Measuring Literacy Development beyond a Single Test Score

You've seen the news. NAEP reading scores are the lowest they've been in 30 years, and yet schools often report that their students are performing well on reading tests. The74 article, “Are Kids Making Progress in Reading? It All Depends On How You Measure It,” raises an important issue about how we measure literacy development. As someone who has studied how emerging readers learn, it’s not enough to evaluate whether a student can decode a phoneme in isolation. It’s about whether they can apply that skill and make meaning from it. That’s when things really start to click. 

Measuring Literacy: More Than Just Foundational Skills

Assessing foundational skills like phonemic awareness and decoding is only one small piece of the literacy puzzle. Yes, a student may be able to decode a sound, but can they read fluently and comprehend in real-world contexts? Can they make connections and apply the knowledge they acquire to draw conclusions, form an opinion, or solve a problem? Not necessarily. With roughly one-third of students today struggling with reading at grade level, we must broaden our measures to include language comprehension if we are to help our emerging readers grow. 

Assessment Plus Instruction: A Dynamic Connection

Pinpointing the specific skills students need to focus on may be the first step to teaching them to read. But when assessment and instruction are linked, teachers are empowered to achieve greater impact, because they have the precise instructional support students need at their fingertips. That’s when real progress can happen.

i-Ready pinpoints specific skills gaps and places students on a learning progression. It links directly to digital self-paced lessons, teacher-led lessons, and reports, making it actionable for classroom use. The online resource saves time, offers flexibility, and provides automatic score calculation. Teachers can see where students are and what scaffolding they need to grow, saving them the time they often spend searching for materials.

Curriculum That Promotes Transfer and Application

If we want a full picture of literacy development, addressing skills gaps is only the first step. We need to look at how students apply skills in real contexts. That’s where the importance of a high-quality curriculum comes in. A robust curriculum reveals all the nuances of literacy growth: the early flickerings of understanding, the surprising leaps, the ways students connect new knowledge to lived experience. When students have room to stretch, wrestle with ideas, and make meaning, teachers can see both the challenges and the progress to understand where true development is taking hold. 

A strong curriculum doesn’t just teach literacy skills; it creates opportunities for students to apply them. It gives students a chance to integrate what they’ve learned in authentic, higher-order thinking tasks. For example, in Magnetic Literacy, our new core program that works seamlessly with i-Ready, a Grade 4 prompt asks students to imagine they are volcanologists teaching third graders about volcanoes. They must create a multimedia presentation using details from multiple sources. This isn’t just about identifying key details; it’s about teaching others, demonstrating comprehension, synthesis, and communication. That is the heart of a thinking curriculum.

Magnetic Literacy builds knowledge, but it also builds the habits of mind so students are able to turn knowledge into action, speak with conviction, and express their voice in ways that are thoughtful and uniquely their own. In doing so, it gives us a more complete profile of a reader. After all, if we aren’t asking students to think deeply and express themselves fully, we don’t truly know what they are capable of across all dimensions of literacy. 

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What to Consider When Reviewing Tools to Measure Literacy Development

When evaluating literacy tools, ask yourself:

• Does it assess the full reading construct, including phonological awareness, phonics/decoding, vocabulary, comprehension (e.g., literary, informational, listening)—not just foundational skills?
• Does it pinpoint specific skills gaps and place students on a learning progression, directly linking to instructional resources like digital and teacher-led lessons and reports? Or is it simply a first-round screener for risk?
• Does it look beyond proxies like oral reading fluency to actual meaning making?
• Does it connect assessment to instruction in a meaningful way?
• Does it allow students to apply what they’ve learned in authentic tasks?
• Does it support teacher insight and instructional decision making?
• Does it reflect the dynamic nature of literacy development?

The bottom line is that an assessment/remediation tool—no matter how good it may be—is only part of the solution. To truly move the needle on literacy, quality assessment must be directly connected to quality instruction. Learners need rich, research-based materials and ample opportunities to engage with and think about the ideas presented in text. When teachers are empowered to take an active role in monitoring and understanding what their students can do, provide explicit Tier 1 instruction while also addressing areas of need, and believe in every learner’s potential, it leads to meaningful and lasting student growth.

To learn more, check out our new core literacy program: Magnetic Literacy.
Want more from Kristen? Tune into her episode of the Extraordinary Educators™ Podcast.

Other recommended resources in our literacy blog library: 
Where Do We Go from Here? Unpacking the NAEP Reading Scores
Small School, Big Impact: Proven Strategies to Improve Student Outcomes
From Assessment to Intervention—Insights from a Reading Specialist