Case study student reading records are now available for the Benchmark Assessment Systems (BAS) 1 and 2, 2nd Edition. The Benchmark Assessment case studies are provided in the Assessment Guide for BAS 1, 2nd Edition beginning on page 61 (the "Monitoring Progress and Case Studies" tab), and BAS 2 (2nd Edition) beginning on page 59. These case studies examine several students in grades 1 through 7, as well as the reading progress monitoring records of individual students at different points in time.

Here are the available case studies; the student records and progress monitoring forms can be downloaded at: http://www.heinemann.com/fountasandpinnell/casestudies_bas1.aspx

Grade 1 Case Studies (BAS 1)

• Jared - Has experienced difficulty attending to print and writing his name in kindergarten
• Selena - An English Language Learner (ELL) who recently moved to a new school
• Wyatt - Has advanced scores on the Benchmark Assessment and Where-to-Start Word Test
• Kendra - A reader at three different points in time

Grade 2 Case Studies (BAS 1)

• Anson - Has limited English proficiency and a mixed-language home environment
• Heath - Started experiencing reading difficulties in first grade
• Jacob - Identified as having a learning disability and has received classroom instruction and supplemental reading support
• Sharla - Has a strong grasp of high-frequency words, two-syllable words, and letter-sound relationships

Grade 3 Case Study (BAS 2)

• Cynthia - A Khmer-speaking ELL student who is on grade level for the middle of third grade

Grade 4 Case Studies (BAS 2)

• Francesco - Has strong accuracy/comprehension and the ability to self-correct effectively, but a slighly below-average reading rate
• Peti - A fourth grade student who recently moved to the United States and has been learning English for 15 months
  
  

Grade 5 Case Studies (BAS 2)

• Forest - Has strong fluency scores and an excellent reading rate but has demonstrated difficulty comprehending nonfiction texts
• Hannah - Learning disabled, receives comprehension support from a special education teacher, and has been on an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) since grade 3
• Orlando - Bilingual with limited exposure to English outside of the classroom
• Henry - A reader at three different points in time

Grade 7 Case Study (BAS 2)

• Tanicia - Demonstrates strong accuracy/comprehension and the ability to self-correct effectively, but has a slighly below-average reading rate

Many teachers and reading specialists are currently busy implementing our Benchmark Assessment System (BAS). A recent conversation we had with an elementary principal raised some important questions about how to effectively implement the system. We hope these answers are helpful to those of you who are currently working to evaluate your students' reading abilities with the Benchmark Assessment System.

Question: There are two stories at each level, one fiction and one non-fiction. How do you proceed with the assessment when a student has read both stories at a level and is not ready to go to the next level. What text would be used with the student?

Answer: It would be a concern that a student reads both texts. Generally only one text is needed at a level unless something is very unusual in the child’s progress. . The benchmark assessment is not designed to be used to judge when the child should move to the next level. Rather it is an interval assessment. Ongoing assessment should include coding of the child’s reading on a regular basis not using the benchmark assessment but using the texts that are used for instruction.

If the benchmark assessment is used as an interval assessment which is the intention, that means it would be given at the beginning of the year and likely sometime near the end of the year. Sometimes schools choose to give it midyear only to students below level or to all students and at the far end it is given quarterly which is really too frequent. So a child would likely not be at the same level in a half year or even a quarter which would mean the child made no progress. If for some reason that is true, there is a second text or an alternate to use. Further, if there is an extreme case and the text was too hard the last time and now child reads it again it would be okay because it was too difficult for the child last time and the assessment stopped.

Question: Although the Assessment guide states that the pairs of texts at each level (fiction and non-fiction) have been matched and if a student can read one genre he is likely to be able to read the other. The teachers have found that the non-fiction texts are more difficult and if a child has read the fiction text at an independent level and is then given the non-fiction text at the same level, he reads this at an instructional level or it is too hard. How do we note progress using the different genres?

