By: Lindsay Haas

Lindsay Haas — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 21:08:49 +0000

Thanks for your question, Cindy. I’ve checked with our Service Development group for a little help in answering. One thing to note is that different assessments measure different things and/or measure in different ways. This, compounded with the measurement error inherent to even the most reliable tests, means your results from different tests may not match perfectly. To avoid over-testing your students it’s best to keep in mind that your goals for assessment should not necessarily be to get results from different tests to match.

Depending on your needs, it can be a good idea to use more than one type of assessment to help round out the picture of a student’s performance and progress. In your case, running records generally measure comprehension through fluency, where STAR Reading measures comprehension and other reading skills through a student’s responses to objective multiple-choice questions. You could think of these two measures as looking at the child’s comprehension more deeply from different angles. For purposes of illustration, if your running records results are significantly lower, this might indicate that the child has an isolated fluency problem; if the STAR Reading results are significantly lower, this might indicate that the child can decode well but is perhaps not comprehending due to deficits in other reading skills.

Hope this helps in terms of general understanding. The services of a Renaissance data coach or consultant are always the best way to explore the implications of your specific situation and data.

By: Cindy Van Etta

Cindy Van Etta — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 16:19:45 +0000

If our teachers do running record assessments and the students also do the STAR reading test, if the resulting levels do not match, what do we do? Do we redo the STAR test or redo the running record?

Comments on: Classroom-based assessments: a recipe for success in a time of change

By: Lindsay Haas

By: Cindy Van Etta