In this unit, we will focus on how and when to administer the TPRI and provide practice opportunities. We will use portions of the participant packet throughout this unit.

There are nine sections in this unit:

1. When Do I Administer the TPRI?
2. Giving the Assessment: Overview
3. Moving from the Screening Section to the Inventory Section
4. The Phonemic Awareness (PA) Portion of the Inventory Section
5. The Graphophonemic Knowledge (GK) Portion of the Inventory Section
6. Word Reading Portion
7. The Reading Accuracy, Fluency, and Comprehension Portion
8. Summary Sheets
9. Additional Information

The Beginning-of-Year (BOY) TPRI is administered two weeks after school begins. The middle-of-year (MOY) TPRI is administered mid-January, and the end-of-year (EOY) TPRI is administered mid-April. The Screening Section is included in the BOY and EOY administrations only. There is no Screening Section in the MOY.

These are recommended windows; schools and or districts set the actual dates they assess. A school or district may adjust their testing window based on particular needs and  schedules. However, the TPRI administration should be completed within a two-week window with all students in the classroom.

Additional Information

Students receiving special education services take the TPRI unless specifically noted by their Individual Education Plans (IEPs). All students should complete the screening at their current grade level. However, tasks on the Inventory Section can be given out of grade level for the purpose of planning instruction. Additional information can be found in the Teacher’s Guide.

Reflection

Take a few seconds to complete the exercise below. 

Importance of Accurate and Reliable Administration

It is important to be both consistent and accurate when giving the TPRI. Accurate information is critical because TPRI identifies students as at-risk and determines how much and what type of instruction to provide. Also, because scores are reported to parents, the TPRI provides a framework for communicating student goals and progress. Texas Education Code 28.006 requires that schools report scores to their local school board, the Commissioner of Education, and to parents/guardians.

To be consistent, it is important to read the directions in Teacher’s Guide each time you assess a student. The directions provide each student with the same information and the same advantage on the assessment. Please do not prompt students or review tasks previously taught during the administration of the TPRI. Be positive and encouraging with all students, but do not praise individual answers.

Remember, the purpose of the TPRI is to provide information to help teachers teach. Accurate and reliable administration of the assessment helps to plan effective instruction and meet the needs of all students.

Reflection

Complete the reflection exercise below. 

The way you progress through the TPRI will be different depending on whether students are identified as at risk by the Screening Section score of Still Developing (SD). Review the graphic above.

Additional Information

If students score Still Developing, or SD, on the Screening Section, it may indicate that the students are struggling and may be considered at risk. For these students, we want to gather as much information as possible about their specific needs. These students will go from the Screening Section and take tasks on each portion of the Inventory.

Students who score Developed, or D, on the Screening Section are likely not at risk for struggling as readers. Spending valuable classroom time administering all of the Inventory portions with these students is not necessary unless your school or district specifies otherwise. With these students, you jump to the Word Reading portion of the Inventory. They do not need to be given the Phonemic Awareness (PA) and Graphophonemic Knowledge (GK) portions of the Inventory.

The Screening Section is administered to all students in the class for the Beginning-of-the-Year (BOY). Student scores on the Screening Section will determine what Inventory task you administer next.

The Branching Rules  tell you what task to administer next. All students will start with Screening 1, the Letter Sound task. We will discuss further how the Branching Rules help guide you through the assessment, ensuring that you select the next, appropriate task based on student results.

Locate the Teacher's Guide sample on page 7 in your participant packet. First, look at the layout of the Teacher's Guide on page 7. Notice the top of the page has a list of materials for you to gather. Every task on the TPRI lists the materials needed. Before you start the task with a student, be sure you have all necessary materials.

The teacher directions for the task are provided next. Read the directions aloud to yourself. As you read through the rest of the page, notice that what you say to the student is written in bold text. For each task on TPRI, the Practice Items are listed separately in the Teacher's Guide. It is important to always do the Practice Items that are given so the students will know what is expected.