Answer: We would not suggest administering the assessment that way. If your students are doing less well on nonfiction it is a reflection of the instructional program and you should use more nonfiction in the teaching of reading. Benchmark assessment is a standardized assessment. You should alternate a fiction at one level and the nonfiction at the next level. Disregard how you think the students may do in various genres. The same variance could happen with historical fiction vs. realistic friction vs. fantasy or a student could read one topic better than another. That is not the purpose of the assessment. Rather you want to sample the reading across increasingly challenging levels to get a good place to start teaching. When you begin teaching you can move a child up or down a level based on your ongoing observations and your ongoing coding of the reading. Benchmark assessment is a sampling to get you to a good place to start.

Question: The assessment guide mentions interim running records, are there specific texts for this purpose? (We are in the process of developing benchmark texts for interim running records, but will not have them ready for a few months.)

Answer: We would not suggest developing benchmarks for interval assessments. It would be doing double the work and not getting as good information. Rather simply listen to the child read 100-150 words of the text used for instruction the day before and have a brief comprehension conversation to examine the effects of the teaching. That is the purpose of interval ongoing assessment- to see how the child is responding to the instructional program.

As you may have noticed, recently we haven't been able to update our blog as much as we'd like to. This with good reason - we have been busy preparing for our first trip to Australia to promote our Continuum of Literacy Learning, Benchmark Assessment System, and Leveled Literacy Intervention programs.

Right now we are on our way to Melbourne, Adelaide, and Sydney to work with teachers and administrators on the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System. It is a grueling plane trip but exciting to meet teachers who are using the system down under! We will keep you posted.

A wonderful group of teachers from Tasmania will be coming over to the mainland for our workshop. First stop - Melbourne!

Best wishes,

Irene and Gay

We are very pleased to announce that the 2nd edition of the Benchmark Assessment System is now available from Heinemann Publishing. The Benchmark Assessment System is a one-on-one, comprehensive assessment to determine independent and instructional reading levels, for placing students on the Fountas & Pinnell A-Z Text Gradient, and connecting assessment to instruction with the Continuum of Literacy Learning.

As with the first edition, the 2nd edition of the Benchmark Assessment System is available in two unique flavors:

• Benchmark Assessment System 1, 2nd Edition (grades K-2, levels A-N)
• Benchmark Assessment System 2, 2nd Edition (grades 3-8, levels L-Z)

Irene Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell describe Benchmark Assessment System, 2nd Edition:

"As we work with teachers and students, we continually refine our assessment and instructional systems to provide the most current, efficient measurement tools and teaching supports for improved decision making and data reporting on behalf of students. With the Second Edition, we have made key changes based on widespread use of the BAS.

- Irene C. Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell

For more information about the second edition of the Benchmark Assessment System visit the following websites:

• Benchmark Assessment System (BAS) 2nd Edition overview
• Benchmark Assessment System 2nd Edition summary of changes
• Benchmark Assessment System levels and components
• Little books used in the BAS 2nd Edition
• BAS 2nd Edition compatibility package request (for using both 1st and 2nd edition systems together)
• Printable order form of all available components (.pdf)

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With the upcoming release of the 2nd edition of our Benchmark Assessment System (BAS), we thought it would be helpful to look at some of the most frequently asked questions about what the system is and how it works.

For answers to more common questions about the Benchmark Assessment System, visit the Benchmark Assessment Frequently Asked Questions webpage or the Fountas & Pinnell Support Resources webpage.

What is the Benchmark Assessment System?

The Benchmark Assessment System is a one-on-one, comprehensive assessment to determine independent and instructional reading levels, for placing students on the Fountas & Pinnell A-Z Text Gradient, and connecting assessment to instruction with the Continuum of Literacy Learning. A benchmark assessement system is a series of texts that can be used to identify a student's current reading level and progress along a gradient of text levels over time. The word "benchmark" means a standard against which to measure something.

Why is benchmark assessment a valuable use of time?

Conducting benchmark assessment allows you to...

Why are the criterion for accuracy so much more challenging for Benchmark Assessment System levels L-Z?

Please see our document, "A Higher Criterion for Accuracy, Levels L-Z" (.doc) for a detailed explanation of why the accuracy criterion are increased significantly for the later levels.

