Fountas and Pinnell

Benchmark Assessment System (BAS) Training

Goals for the day

BAS Training

A Look Inside the Kits

Administering the BAS: comprehension conversations

Scoring the BAS: Data to guide instruction

Calibration across grade levels

Practical tips from F&P

Looking inside the kits, you should have...

Within the BAS box

• 28 Benchmark assessment books for BAS 1 (fiction and nonfiction)
• Assessment Guide
• F&P Literacy Continuum
• Assessment Forms (register online to print directly rather than run copies)
• Optional Assessments: Student forms (again register online for convenience)
• F&P Calculator/Stopwatch
• Recording forms
• Student folders (30) - at COJOWA we use the blue cumm folders

Optional Assessments

• Where-to-Start Word Test (when you don’t have previous data for a student)
• Phonics and Word Analysis
• Vocabulary Assessments

If you have no data about a new child

• Where to Start Word Test can help guide you to a starting place to test
• Instructions
• Use the word list below that child’s current grade level (ex: third graders would test using word list 2, fourth graders use list 3, etc)
• Scoring info and testing recommendations are in the instructions linked above

Online Resource Registration

1. Go to F&P’s webpage
2. Click on Online Resources - yellow tab at the top
3. Register for an account
4. Find the registration code, inside cover of Assessment Guide, to register your kit

Administering the BAS

Assessment is not teaching, but rather gathering information for teaching

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Frequency of assessment

• Intervals of 2-3 times per year (no more than 4)
• Suggested 1 at beginning of year to begin instruction, then again in March or April

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COJOWA F&P / DRA Common Agreements

Here is the doc with our common agreements

Duration and span of the assessment

• Assessment conferences last 20-30 mins
• Can be used to determine:
• independent level (what they can read with accuracy, comprehension and retell)
• instructional level (with teacher support, student expands their strategies)
• frustration level (where student cannot perform even with teacher support)

Getting Ready to Test

• Plan to test at the start of the year and spend about two weeks testing
• Valuable relationship forming in the beginning as well as gathering vital info

When to test - reading block

• While children rotate during centers
• During independent reading
• While students engage in other meaningful literacy tasks
• Goal is 2-3 a day; ES teachers may opt for sub days to test more kids in a day

F&P acknowledge that lower grades are quicker, but still aim for 2 per day in intermediate grades

Systemize testing for efficiency

• Sub coverage for 1-2 days (3 if there are 3 classes)
• Grade level teammates take both classes for literacy activities
• A colleague swaps your duty so you can assess during recess
• Shared reading, phonics minilessons, poetry reading, SSR with conferences
• Support colleague can confer with students during self-selected reading while classroom teacher assesses

The key is to keep the other children engaged in meaningful literacy work while you assess. This requires colleagues working together as a grade level and as a school.

The CLASSROOM TEACHER should conduct the assessments

• The one who provides the children with individualized instruction should acquire first-hand knowledge of their reading abilities and needs
• Support staff - LC teachers, coteachers, specialists should be the ones who remain with the other children while the classroom teacher assesses

Materials to have with you for the assessment

Leveled Books

• F&P recommend alternating fiction and nonfiction
• Common agreement for COJOWA? Alternate? Student choice?

Recording forms

• See and mark on the text from the leveled book
• Prompts for the comprehension conversation
• Space to score and analyze

Assessment Summary Forms

• Various forms to show student’s assessment analysis
• Student Summary, Tri-Annual, Whole Class...
• Are there forms we want/need to agree to use as a school?

Assessment at-a-Glance chart and Coding and Scoring at-a-Glance chart

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• These two charts show key steps in the assessment process
• Could be kept with your kit or in your testing area
• Assessment at-a-Glance details the administration procedures
• Coding and Scoring at-a-Glance is quick review of how to score oral reading
• These will become automatic with practice over time and unnecessary

Timer/Calculator

• For calculating reading rate
• Recommended at level J and above

Scoring and analysis at a glance

The Comprehension Conversation

Heather Frees

Know the books and prompts well

• Read the leveled books
• Read the different prompts at the different levels
• With time, these begin to feel automatic for the teacher

Prompts in Comprehension Conversation

Rubrics for scoring the Comprehension Conversation

• Levels A-K (BAS 1) and Levels L-Z (BAS 2)
• For analysis directly after the assessment
• To determine independent, instructional (and frustration levels)

Levels A-K

Levels L-Z

Writing materials

• Optional writing component to the assessment - COJOWA common agreement?
• Have sharpened pencils, pens or fine markers
• Writing paper

Testing, Coding, and Scoring

“Assessment is information for teaching,” F&P

Annie Driskell

Recording form

• Main tool for for data collection and scoring
• Observe and code oral reading behaviors
• Guides comprehension conversation with prompts and possible responses
• Optional writing about reading prompt

Information is useful for different teaching contexts

• Individual
• Small Group
• Whole Group

Individual Instruction

• Guide students to choose independent books
• Helps know where to look when you confer with kids

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Small Group or Whole Group Instruction

• Helps know which students to group (by level or needs)
• Helps teachers select books and teaching points directed toward student needs

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Consult the Literacy Continuum in your kit

• Provides teaching guidance for 8 areas of grade level expectations PreK-8: interactive read aloud/literature discussion, shared and performance reading, writing about reading, writing, oral and visual communication, technological communication, phonics/spelling/word study, guided reading
• Section of Guided Reading: provides teacher guidance level by level for genres, text characteristics, behaviors, and understandings for thinking within, beyond, and about texts
• Guided reading section also provides suggested word work for levels A-Z

Look at MSV - what they’re doing and not doing

Structure/Syntax - students often make mistakes surrounding awareness of the grammar or structure of language.

Example: Jumps instead of Jumped

Ask yourself: Did structure influence the error? Does the error fit an acceptable English language structure up to the point of error?

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Meaning - students often make mistakes indicating that they are thinking about the text.

Example: Ballet in place of Dance

Ask yourself: Does the error make sense? Did the meaning of the text influence the error?

Visual - Students often make mistakes based on the visual features of print

Example: serve for survive Ask yourself - Did the visual information from the print influence the error?

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F&P Urge Caution with Reading Levels

No one chooses books based on their ability

Levels are tools to help teachers work with kids

How to choose a book for yourself - ease of reading, ability to see themselves as readers and learn to manage their own reading lives (grade level reading minilessons books by F&P address this topic)

Article: Level Books, Not Children, Live Webinar With Fountas & Pinnell: Levels Are a Teacher’s Tool, NOT a Child’s Label

Time for videos

Other resources

BAS 3rd Edition Webinar

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BAS - Let’s Get Practical Webinar

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Assess to Inform Instruction Webinar

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12 Systems of Strategic Actions Webinar

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PD Plan for Literacy Continuum - Study Guide

PD on BAS: read system guide, observe assessment conference and talk about it and debrief, start small and build, plan should move slowly and is true to system guide

Electronic tools that minimize paperwork, copies

- F&P apps and platforms

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