Practice Screening 1

Now that you have watched the video clip, you will have an opportunity to practice. Locate Slide 25 Practice Screening 1 on page 6 and the Teacher’s Guide sample on page 7 in your participant packet. You can review and practice the screening alone or with a partner. Remember to carefully follow the guidelines from the Teacher's Guide.

Additional Information

On this task, you are looking for the short vowel sound. You may not provide the letter name or sound if the student answers incorrectly. However, you may ask for the letter’s sound if the student gives the letter name, and you can also ask for alternate sound if the student gives a long vowel sound instead of a short vowel sound. If you ask the student for the letter's sound or for the letter's alternate sound, use the language use language provided teacher’s guide.

All items are scored with a 1 if they are correct or a 0 if they are incorrect. Give a score for each item immediately after the student answers. If you are ever uncertain about what score to give, then mark the answer as wrong. Marking it as an error may increase the instructional attention you give a student later, but it is better to increase attention than to potentially miss a gap in student understanding of the skill. Also, since TPRI is used for instructional purposes and not to label students, we want to identify any areas where students may potentially have difficulties.

Student scores will determine what task to administer next. This is why the Branching Rules exist. Please refer to page 7 in your participant packet and locate the Branching Rules at the bottom of the page. The Branching Rules also reference a page in the main Teacher’s Guide for further information, including the appropriate task to administer next on the Student Record Sheet.

The Branching Rules will take all students to the Inventory Section once they are finished with the Screening Section. Students who score Still developing (SD) on the Screening Section may be considered at risk. The Branching Rules take these students to the start of the Phonemic Awareness portion.

Students who score Developed (D) on the Screening Section are likely not at risk of being a struggling reader. These students will be branched to the Word Reading portion of the inventory. For the purpose of this training, we will review all components of Grade 1 TPRI and follow the path of a student who scored SD on the Screening Section.

Reflection

Take a few seconds complete the activity below. 

The Phonemic Awareness (PA) Portion of the Inventory Section covers five tasks of increasingly difficult skills. Review the slides and the interactive.

Each PA task consists of five items. If students are correct on four or five of these items, they have demonstrated mastery of the skill and receive a D for Developed. Once a student scores D on a PA task, they do not have to take that task again at either MOY or EOY. After scoring D, the Branching Rules tell teachers the student moves on to the next task.

If students score SD on a PA task, mastery of the skill has not been demonstrated. Since students have not shown mastery of the easier skill, the Branching Rules do not move on to the next harder PA task. Instead they take students to the first task of the next portion of the inventory, which is GK-1.

These Branching Rules keep students from growing frustrated. They also save valuable time by not making students try tasks with which they are unlikely to be successful.

Please take note how the items on PA-1 and PA-2 differ, and how PA-2 tasks are more difficult due to more word parts and phonemes to blend.

PA-3 and PA-4: Deleting Sounds

The last two PA tasks are the hardest. Students have to delete initial sounds on PA-3 an final sounds on PA-4.

When administering these tasks, it is important to isolate the sound you want students to delete. If not, it will be difficult for many students to answer correctly.

Look at the following examples.

PA-3

Say the word nice. Now say nice with the /n/. (ice) If the student is unsuccessful in saying the ward, say, That's not quite right. The word is ice.

PA-4

Say the word rain. Now say rain without the /n/. (ray) If the student is unsuccessful in saying the word, say, That's not quite right. The word is ray.

Let's review some important tips when administering the PA tasks.

• When making single consonant sounds, be careful not to add a vowel sound, especially consonant sounds /p/, /k/, /t/.
• Consonants such as /m/, /f/, and /n/ should not be followed by a vowel sound and they continue on only slightly in a clipped manner.
• Keep the vowel sound as short as possible for consonants such a /g/ and /b/.

The first three bullet points model the correct pronunciation of the sounds, being careful to isolate the phonemes and not add additional sounds.

