Three assessments are included in Reading Horizons v5 to determine student placement and progress as they move through the program. They include: Word Recognition (reading-grade level), Most Common Words, and Word Segmentation (nonsense words). These assessments are given with the help of a teacher or administrator. The results are dependent on the administrator’s listening skills and judgment. These assessments ascertain the reading level for each student and customize the curriculum to suit individual needs. They are optional and can be given at intervals determined by the administrator.
This first assessment provides a fast, accurate calculation of a student’s reading-grade level. Ten lists of 20 words each - words that students should be able to recognize at the grade level of the list number - are shown for students to read aloud. The content words are based on phonetic structure and were selected based on similar words used in the San Diego Quick Assessment, Border Test of Reading-Spelling Patterns, Rapid Test, Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT), and the Slosson Oral Reading Test (SORT).
An administrator must be present to administer the assessment. Based on the outcome, students reading below a fourth-grade level will study and practice the entire program (the emerging reader template should be set for them). Students reading between a fourth-grade level and sixth-grade level will have options set to abbreviate the alphabet lessons and shorten other activities (the basic reader template). Students reading above a sixth-grade level will also have the alphabet abbreviated but will then take even a more accelerated track through the program (the accelerated reader template).
The administration of this assessment is identical to the Word Recognition assessment but the words that are presented come from the 13 Most Common Words lists that are taught in Reading Horizons v5. Five words are randomly selected from each list to test student understanding. The administrator determines whether it has been read correctly and presses the appropriate key on the keyboard. When a student misses five in a row the test stops. If a student scores above 85 percent on this section, the software curriculum will be modified to bypass the Most Common Words instruction for that student.
This assessment is divided into two portions of 40 words each. The first 40 words test for recognition of individual phonemes. The second 40 continue that process and also record mispronunciation based on the phonetic pattern of the word, such as Silent E or adjacent vowel patterns. When a word is mispronounced, the test administrator has the ability to identify, on a grid, the individual phonemes missed. A report can then show detailed information on those phonemes as well as the decoding patterns most-often misread.
A Chapter Test is automatically administered at the end of each chapter. Students are required to demonstrate their proficiency by passing this test. Every Chapter Test provides a variety of activities to ensure student understanding. After the testing portion is finished, skills that require additional reinforcement based on the results of the test are tracked and are presented to students in individual review sections. These review sections provide students with the opportunity to improve their testing results Teachers and administrators are able to adjust the passing percentage of the Chapter Tests for each student.