Literacy Success Assessment

Buy Now Login Implementation Support

Discipline

Literacy

Copyright

2024

Grade(s)

7-10

Imprint

Pearson Canada

Insights into Students' Comprehension & Communication

Literacy Success Assessment is a differentiated tool that provides an opportunity for students in Grades 7 to 10 to read texts based on their interests and at their reading levels. The questions related to each selection focus on the reading strategies of predicting, asking questions, summarizing, inferring, connecting, and reflecting.

lsa-kit — Once scored, this assessment provides teachers and students with data about how reading strategies are used to make meaning, and also gives students the skills to write persuasively. The kit combines at-grade-level reading passages for students in Grades 7 to 10 who are reading at grade levels that span from Grade 1 to Grade 10. Each reading passage has reading responses, persuasive writing prompts, and answer keys included in the teacher's guide and on the companion website.

With 24 reading passages at 20 different levels of readability, all students can demonstrate their reading and writing skills. This resource was created specifically to provide appropriate, but different, entry points for reading, which teachers can then match to individual students' present reading levels.

Watch "What's in a Literacy Assessment Kit?" video

Reading Questions and Writing Prompt

For each reading passage, students focus on and employ the skills and strategies below.

Question Number	Reading Question Focus
Question 1	Pre-reading, prior knowledge, and identifying a purpose for reading
Question 2	Understanding explicitly stated information
Question 3	Understanding implicitly stated information
Question 4	Making connections between ideas in text and personal knowledge
Question 5	Reflecting on reading

Question Number	Writing Question Focus
Question 1	Planning and thinking through writing
Question 2	Formulating an opinion or main idea

Looking for Next Steps?

Explore Literacy Success Foundations

Virtual Samples

canadas cities grow up — Canada's Cities Grow Up (Gr. 1 - Late)

Student Card

Reading Response

Writing Response

Answer Key

no gym no problem — No Gym, No Problem! (Gr. 4 - Early)

Student Card

Reading Response

Writing Response

Answer Key

value of hip hop — The Value of Hip-Hop (Gr. 7 - Late)

Student Card

Reading Response

Writing Response

Answer Key

indigenous languages — Indigenous Languages: Why They Matter for All (Gr. 10 - Late)

Student Card

Reading Response

Writing Response

Answer Key

Components

The Literacy Success Assessment kit contains the following components:

24 Student Cards (print versions; 180 cards total). Here is the breakdown:

2 Student Cards for Grades 1-6 x 5 copies each = 60

4 Student Cards for Grades 7-8 x 10 copies each = 80

2 Student Cards for Grades 9-10 x 10 copies each = 40

1 Teacher's Guide (print version)
Sturdy, spacious box to contain all of the above items
Companion Website

Student Cards

Grade 1

Grade 2

Grade 3

Grade 4

Grade 5

Grade 6

Grade 7

Grade 8

Grade 9

Grade 10

literacy success — **Teacher’s Guide**

Rationale for and research involved in this assessment, suggested schedule, and assessment options

Introduction to all components

Answer Keys for reading responses

Practical suggestions for using the resource effectively

lsa website mockup — **Companion Website**

Instant access with the login credentials on the inside front cover of the Teacher's Guide. The access code can be used on up to three devices at one time

Digital version of the Teacher's Guide and all reading passages

Reproducibles: All reading and writing student response sheets, reading response sheet answer keys for each reading passage, line masters, observation forms, and appendices

FAQs

General Information

This Canadian assessment resource allows Grades 7–10 students to learn more about themselves as readers and writers, and for teachers to gain an understanding of their students’ reading and writing skills.
The questions focus on reading comprehension and persuasive writing skills.
LSA can help teachers adapt and plan for literacy instruction that is tailored to meet students’ needs.
It can be implemented as a whole class/group or individually as needed.
LSA contains 24 reading passages with reading levels from Grade 1 to Grade 10 and content appropriate for intermediate and secondary students.

This resource is for students in Grades 7 to 10 reading at grade levels ranging from Grade 1 to Grade 10.
LSA provides appropriate—but different—entry points for reading and writing with a variety of reading passages to accommodate a range of student abilities.

There is not a separate kit for each grade, but rather one kit that accommodates all students across Grades 7-10.

Yes, there are two reading passages that focus on Indigenous content. Both are written by Barbara Filion, a member of the Innu-Montagnais Nation:

“Meet Autumn Peltier” highlights the accomplishments of the young Anishinaabe activist.
“Indigenous Languages: Why They Matter for All” focuses on the importance of Indigenous languages and the threat of their disappearance.

LSA is aligned with provincial curricula, providing insights into student achievement in reading comprehension, metacognition, critical thinking, and persuasive writing.
The data provided from LSA can be used as a starting point for the explicit teaching of literacy skills in all disciplines.

There are no plans to develop a French kit at this time.

Please ensure that you are viewing and projecting in full-screen mode (click on the icon at the top right corner).
If you need to enlarge the text, set the view to “Continuous” rather than “Magazine,” which is the default setting.
If possible, dim the classroom lights for improved visibility of the screen.

Assessment Options and Support

Plan to administer the first assessment early in the year or semester, after you have observed your students’ reading and writing in class for at least two weeks.
The second assessment may occur once students have had opportunities to learn (through teacher instruction), practise, and apply various strategies.
See pages 1–2 of the Teacher’s Guide for a suggested schedule for administering the assessment during the school year. Pages 24–27 of the Teacher’s Guide outline how to implement whole class/group assessment.

Teachers can use the following strategies to choose appropriate reading texts and writing tasks for students.

