Literacy & Languages Coming soon
ELA & Literacy Path
A diagnostic that will find where each student’s reading and writing break down, from foundational skills to comprehension, and build the path to reading at grade level.
The problem
Where reading and writing break down
Reading comprehension depends on many skills working together: decoding, vocabulary, background knowledge and how texts are built. When comprehension breaks down, the cause is often hidden.
- A reading level says a student is behind, not which skill is missing.
- Students can read fluently and still miss meaning.
- Writing gaps are hard to diagnose from a single score.
Inside the Path
What the ELA & Literacy Path covers
The ELA & Literacy Path will cover the Common Core English Language Arts and Literacy standards: foundational reading skills such as phonics and fluency, reading literature and informational text, writing, speaking and listening, and language, including vocabulary and conventions.
Where students get stuck
Comprehension often breaks down in ways a reading level hides: decoding without building meaning, missing how a text is organized, assuming the main idea is always the first sentence, or lacking the vocabulary and background knowledge a text takes for granted. Writing gaps can look similar, such as summarizing when an argument was asked for.
What it does for you
What this Path will do
For teachers
Will trace each student’s answers to the reading or writing skill that’s missing, so practice will start there.
More for teachersFor school leaders
Will bring the gap-first approach to reading and writing across grades.
More for school leadersFor districts
Will bring the SubjectPath method to literacy, built on Common Core English Language Arts.
More for districtsHow it works
How the Path will work
Diagnose
An adaptive diagnostic will move across the reading and writing standards, choosing each question from the answers so far.
Trace
Answers will be traced back through a map of how literacy skills build on each other to the skill where understanding breaks down.
Rebuild
Students will get a skill path that starts at their gap.
Standards
Will be built on published standards
Common Core English Language Arts and Literacy
The ELA & Literacy Path will be built on the Common Core English Language Arts and Literacy standards.
The science
The method behind every Path
Item Response Theory
Each student’s ability is estimated from their answers, and each next question is the one expected to tell the most.
Prerequisite maps
Standards are mapped as a graph of which skills build on which, so a gap can be traced to where it starts.
Misconception tagging
Wrong answer choices are written to reveal specific misconceptions, from a controlled catalog.
Research
The research behind this Path
These published studies are about how students learn, not about SubjectPath itself.
Recht and Leslie found that junior high students who knew more about a topic recalled and summarized a passage about it better, whether they were stronger or weaker readers.
Recht & Leslie (1988)Scarborough described skilled reading as the intertwining of word recognition and language comprehension, with comprehension drawing on background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning and literacy knowledge.
Scarborough (2001)
Help shape the ELA & Literacy Path
Tell us about your courses and students, and which of your classes the ELA & Literacy Path would serve. We’d like to hear what it should do first.
Tell us you’re interestedFrequently asked questions
- How is this different from the English Language Learners Path?
- ELA & Literacy is for every student reading and writing in English. The English Language Learners Path will diagnose English language proficiency for students learning English as a new language.
- When will it be available?
- We don’t publish dates. Tell us about your timeline and we’ll talk it through.
- Can we help shape it?
- Yes. Tell us about your courses and students. We’d like to hear what you need from it.
Talk to us about the ELA & Literacy Path
See Algebra Readiness in a demo today, and tell us what you need from this Path.