What is the source of the words in the Benchmark word lists?

The Benchmark word lists were compiled to include the words that appear most frequently (in our survey of leveled texts) in the books that children read from earlier levels to about end of grade four. In addition all word lists were checked with several different lists, including both Spache and Dolch. They are not identical to either list but there is a great deal of consistency across them. Finally, the lists were check with teachers.

The words that appear on the word lists are "tier 1 words," meaning that they are frequently used in oral language and in general literature. The lists do not include "tier 2" and "tier 3" words—words not in common use or technical words related to content areas. These words are those that appear most frequently.

How does the Benchmark Assessment System address Response to Intervention (RTI) compliance?

With the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System, you can monitor reading level three times each year. This assessment will yield level (with equivalent grade levels), accuracy, fluency, and detailed information and scores on comprehension. This system has been extensively field tested. You can have students complete a writing prompt to further assess comprehension. You can use optional assessments to monitor progress in phonemic awareness, phonics, letter learning, and high frequency word knowledge. You can establish expectations in each of these areas based on your own district's requirements. A grid is currently in development to establish criteria for each grade level, beginning, middle, and end.

Why are the Little Books for Benchmark 2 shorter than the ones for Benchmark 1?

The books for Levels L-N in Benchmark 1 while longer (16 pp), contain illustrations that give young readers picture support. The books from L-Z in Benchmark 2 are shorter (4 pp), and contain almost no illustrations with the exception of nonfiction text features like diagrams and maps to support the older reader. Length is only one factor in text difficulty and it is not a significant one unless you are talking about a large difference (50 to 100) in number of pages (which would inevitably place a greater burden on memory). A short text can be very hard, with difficult vocabulary, complex sentences, and complex ideas. A long text can be easy, with familiar concepts and vocabulary and simple sentences.

Another consideration was the amount of time required to administer the assessment. The length of selections in the the Benchmark System 2, provides an adequate sample for assessing an older child’s oral and silent reading, vocabulary, capacity to solve multisyllable words, and ability to interpret more sophisticated content.

How do the Fountas & Pinnell Text Gradient Levels equate with Basal, DRA, Rigby, and Reading Recovery levels?

View the Grade-Level Equivalence Chart (.pdf) to see how F&P Text Gradient levels equate with other readability scale levels.

How do Lexile levels correlate to the Fountas & Pinnell Text Gradient levels?

There may be a statistical correlation between Lexile levels and F & P levels. For example, if you run measures on thousands of books and over many levels, there would be a correlation. We have not performed these analyses ourselves. The lower F & P levels, in general, would have lower Lexile scores. The higher F & P levels generally would have higher scores. But this kind of correlation is not the same as a precise matching of levels, for example, a Lexile range of numbers corresponds to a specific A to Z level in a reliable way. The two systems are based on some of the same text factors but not all. Metametrics uses a mathematical formula, which they can explain. The F & P levels are based on the ten text factors named in several of our books. A group of raters reach reliability after independent analysis. We can not say with high prediction that a given book with a certain Lexile score will fall into a category on the F & P gradient. Every time we have looked at Lexile levels for texts that seem highly reliable on our scale, we have found a number of "outliers."

Are the end of grade level benchmarks nationally normed?

The grade level benchmarks are not nationally normed. That would take a large random sample of students taken across the United States and Canada and a great deal of testing. It is just not appropriate for this kind of system.

The levels have, however, been tested in a large field study. The end-of-year expectations as defined in our system are consistent with recommended national standards from the National Center on Education and the Economy. Districts do have a choice in adjusting the expectations to meet their own standards. There are slight variations from place to place, but we have stated levels that indicate typical satisfactory progress.

For answers to more common questions about the Benchmark Assessment System, visit the Benchmark Assessment Frequently Asked Questions webpage.

