educational assessments

LITERACY
York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension:
Passage Reading Secondary
Susan E Stothard, Margaret J Snowling, Paula Clarke, Claudine Bowyer-Crane, Angela Harrington,
Patrick Barmby and Charles Hulme, University of York, Centre for Reading and Language
quick guide
Age Range:
11–16 years
Suitable for:
Learning Support
Teachers, SENCOs, Heads of
English and Educational
Psychologists
Administration:
Individual
Timed:
20–30 minutes
Secondary
only
Now Available:
Australian Edition of YARC:
Passage Reading Secondary
now available
Also Available:
New Group Reading Test See
pages 24–27 and Dyslexia
Portfolio See page 54
The York Assessment of Reading for
Comprehension: Passage Reading Secondary
(YARC Secondary) provides assessments of
the essential components of reading for
students aged 11 to 16. The test can be used
to assess accuracy, fluency and
comprehension and offers qualitative
information about students’ inferencing skills.
YARC Secondary comprises a series of prose
passages – both fiction and non-fiction and
can be used to assess and monitor student
progress, which in turn allows the identification
of reading problems. It may also be used as
part of a comprehensive diagnostic
assessment for education planning, for
benchmarking your pupils’ reading and has a
role to play in assessing the eligibility for
Access Arrangements for national
examinations such as GCSEs.
A version of GL Assessment Single Word Reading Test (SWRT) is also
part of the assessment. This can be administered in just a couple of
minutes to determine which passage to give to an individual student,
ensuring the assessment remains targeted and time-efficient. The test
also includes two supplementary passages that are at an easier level for
students who are still experiencing decoding difficulties.
The test takes only 20-30 minutes to administer and from this a
remarkable amount of valuable information can be gathered, including
standard scores, age equivalent scores and percentile ranks for
comprehension, rate and fluency.
YARC Score Conversion Tool
YARC Secondary comes with a free online Score Conversion Tool that
allows teachers to input student details and raw scores and instantly
receive a single page report with standard scores, age equivalent scores
and percentile ranks for each part of YARC Secondary that has be
administered. Visit www.yarcsupport.co.uk for more details.
Suitable for use in
implementing the
Curriculum for
Excellence
There is a dedicated
website –
www.yarcsupport.co.uk –
where you can find
supplementary technical
information, frequently
asked questions, an online
conversion tool and
further case studies
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