Profiling literacy development: monitoring the accumulation of reading skills

The paper outlines the development of a scale describing the progression of reading behaviour which differs from previous instruments designed for monitoring reading progress. It is proposed as a descriptive reporting scale which is based, in concept and structure, on similar scales used in second language acquisition. The scale developed in this study presents a progressive accumulation of reading skills, grouped together in ' bands'. The skills listed are performance indicators of reading development. The scale is shown to have high reliability when used with an appropriate rating scale, and to have appropriate criterion validity as measured by correlation with standardised tests. Analysis of class level data illustrates how the data can be used to analyse student reading development. The properties of the reporting system are examined and complementary assessment strategies are explored for the development of an overall descriptive reporting system which may deal with some of the issues currently being canvassed in the debate regarding school accountability.