and score a reliable record, consistent with the guidelines and conventions established by Clay (2002). The field workers were also occasionally observed when taking records in the schools, as a quality control mechanism.