Details

The basic premise of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests is that it is useful for teachers and schools to know the general level of reading achievement of individual students throughout their entire school careers. The objective information obtained from GMRT, complemented by teachers' evaluations and other sources of information, can provide a basis for the following:

• Organizing students into appropriate instructional groups
• Selecting students for individual diagnosis and special instruction
• Identifying students who are ready for more advanced instruction
• Placing new students into proper instructional programs
• Evaluating the effectiveness of instructional programs
• Reporting student progress to parents, teachers, and the community

Links to Instruction

A classroom resource for reading assessment and instruction, developed and written by the GMRT authors, is designed to provide guidance in planning instruction, intervention, and enrichment based on students' test results. The linking manual guides teachers through a series of thought-provoking questions to identify which reading skills need attention and suggests proven instructional techniques for developing these skills. The studies and tips for integrating instruction into the classroom are helpful for both beginning and experienced teachers.

Help students improve in reading. Detailed easy-to-follow examples of teacher-student interactions and instructional techniques provide insight into the following:

• Instructing students in word identification
• Understanding how students learn word meanings
• Teaching word meanings
• Teaching comprehension strategies
• Developing students’ metacognition, or awareness of their thinking
• Creating instructional programs for teaching comprehension strategies
• Working with students whose language or culture differs from that assumed by classroom materials

Linking Testing to Teaching: A classroom Resource for Reading Assessment and Instruction provide help for teachers:

• Author guidance for interpreting student test results
• Straightforward techniques to help pinpoint students’ reading difficulties
• Proven instructional strategies for developing reading skills

Lexile^® Measures

Students’ scores can now be linked to the Lexile Framework ^® for Reading. Lexile measures are available for Levels 1 through 10/12, and can be used to link students with reading materials of appropriate difficulties though the Lexile website.

A special research study was conducted in November and December 2000 to statistically link GMRT Comprehension test scores to the Lexile Framework’. Scores on the GMRT comprehension test can be linked to Lexile measures because of the research described in the new Lexile Conversions Manual. This manual aslo provides tables for converting GMRT comprehension raw scores (total number correct) to Lexile measures. There is a separate table for each level and form of the comprehension test.

Lexile^® and the Lexile Framework^® are registered trademarks of MetaMetrics, Inc.

Lexile measures are also available though the new GMRT interactive Results Manager.

Levels

Pre-Reading: Level PR
Paper-Pencil version only

Designed to help teachers discover what students at the end of Kindergarten and students at the beginning Grade 1 know about important background concepts that are important for learning to read.

• Subtest 1, Literacy Concepts, evaluates students' understanding of the nature and uses of written English and their understanding of words and phrases commonly used in beginning reading instruction.
  
  
• Subtest 2, Oral Language Concepts (Phonological Awareness), evaluates students' abilities to attend to the basic structure of spoken English words, especially to phonemic units (speech sounds), which are the basis of the alphabetic principle and much beginning reading instruction.
  
  
• Subtest 3, Letters and Letter/Sound Correspondences, evaluates students' knowledge of letters and their abilities to relate them to sounds.
  
  
• Subtest 4, Listening (Story) Comprehension, evaluates students' abilities to understand important elements of connected text. Designed for nonreaders, answer choices for Level PR predominantly consist of pictures.
  
  

Beginning Reading: Level BR
Paper-Pencil version only

Designed as a first test of students' decoding skills. Level BR is particularly appropriate for situations in which growth is measured by giving the same test at the beginning and end of grade 1. An age-appropriate comprehension test measures students’ ability to read words commonly used in stories.

The first three subtests - Initial Consonants and Consonant Clusters, Final Consonants and Consonant Clusters, and Vowels - evaluate students' abilities to decode combinations of consonants and vowels that make up real English words. The last subtest, Basic Story Words, evaluates students' abilities to identify words most commonly used in written text that typically are learned without decoding. Answer choices for Level BR consist of both pictures and words.

• Subtest 1, Initial Consonants and Consonant Clusters
• Subtest 2, Final Consonants and Consonant Clusters
• Subtest 3, Vowels
• Subtest 4, Basic Story Words

The first three subtests evaluate students' abilities to decode combinations of consonants and vowels that make up real English words.

The last subtest, Subtest 4, Basic Story Words, evaluates students' abilities to identify words most commonly used in written text that typically are learned without decoding. Answer choices for Level BR consist of both pictures and words.

Early Independent Reading: Levels 1 and 2

Designed to provide a general assessment of early independent reading achievement. Because Levels 1 and 2 contain the same sample questions and use the same general administration procedures, they can be administered together in the same testing room. Students who take Level 2 need an additional testing session for the Word Knowledge test.

Both Level 1 and Level 2 contain a Word Decoding test and a Comprehension test. The Word Decoding test evaluates students' abilities to decode or recognize words. Incorrect answer choices are based on common decoding errors. The Comprehension test evaluates students' abilities to understand extended written text.

The passages in the Comprehension test represent various kinds of extended text found in written English, including fiction and nonfiction, narrative and expository modes, and a variety of writing styles. All but the last passages consist of four text segments; each segment is accompanied by a panel of three picture answer choices. The students' task is to choose the picture in each panel that illustrates the text segment or answers a question about the segment. Level 2 contains a Word Knowledge test, which evaluates beginning reading vocabulary. Incorrect answer choices are based on errors of meaning.

Mature Reading: Levels 3–10/12 and AR

Designed to provide a general assessment of reading achievement in grades 3 through 10/12. Each level consists of a Vocabulary test and a Comprehension test. Levels 4 through 10/12 can be administered together in the same testing room at the same time.
The Vocabulary tests for Levels 3 through 10/12 measure reading vocabulary. Each test word is presented in a brief context intended to suggest part of speech but not to provide clues to meaning. Students are expected to select the word or phrase that means most nearly the same as the test word.

The Comprehension tests measure students' abilities to read and understand different types of prose. All of the passages are taken from published books and periodicals. The content is selected to reflect the type of materials that students are required to read for their schoolwork and choose to read for recreation. Some questions require students to construct an understanding based on a literal understanding of the passage; others require students to make inferences or draw conclusions. The Comprehension tests also measure the ability to determine the meaning of words in an authentic text context.

Adult Reading: Level AR

Designed for use by colleges, community colleges, adult education programs, GED programs, vocational and training schools, and other post-high school educational programs that need to assess the general reading achievement of their students. Level AR can also be used by businesses and other organizations that need to know how well individuals read. The format matches Levels 3 through 10/12 and includes a Vocabulary test and a Comprehension test. However, the content of both the Vocabulary test and the Comprehension test was selected with the interests and needs of adults in mind.