Use the first two weeks of class time to observe students as they experience introductory reading and writing tasks. This is a vital part of the assessment process and will help you match students to appropriate reading passages and writing tasks.
Refer to the results of previous school, district, or provincial tests.
Review student records, including comments or grades from previous teachers and in individual education plans.
Consult with support or resource teachers.
Listen to students read out loud on a one-to-one basis (see Appendix D, page 183, of the Teacher’s Guide).
Administer The Graded Word List (The San Diego Quick Assessment) if you are unsure of students’ reading levels (see Appendix C, pages 179–183, of the Teacher’s Guide).

See the Teacher’s Guide for more information.

Budget for 60–75 minutes to administer the reading assessment for the whole class/group. If this assessment is being administered individually, it may take a shorter amount of time.
If you are unsure of a student’s reading level and need to administer The Graded Word List (The San Diego Quick Assessment) first, allow for 3–5 minutes per student.
For the writing assessment, which should be administered after the reading assessment, plan for a separate 60–75-minute block of time.
See pages 24–27 of the Teacher’s Guide for more information on implementing whole class/group assessment.

Assess readers and writers within a whole-class or small-group setting.
Conduct a guided assessment with individual students.
Acquire in-depth information about the learning needs of striving readers.
See page 6 of the Teacher’s Guide for more information.

Answer keys for each reading passage are provided in the Teacher’s Guide (pages 31–150) and on the Companion Website for support.
We suggest setting up a school or departmental team (depending on the implementation model) to select student exemplars and to build up a bank (see page 176 of the Teacher’s Guide for suggested implementation models for administering the assessment grade-wide).
When going through the student response sheets, work with a partner for moderated marking, ensuring discussion happens often.
See pages 25–27 of the Teacher’s Guide for more information.

The Teacher’s Guide includes charts that isolate each of the reading and writing skills, and offers a range of instructional strategies and teaching points that can be explicitly taught to support student learning (see Section III: Next Steps for Improving Students’ Reading and Writing Achievement, starting on page 164).

Research and Background Information

The reading levellers on this series are Barbara Boate and Deborah Kekewich. These experienced educators level the reading passages independently at first, and then meet to discuss and reach a consensus.

Below is a list of the scales* they choose from:

Automated Readability Index
Bormuth Readability Index
Coleman-Liau Index
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
Flesch Reading Ease
The Literacy Continuum
Fry Graph
Gunning Fog Index
Lexile Density
Lexile Score
Linsear Write Readability Formula
New Dale-Chall Readability Formula
Powers-Sumner-Kearl Readability Formula
SMOG Index
Spache Readability Formula

*Not all scales are used for each reading passage. Additionally, not all scales used may be listed here.

There are many factors that go into defining a grade level, and Barbara and Deb do not rely solely on these scales. They also consider

Words— familiarity, frequency, syllable count, transitional words, word choice, context, parts of speech
Sentence length and complexity
Text and print features
Genre, content, and support from illustrations, charts, and photos, etc.

Some passages were levelled multiple times to achieve an accurate reading level.

Provincial and territorial curricula documents clearly illustrate that the primary purpose of assessment must be to improve student learning.
LSA provides the opportunity for both teachers and students to use the assessment feedback to adjust their performances (Wiliam, 2018; Cooper, 2022).
The Teacher’s Guide equips teachers with descriptive feedback related to the strategies that proficient readers use to construct meaning (Fisher and Frey, 2019; Tovani, 2021).
LSA enables teachers to provide descriptive feedback about the strategies that proficient readers use, and lists best practices for instruction in writing (Gallagher and Kittle, 2018; Stockman 2021).
LSA was developed with Dr. Sharon Jeroski, based on her research in British Columbia.

LSA was tested in 13 Toronto District School Board schools with 15 different Grade 9 English classes.
A team of literacy consultants analyzed the student responses.
This analysis resulted in the revision of some of the reading and writing prompts, and examples were added to the Answer Keys.
Surveys revealed that the students enjoyed the reading passages, worked diligently on the response sheets, and used the rubrics to guide their responses.

The Science of Reading includes the following components: phonemic awareness and phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. LSA allows teachers to assess students’ comprehension skills. In order to read the passages and respond to the questions, students will likely have the appropriate phonics, fluency, and vocabulary skills to read the passage. The Science of Reading and LSA overlap and can impact learning in Grades 7–10 in the following ways:

The importance of summarization to develop greater reading comprehension skills.

The use of self-monitoring and metacognitive skills to detect breakdowns in reading comprehension.

The use of interesting, age-appropriate, grade -level passages to engage students.

The importance of using high-level critical thinking questions to elicit inferential reading of a passage.

The importance of using writing prompts that are connected to the reading and that engage students to draw on personal experience to write persuasively.

This tool's main purpose is to help teachers determine the grade level at which a student reads. It can then be a guide in determining grade-level reading materials for students.
The Graded Word List is a word identification tool used to determine the level of a student’s known words. It also notes strategies the student uses to pronounce unfamiliar or unknown words.
The test is a one-on-one task that takes only 3–5 minutes to administer.
See Appendix C, pages 179–183, of the Teacher’s Guide for detailed instructions on administering the test, along with The Graded Word List. The Graded Word list was updated by our Canadian series advisor to reflect current vocabulary while maintaining the integrity of the original word list.

LSA and other Assessment Resources

The OCA had grade-specific kits, but LSA consists of one kit that contains reading passages for Grades 7–10. At one kit versus five, LSA offers great value!
LSA contains reading passages at additional grade levels (Grades 1–3), so there is a span of reading levels from Grades 1-10.
Literacy Success Assessment contains new and updated reading passages to align more with current issues and interests.
The LSA has an added persuasive writing assessment.
Some content in the LSA Teacher’s Guide has been updated since the OCA and supports current thinking.

Core Subject

Specialized Program/Course

Resources