It is helpful to assess group-work before starting the programme because responses to the questions can reveal why particular children disengage during group work.  Speaking and listening difficulties, group dynamics and self-esteem issues can then be carefully supported during the team-building process.

The Think2Read assessment differs from other comprehension assessments because it offers teachers a detailed record of their children’s knowledge of key comprehension strategies (summarising, predicting, clarifying, enquiry) and question types (literal, inference and evaluation). The assessments also provide a baseline assessment before comprehension skills instruction and monitors children’s progress half way through and at the end of the programme in line with QCA scoring and NLS Assessment objectives. Unlike other assessments, Think2Read also encourages children to identify and ask/answer their own strategic questions to demonstrate their ability to independently monitor their understanding as they read – and provides teachers with a Digital scoring system and bar graph display that highlights individual and whole class comprehension strengths and weakness at a glance.

No, the emphasis of this assessment is not to assess decoding ability, but rather to identify the pupil’s ability to understand the author’s meaning.  Teachers are provided with two assessment procedures to achieve this:

• Oral comprehension procedure (for ‘average to struggling’ decoders – who may have greater comprehension ability but be unaware of this).

• Written comprehension procedure (for more competent decoders and writers who may struggle to understand text in depth).

The Think2Read Assessment links different types of comprehension question and answer (Clarifying, Literal, Inference and Evaluation) to National Literacy Strategy AFs 2 – 6 to help teachers more easily and accurately assess their pupil’s reading progress.

The excel document included in the comprehension assessment package is a quick and easy way for you to record and analyse the comprehension results of individual children and whole classes.

Marks correlate with the QCA marking system and are awarded for appropriate answers to a range of comprehension skills questions that link to National Curriculum objectives. Teachers are given a question and answer score sheet with Assessment Focus links to questions and a marking guide.

Teachers can print out bar graph results that identify….

• individual and whole-class comprehension strengths and weakness.
• teaching focuses across the school
• skills needed to consolidate comprehension in a sustainable way.

The Band Levels assess the reader’s ability to understand the author’s meaning and intention at an easy, instructional or hard level.  Each Assessment Focus on the teacher’s question and answer sheet is linked to a set of comprehension skills, marks and percentages. At a glance you will be able identify your children’s progress and whether they require more explicit comprehension instruction at the level they have been assessed or whether they need to be challenged at a higher level of text.