With the Deleting Initial and Final Sounds tasks, be sure to pronounce letter sounds rather than letter names.

Before administering the TPRI, review and practice all PA tasks.  Practicing with a colleague who can listen and offer feedback is also a good idea.

On the Grade 1 GK tasks, students are asked to make different words by moving foam letters on a magnetic board. The tasks move from substituting the initial letters in words, to substituting the blends at the ends of words.

Just like in PA tasks, the GK tasks increase in difficulty, so students move to the next GK task only if they score D for Developed. Once a student scores D on a GK task, they are not required to take that task again at either MOY or EOY.

GK-1 Initial Consonant Substitution: Practice

With the GK tasks, you will see if students can make different words. We will only practice one of the GK tasks since the process for administering each task is the same.

Locate GK-1 Initial Consonant Substitution handouts on page 12 and page 13 in your participant handout. Review the directions for GK-1. For the practice item, you will show students how you take the letter c and put it in front of the letters “og” to make the word “cog.” You will let students make the word “cog.” Then, you will ask them to try to make other words.

When you administer this task you will need to look at the task page for the practice items and at the student record sheet for the task items.

After you are done with the practice item, the only thing you say for each word is: Can you make the word ____?

For example, look at number one. The item shows blank-o-g, and then shows the letter “h.” So, to give this item you will say, Can you make the word hog?

To give item number 2 you will say: Can you make the word log?
To give item number 3 you will say: Can you make the word pig?

Before you begin, review the four pieces necessary to give the task.

•   Letters - if you don’t have magnetic letters, you can use the paper letters in the packet.
•   The task description on the task page of the Teacher’s Guide
•   The scoring box from the Individual Student Record Sheet
•   The picture of the magnetic board for the student to use

Now it is time to practice. Remember that on this task, you can only give feedback on the practice items, but not at any other time.

Watch the additional videos below. 

The Word Reading task is designed to give teachers information about how their students decode words.  In this tasl, students read a list of words. The list consists of four sets of five decodable words. 

If students cannot read any of the words in Set 1, then the teacher stops the task and moves on to the next portion.

If students are correct on four or five of the words in a set, then they score D for the set. If a student scores D on all four sets, the student does not have to take the Word Reading task again later in the year.

When students have trouble reading many of the words on the Grade 1 Word Reading Task, teachers may choose to administer the kindergarten Word Reading Task to gather instructional information about the student’s skills. 

There is an Error Analysis Chart provided with the Word Reading task. This tool allows you to gain insight about the parts of words students may struggle to read.

After a student has completed the PA, GK, and Word Reading portions of the Inventory, the next section is the Reading Accuracy, Fluency and Comprehension portion. This portion is given at each administration, BOY, MOY, and EOY.

There are two different short stories at each time point. Students will read these stories as you mark errors to determine their accuracy, and time them so that you can determine their fluency rates. After each story, you will ask a set of six comprehension questions.

Watch three short video clips showing Story 1 and Story 2 at BOY, as well as, the Reading Comprehension portion for Story 1. 

At each administration, students are given stories of different difficulty levels to read.

At BOY and MOY, the first story is easier and the second story is harder. Both of the easier stories are approximately the same level of difficulty. Both of the harder stories are also close to the same level of difficulty. The second story at EOY, the last story students read, is the hardest of the first grade stories.

There is also a mix of fiction and non-fiction stories at the different grades. In first grade, there are more fiction stories, but in second grade the emphasis shifts to non-fiction stories, as it does in the classroom.

.

The Teacher’s Guide provides a script and directions for administering the story reading task. The Teacher’s Guide also provides guidance for marking word reading errors as students read. If the student pauses for three seconds or takes three seconds to sound out a word, you should give the word and mark it as an error.

Review the information above to review the scoring guidelines and information about errors and items not considered errors.

Score the accuracy of student reading for all stories. The accuracy score is based on the percentage of words in the passage that the student read correctly.