The Response to Intervention (RTI) framework is helping change the way schools approach intervention and remediation. Guided reading instructional programs and assessments such as Leveled Literacy Intervention and the Benchmark Assessment System have embedded features to enable their use in the RTI framework. Below are answers to some typical questions about using the LLI and BAS guided reading programs in RTI systems. For more information about using guided reading instruction to support the Response to Intervention framework, please see the following:

• Audio Podcast: Principles for Success with Response to Intervention (RTI)
• Document (.pdf): Benchmark Assessment System and Leveled Literacy Intervention in Your Response to Intervention (RTI) Plan
• Document (.pdf): 10 Month Progress Monitoring by Instructional Text Reading Level

Questions about using guided reading instructional programs for Response to Intervention:

Question: How does the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System address RTI compliance?

Answer: With the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System, you can monitor reading level three times each year. This assessment will yield level (with equivalent grade levels), accuracy, fluency, and detailed information and scores on comprehension. This system has been extensively field tested. You can have students complete a writing prompt to further assess comprehension. You can use optional assessments to monitor progress in phonemic awareness, phonics, letter learning, and high frequency word knowledge. You can establish expectations in each of these areas based on your own district's requirements. A grid is currently in development to establish criteria for each grade level, beginning, middle, and end.

Question: We are looking very seriously at purchasing the Benchmark Assessment System for our K - 8 grade teachers (198 total), however, I was curious as to how/if other school districts are using these materials for bi-weekly progress monitoring. (RTI Tier 3) Since the materials are limited in regards to repetitive assessment, would the results gleaned from using these assessments 2x/month be valid? I look forward to your response.

Answer: You would not want to use the Benchmark Assessment System as often as every two weeks. You can, however, select Optional Assessments included in BAS which can provide valuable diagnostic information. On this website, you will find Instructional Level Expectation Charts that will be useful for RtI progress monitoring. Another strategy is to take regular reading records using leveled books. You can take these records as a regular, integral part of small group instruction or intervention groups.

The schedule below indicates the way one school district has made this practice operational. Optional assessments could vary by grade level. For example, K and Grade 1 students could use Phonemic Awareness, Letter Knowledge, Word Writing, and High Frequency Word Recognition. Older readers could use assessments like the Word Features Assessment.

Week 1 -- Full Benchmark Assessment system, including text-reading level and selected optional assessments (four selected)
Week 2 -- Text reading level using any leveled book
Week 3 -- BAS Optional Assessments #1 and #2
Week 4 -- Text reading level using any leveled book
Week 5 -- BAS Optional Assessments #3 and #4
Week 6 -- Text reading level using any leveled book
Week 7 -- BAS Optional Assessments #1 and #2
Week 8 -- Text reading level using any leveled book
Week 9 -- BAS Optional Assessments #3 and #4
Week 10 -- Text reading level using any leveled book
Week 11 -- BAS Optional Assessments #1 and #2
Week 12 -- Text Reading Level using any leveled book
Week 13 -- BAS Optional Assessments #3 and #4
Week 14 -- Benchmark Assessment Text Reading Level

Question: We are already implementing LLI. Some of our teachers are questioning the idea of doing the informal running records on children after they have read the book previously. They are used to doing the DRA with children on a cold read. Could you share the philosophy behind doing the assessments after children have read the book?

Answer: Tools like our Benchmark Assessment System and ongoing progress monitoring (running records) are similar procedures with two different purposes.

Benchmark Assessment is conducted at specific intervals throughout the school year (e.g., beginning, middle, end of year). It is always conducted in a highly standardized way and the results are recorded. These results provide a starting point for instruction and also measure achievement over time. Reading records are taken on a first reading of a previously unseen text, with a highly standardized introduction. This reading provides a very conservative estimate of what a child can do without teaching.

Ongoing running records (or reading records as we use them in LLI) are taken at regular intervals as an integral part of instruction. They provide an assessment of a child’s performance on the second reading of a text. We would expect a child to demonstrate more effective reading on a level after he has experienced teaching and a first reading. This gives us an ongoing check on what we are teaching him to do as a reader. It informs ongoing teaching as well. So, the teacher is getting immediate feedback on the effectiveness of her teaching. She is always working for greater and greater independence so that the student will ultimately demonstrate those effective behaviors on higher levels during Benchmark Assessment.

