Reading Progress Indicator (RPI) assessments correlate to nationally recognized normed assessments, are reliable and validated, and the overall reading scores that can help indicate how students are responding to Fast ForWord product use.
Logistics for taking the RPI here
How does RPI correlate to other reading assessments?
Each reading assessment makes judgements about the components of reading. Some put a higher weighting on reading fluency (e.g., DIBELS), others on comprehension accuracy, most somewhere in between.
The RPI skews towards the fundamentals of reading – phonemic awareness, decoding accuracy and vocabulary. This makes sense for Gemm Learning as these are the skills Fast ForWord works particularly on early on.
Having said that, the RPI does collereate to many nationally normed reading assessments and high-stakes reading tests from various states across the nation. Across 23 studies, including data from more than 13,000 students, correlation coefficients ranged from 0.48 (moderate) to 0.88 (strong), with an average of 0.69. Collectively, this body of research has established that RPI has a high level of concurrent validity as a reading assessment. More information here
Why is the RPI result different from other testing?
While overall there is a good correlation to nationally normed tests, such as Woodcock Johnson III (WJ III), individual results can differ due to the varying weighting of factors noted above. Here are some things we see:
- The RPI is not timed, which can help slow readers in the RPI, not in other tests
- Some younger readers are able to memorize a lot of words which helps them in some tests more than others. Memorizing is not reading, which the RPI identifies with made-up words in its Decoding section
Note, because the RPI is done at home, not in a professionally supervised environment, it is not designed to replace any other clinical, district, or state assessment. It provides a reading baseline with insights into reading strengths and weaknesses, and then a way to measure progress. It is not intended to be uses in diagnosis.
What are grade equivalent scores?
Grade equivalent scores provide a general idea of how a student is performing with reference to younger and older students who took the same test. For example, a very advanced third grader might earn a grade equivalent score of 5.3 on the level 2-3 RPI assessment. This score means that the student performed as well as an average fifth grader who took the same test three months into the school year. A third grader who earns a score of 5.3 is performing well above average on third grade level material (at the 83rd percentile, to be precise), yet this does not mean the student is ready for fifth grade level material.
The Reading Progress Indicator grade equivalents were developed by a professional psychometrician based on data from the RPI norming study. It uses a large population of students from all over North America.
What are “Percentile” scores?
This compares your child’s score to the scores of a large national sample. For example, if a student scored in the 70th percentile on an assessment, that student performed better than 70% of the students in his or her grade who took the same assessment in the RPI studies.
The percentile scores are based on the middle of the year and do not vary with the season. For example, for students in second grade, the 50th percentile corresponds approximately to a grade equivalent of 2.5. A second grader scoring at grade level earlier in the year will have a percentile score below 50, whereas a second grader scoring at grade level later the year will have a percentile score above 50.
Because normative data is not available for students beyond tenth grade, the national percentile scores for students in grades 11, 12, or 13+ are calculated based on tenth grade norms. For those who are familiar with percentiles, please note that percentiles in Reading Progress Indicator range from 1 to 99.
What are reading proficiency levels?
Reading proficiency levels are categories of achievement that describe student performance in the skills measured by Reading Progress Indicator. There are four levels: struggling, emerging, established, and advanced. The levels are defined as follows. Occasionally the results are color coded.
- Struggling – Indicates minimal success with the fundamental skills assessed by Reading Progress Indicator (students at the 1st to 29th percentile).
- Emerging – Indicates a partial mastery of the skills assessed by Reading Progress Indicator (students at the 30th to 54th percentile).
- Proficient – Indicates a solid understanding of the skills assessed by Reading Progress Indicator (students at the 55th to 79th percentile).
- Advanced – Indicates a superior performance demonstrating excellent understanding of the skills assessed by Reading Progress Indicator (students at the 80th to 99th percentile).
Please note that percentiles in Reading Progress Indicator range from 1 to 99.
My child made only a small percentile gain but I see improvements. What’s going on?
Testing is notoriously erratic. So many factors go into the outcome of test on any given day. In addition, sometimes the gains you are seeing are related to reading automaticity, which presents as a more comfortable reading style – because the RPI is not timed, this change is sometimes not fully reflected in the results.
Another factor is that often adults will help a child in the baseline assessment because it seems so difficult for the child. This assistance of course affects our ability to measure growth in follow up assessments. This is why we are vocal about adults not helping children with the RPI – if a child doesn’t know the answer, the child should guess and move on.
