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 eight 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 Graphophonemic Knowledge (GK) Portion of the Inventory Section: Spelling
5. Word Reading Portion
6. The Reading Accuracy, Fluency, and Comprehension Portion
7. Summary Sheets
8. 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 only at the BOY administration.

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 in 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 moment 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 the 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 Screening Section is administered to all students in the class at 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 Word Reading task. We will discuss further how the Branching Rules guide you through the assessment, ensuring that you select the next, appropriate task based on student results.

Administering Screening 1

Locate the Teacher's Guide sample on page 7 in your participant packet. First, lookd 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 the page, notice that what you say to the student is written in bold text. For each task in TPRI, the Practice Items are listed separately in the Teacher's Guide. It is important to always do the Practice Items 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

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, 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.

After Screening 1, you will go to the Word Reading Portion of the Inventory Section with all students. The only exception to this rule is if you plan to administer the spelling task individually to a student. In almost all cases, the spelling task will be group administered to the entire class at once.

The Branching Rules reference a page in the main Teacher’s Guide for further information. You will refer to the page in the Teacher’s Guide to find 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.

Students who score Developed (D) on the Screening Section are likely not at risk of being a struggling reader. In second and third grade, all students are branched to each portion of the Inventory Section as shown on the screen above.

In Grade 2, there is a single Graphophonemic Knowledge (GK) spelling test.

This spelling test is designed to be group administered. The Teacher’s Guide lists the administration instructions and the sentences that you will read to students to give the spelling test.

The spelling words are divided into four sets of five words. Words in a set share some similar characteristics. If students spell four or five words in a set correctly then they score Developed on that set.

For the spelling test, there is an Error Analysis Chart provided.. This tool allows you to gain insight about the parts of words students may struggle to spell correctly.

The Word Reading task is designed to give teachers information about how their students decode words. In this task, 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, they don’t have to take the Word Reading task again later in the year.

For students who have trouble reading many of the words on the Grade 2 Word Reading Task, teachers may choose to administer the Grade 1 Word Reading Task to gather instructional information about the student’s skills with less challenging words and phonic elements.

The following videos shows the Word Reading portion.

The Error Analysis Chart provided with the word list is much like the one provided for the spelling task. This tool allows you to gain insight about the parts of words students may struggle to read.

After a student has completed the 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.

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. At BOY and MOY, the easier stories are similar in the level of difficulty. At BOY and MOY, the same is true for the harder stories—they are about the same level of difficulty. At EOY, the second story that students read—which is also the last story they read—is the hardest of the stories.

There is also a mix of fiction and non-fiction stories in the different grades. For example, in first grade, there are more fiction stories. In second grade, the emphasis shifts to non-fiction stories, which reflects the change in the classroom reading emphasis.

View the following video clips for Story 1 and Story 2 at BOY.

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. Be sure to remember that 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 and 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 students 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 asks 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, use a stopwatch to time how long each student takes to read the story. 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 wrong.

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

Score the student using the Individual Student Record Sheet as you administer the TPRI.

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

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

• The Screening Summary tells whether the student is likely at risk for difficulty
• The GK spelling test and Word Reading task scores demonstrate student understanding 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.

The first step in the process of analyzing TPRI data to plan instruction is filling in the Class Summary Sheet. There is a column to indicate whether students were D or SD on the screening. There is also a column to indicate student scores on each inventory task.

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

There is a Student Summary Sheet for each student. It is included as a separate 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.

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.