Training

Thanks for your interest in our Read Forward training. All of our initial online training workshops in April 2011 filled up quickly. Below are some training videos based on the information presented in those workshops. You will find it useful to have a copy of the Read Forward reading skills chart while going through the training.

Read Forward reading skills chart

Additionally, following the videos, will be the answers to a number of questions that arose during the initial training sessions. Thanks to all the participants who asked such great questions.

Use the links below to jump to a specific video.

1 – Resource Contents
2 – IALS
3 – Tests
4 – Segment A
5 – Segment B
6 – Segment C
7 – Segment D
8 – Segment E
9 – Segment F
10 – How to Prepare
11 – How to Administer
12 – How to Mark
13 – How to Provide Feedback
14 – Locator Tests
15 – User Guide

1 – Resource Contents

2 – IALS

3 – Tests

4 – Segment A

5 – Segment B

6 – Segment C

7 – Segment D

8 – Segment E

9 – Segment F

10 – How to Prepare

11 – How to Administer

12 – How to Mark

13 – How to Provide Feedback

14 – Locator Tests

15 – User Guide

Question 1: Reading skills being targeted

Question

Does Read Forward indicate which specific skills each question is targeting?

Answer

No

Explanation

Read Forward is divided into six levels called segments. Each segment concentrates on a different skill set that includes from 4 – 8 specific reading skills. These are clearly stated in the Reading Skills chart, available in the User Guide and as a PDF on the Training page.

What this means is that all the questions in that segment require that learners use those specific skills to complete the answer. For example, the specific skills being targeted in Segment B include:

1. Understand common words in text
2. Relate common words to other words in nearby text
3. Know where to write personal information in a form
4. Interpret a short text
5. Select from choices
6. Make choices that are based on understanding meaning rather than on relying only on structure

The resource does not indicate which of these six skills learners needs to demonstrate to answer each of the 30 questions in each of the five tests at Segment B.

We understand how useful this would be to practitioners, as it would provide two useful pieces of information about the learners:

• Which specific skills they have mastered (based on which questions were answered correctly)
• Which specific skills they still need to work on (based on which questions were answered incorrectly)

In addition, it would allow instructors to pull out questions from the resource that would provide the most useful practice for learners. For example, if a learner wrote the Segment B – Circle test and the questions he answered incorrectly indicated that he needs more practice with the skill “Know where to write personal information in a form,” the instructor could look through the remaining Segment B tests for questions that target that skill and use those specific texts with that learner.

At this point, instructors will need to spend time with the tests of the segment they are working with to determine which questions target which skills. Keep in mind that a single question may, and often does, target more than one skill. This, of course, becomes a lot more work for those instructors who will be working with a variety of segments.

Why wasn’t this done as part of the resource? It was not a part of the original proposal, as the aim of the project was to work with creating a resource that was referenced to IALS yet applicable to a classroom/teaching setting. This was a large task in and of itself, as it required determining sub-segments of IALS, creating and testing texts and questions, and determining whether or not questions were placed in the appropriate segment. (For more details about the development of the resource please refer to the User Guide or the Development page of the website).

We agree with the instructors who say this would make a great companion piece for the Read Forward resource and would be an interesting follow-up project. Currently we do not have plans for another project.

Question 2: Questions and Read Forward segments

Question

Does Read Forward indicate which segment each question is from?

Answer

Locator tests – yes

Other tests – no

Explanation

For the Read Forward Locator tests, the score sheet indicates exactly which segment each question aligns to. For example, on the score sheet for the Locator ABC, we see that questions 1 – 10 align to segment A, questions 11 – 20 align to segment B, and questions 21 – 30 align to segment C.

For the rest of the Read Forward tests, it is not as precisely indicated. All tests are a blend of skill levels; in general, 60% of the questions on a test are at that specific level, 20% from the previous level and 20% from the next level. This means, for example, that any segment B test is designed so that about 60% of the questions target segment B skills, 20% target segment A skills and 20% target segment C skills. In general, the easier questions would be at the beginning of the test and the harder questions appear at the end of the test. But this does not mean that it is literally the first 20% of questions that are the easiest. This is because the difficulty level of a question is determined by the question and the text in combination. This means that one text may have questions at different levels: two from segment B and one from segment C, for example.

Why wasn’t this information included in the resource? This information is beyond the scope of the original Read Forward project as the main aim is to be an informal, formative assessment tool that can be used in conjunction with other resources in the classroom to help adult learners improve their reading skills in a way that is referenced to an adult benchmark.

Question 3: Blank pages in high level tests

Question

Are the blank pages in segments E and F intentional?

Answer

Yes – click on the image below for examples (pgs. 4, 8, 12, 16, 22)

Explanation

One of the reading skills that is being assessed at the segment E and F level involves navigating longer texts, and by longer – at this point – we mean more than one page. As such, we have a number of texts that are two or three pages in length.

Most of the longer texts have “blank” pages in them to help keep the layout consistent – the questions are intended to always be on the left (before the text starts) an the text on the right. Some three page texts will span both the right and left pages, depending on the layout requirements for the test as a whole. As such, it is important to keep these pages and print them out as part of the complete test. These pages are not truly blank – as seen above.  We have put a subtle line design on the page to indicate that no information is missing.

Please email readforward@bowvalleycollege.ca with any questions or comments.