There are three accuracy scores: Independent, Instructional, and Frustrational.

If students read 95 to 100 percent of the words in the story correctly, they are considered to be at the Independent level. If they read 90 to 94 percent of the words in the story correctly, they are considered to be at the Instructional level.

There are two ways for students to reach the Frustrational accuracy level.

1. Reading three errors in the first sentence.
2. Reading fewer than 90% of the words correctly.

There is a box that provides the number of errors a student has to make in order to reach Frustrational level.

When the student reaches the Frustrational level, the teacher reads the story to the student. Write FRU by the story on the Student Record Sheet, then ask the comprehension questions to assess the student’s Listening Comprehension of the story.

If the student scores at the Frustrational level on the first story, s/he still attempts to read the second story. Notice that you do not return to a previous story. The only time you may revert to a previous story is at the EOY administration. At EOY, if the student scores FRU on both Story 5 and Story 6, then you may allow the student to try reading the easier story from MOY (Story 3) if you want to gather more instructional information.

If students do not reach Frustrational on a story, then their fluency rate is calculated using the boxes on the Student Record Sheet. When students read, you use a stopwatch to time how long they take to read the story. You enter this time in the “Time” boxes. Then using the fluency formula boxes, calculate the words correct per minute (WCPM) score for the student.

There are four types of comprehension questions:  Recalling Details, Linking Details, Inferring Meaning, and Inferring Word Meaning.

Frequently, students will give an answer that is correct but different from the sample answer. If the student’s answer makes sense and seems correct based on the information in the story, then score the answer as correct. If you are not sure, err on the side of caution and score the answer as incorrect.

Do not wait too long for students to answer the comprehension questions. After ten seconds, you can prompt the student to look at the story. Wait no more than a total of 20 seconds for a student to answer. If the student doesn’t answer within this time, just ask the next question.

As you administer the TPRI, score the student using the Individual Student Record Sheet.

The Student Summary Sheet is the cover page in the Individual Student Record Sheet where you transfer all the student’s scores to one place for easy review.

The Student Summary Sheet provides a quick review of the student’s performance on three parts of the TPRI.

• The Screening Summary tells whether the student is likely at risk for difficulty.
• The PA, GK & Word Reading scores demonstrate student understanding of sounds and of sound/spelling relationships.
• The summary of the Reading Accuracy, Fluency, and Comprehension portion provides information about the student’s ability to read fluently and comprehend effectively.

This sheet can be a useful tool during parent/teacher conferences.

Filling in the Class Summary Sheet is the first step in the process of analyzing TPRI data to plan instruction. There is a column to indicate whether students were D or SD on the screening. There is also a column to indicate how many tasks each student scored developed on for the PA and GK portions. For example, if a student was Developed on PA-1 Blending Word Parts and PA-2 Blending Phonemes and Still Developing on PA-3 Deleting Initial Sounds, write a 2 in the PA column.

As you fill in the sheet at MOY and EOY, previous scores can be carried over if students scored Developed on certain tasks.

In summary, there is a Student Summary Sheet as the cover page of the Individual Student Record Sheet. There is also a Class Summary Sheet for collecting the scores for your whole class. It is important to complete the summary pages.

When giving the TPRI at Middle and End-of-Year, the assessment does not need to be given from start to finish.

The MOY administration does not include a Screening Section. At EOY, though, you start with Screening 4.

The PA and GK portions of the inventory include skills that students may have mastered. If a student demonstrates mastery on a task then a score of D is given. So, any PA or GK task where the student scored D does not have to be given again.

The Word Reading Portion also does not have to be given again if the student was previously Developed on all sets.

On the PA and GK portions of the Inventory, the student should “jump-in” at the first task with an SD score from earlier in the year.

When giving a task where students were Still Developing, always administer each item in the task, even if the student got the item correct earlier in the year.

Take a minute to review the information contained on the Quick Review Sheet. Place it in your Teacher’s Guide for reference while administering the assessment.