STAAR and Lexile Levels

Higher Order Thinking vs. Basic Comprehension

There's been a trend since STAAR rolled out that we have to push our students hard with higher order thinking questions if we want them to be successful. The general message has also been that the SE's that have weak percentiles meant weak teaching.

I've begun to seriously doubt all of that.

Horse of a Different Color

Let's face it. The STAAR Reading test (and the subject matter itself) is not like Math, Science, or Writing at all. 

Not at all.

Why is that so? 

Because the Reading test isn't just questions. It's composed of questions and passages. Therefore, when reviewing data about how your students did on any given Reading test, you're only looking at part of the picture. 

But if you really want to accelerate your students' growth, you have to look at both pieces.

Passages

So how do we talk about the passages? How do we analyze them? I think many people in the education training field have neglected this because it wouldn't seem that you could turn the passages into any kind of data or anything concrete or predictable. Yes, TEA gives us some idea of how many genres might be represented per grade level and how many passages there will be, but other than that, what else is there to say? You can't predict the topic. Unlike Math or Science standards where you can guess pretty close what the test will look like, Reading has remained rather nebulous. In an attempt to predict STAAR and do something to foster growth, districts and professional development people have gone question-crazy.

But what Genie used to tell me on Saturday mornings is true:

Great minds don't think alike. Great minds think for themselves.

Thinking for Ourselves

What if I told you that Reading passages from STAAR do follow a pattern, a pattern concrete enough that you can accurately predict your students' progress and likely performance based on a single set of numbers that is easy to track and easy to explain to small children?

It took many, many hours of research, investigation, and questioning, but here's what I've discovered: if students' Lexile level matches that of the average of the test, the student will pass.

Not only that, but I've calculated the average Lexile trends of the last three years and you can see what they are for free by downloading them here:

Grade 5 Lexile Level Averages on STAAR

Grade 4 Lexile Level Averages on STAAR

Grade 3 Lexile Level Averages on STAAR

Using this data, you can set concrete, measurable, frequent goals and formative assessments as long as you have access to a program that provides Lexile level reports like Istation does. 

Back to Godzilla & King Kong

So what is more important? What's more powerful? Higher order thinking questions or basic comprehension?

Neither.

Because it's not a fight.

Harder questions are not the goal. Harder questions are the conduit through which the assessment discovers whether or not the student was able to comprehend the passage fully.

So what's the goal? The goal should be comprehension. The tools to test that comprehension should be higher order questions because they most accurately weed out who got it and who didn't. 

Where are test strategies in all this?

Test strategies are how teachers and students try to compensate for the difference between a student's reading level and the level of the passage he/she has to read and answer about. This can help them score a few points, and for bubble kids, it could help push them over into passing, but it's not the ultimate answer.

The ultimate answer is higher comprehension.

Set yourself and your students up for success.

Set comprehension as your goal and watch your students take control and grow, grow, grow.