Both are standardized, and both provide information about reading behaviors and the appropriateness of the level. Ongoing running records have the additional value of showing us what the reader can do with teaching. Often, the teacher is working on the child`s benchmark tested instructional level and finds that on the second reading, the child is demonstrating accuracy and comprehension as if this is the independent level. That, in fact, is what we want. The teaching has made the difference--making it possible for the child to be an extremely proficient reader on a level that would be a little harder without the teaching.

Question: We are looking to successfully implement RTI while philosophically maintaining the balanced literacy approach--being sure to continue to place value on all areas of reading. Will the new LLI system allow for intervention as well as weekly progress monitoring that can be shown as data?

Answer: LLI is an intervention system. It is designed to be used with readers who need extra help to learn to read up to level N (first part of grade 3). It can be used with any kind of literacy curriculum, but it is certainly compatible with a balanced approach since each 30-minute lesson includes a great deal of reading continuous texts (really good books!), phonics/word study, and writing about reading. There is an intensive focus on teaching comprehension, but you will also find daily phonics lessons. In the guide you will find plans for implementing LLI within a layered, comprehensive literacy curriculum. Teachers use lesson guides with 300 specifically designed lessons to guide teaching. The system has a Data Management CD that makes it easy to track progress. Students` scores on text reading would be taken and record every 6 days (for a group of 3). You will also be advised on "check up" assessment of phonics skills and word knowledge. Please take a look at the RTI Charts we’ve developed for further information on this subject.

Question: It seems like this system fits best as a Tier I intervention. In the field study districts that implement an RtI model, at which tier(s) did they implement the program? Are there different implementation guidelines/suggestions for different tiers?

Answer: LLI can be implemented as a Tier 1, 2, or 3 intervention and various school districts have made their plans in different ways. A classroom teacher can provide more intensive small group instruction with LLI. The most common use is as a supplementary tier two or three intervention as it involves close diagnostic work for the short term. You will find many RTI documents on this website so you can review various options.

Question: I have a question about the grade-level specific Expectations for reading charts for the Benchmark Assessment System. The charts show, for each grade level, in the Fall, Winter and Spring, which Tier (1, 2 or 3) students would fall under based on their scores on several assessments (leveled text, Word Features tests, etc.). What information were these levels based on? Is there any data available about what percentage of students in a grade are likely to fall in Tier 1, 2 or 3? More information on the development of these charts would be useful, as we would like to use this data to implement RTI in our schools.

Answer: Beginning and ending grade level expectations are based on typical levels at each time period. They are consistent with state standards. If they are met, then student should be assured of making adequate progress across grades. (Note, that text levels are based not only on accuracy but on satisfactory comprehension.) Expectations at time points within grade levels have been created for the purposes of RTI monitoring. They provide a guide for constantly checking to see whether students are making satisfactory progress towards the end-of-year goal. This progress monitoring gives the teacher information on when and how much intervention might be needed. The percentage of students at each tier will vary greatly depending on the overall achievement in the school. We do not have numbers because of this variation. However, your expectation should be that when you have excellent classroom instruction and layers of effective interventions in place, about 80% of the students will fall into tier 1; that is; they will make sufficient progress with good classroom instruction. About 20% would need intervention (possibly a choice of several tier 2 interventions); and only about 5% would need intensive tier 3 interventions. When you are initially developing your literacy program, you may find many more students needing intervention. As you work together over time, you should find that the percentages change.

Question: Am I correct in understanding that these LLI kits were developed to use for Tier 2 & 3 instruction, not for classroom teachers to use for Tier 1?

Answer: LLI was designed to supplement good classroom teaching. This intervention can serve to close the achievement gap and bring children to grade level because they are getting something extra. Your district can decide how to use it as supplementary, intensive support for the children below grade level. Many schools use it for tier 2 or 3, though some schools have managed to provide coverage for the classroom teacher to provide extra lessons beyond the regular classroom instruction before school, after school, or even during the day while someone else works with the other children.