Grade(s): K - 8
Program Type: Core
Province: National
Imprint: Heinemann
Using this comprehensive assessment to determine students' reading levels, teachers are able to:
Teachers’ most reliable resource to accurately identify each child’s instructional and independent reading levels according to the F&P Text Level Gradient and document their progress through one-on-one formative and summative assessment.
BAS assessments are conducted one-on-one. In Part 1 of the assessment, the student reads aloud and talks about the system’s original, precisely leveled fiction and nonfiction books while the teacher observes and notes the reader’s behaviors on carefully constructed Recording Forms. In Part 2, the teacher conducts a revealing Comprehension Conversation. In optional Part 3, the student responds to the text using a Writing About Reading prompt.
BAS offers unique, high-quality books developed under the careful direction of Fountas and Pinnell and written expressly for the purposes of literacy assessment along the F&P Text Level Gradient™.
BAS provides teachers with precise tools and texts to comprehensively examine students’ literacy strengths and needs, and provides the critical link between assessment and instruction.
BAS includes a copy of The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum. This tool helps teachers link the results of assessment to their teaching to ensure students’ growth as learners.
The embedded Professional Development Video collection provides models of teachers implementing the assessment, training in coding, scoring, analyzing, and interpreting oral reading records as well as guidelines for and models of the Comprehension Conversation.
The Benchmark Assessment Systems are for K-8 classroom teachers.
Each assessment enables teachers to:
All components of the system are conveniently packaged in a sturdy box that includes hanging file folders in which to organize the benchmark books and Recording Forms for easy access.
High-quality fiction and nonfiction books written, edited, and extensively field-tested to represent their designated level on the F&P Text Level Gradient™.
Supports the implementation of the Benchmark Assessment Systems with:
Names and categorizes literacy behaviors and understandings and provides a way to look for specific evidence of learning from pre-kindergarten through grade eight across eight instructional contexts
Optional assessments that allow teachers to gather diagnostic information to more precisely pinpoint a reader’s needs.
Individual file folders are designed to store student assessment results and are printed with a longitudinal record of reading progress that can be passed from grade to grade.
Custom calculator for calculating students’ reading rate, percentage of accuracy, and self-correction ratio.
To facilitate a reading record, each book is accompanied by an easy-to-use Recording Form that captures the factors research shows most contribute to reading success: accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.
During Oral Reading, students read Benchmark Assessment books aloud while the teacher takes a detailed reading record. The reading record captures both big-picture and diagnostic information about a student. After the oral reading portion of the assessment, the teacher will be able to determine the student’s accuracy and fluency. In addition, teachers can go back and analyze self-corrections and errors to gain further diagnostic information that can inform teaching and the content of minilessons.
Following the reading of each Benchmark Assessment book, students and teachers engage in a Comprehension Conversation about the text. This unique approach not only gathers data about what students understand about a text, but it also provides an opportunity for teachers to get to know their students—a valuable use of time, especially at the start of the school year. During the conversation, teachers will prompt the student, but the goal is to have a flow of back-and-forth talk, with the student doing as much of the talking as possible.
Reading Some students perform better when they have the opportunity to reflect on text through the process of writing. They may reveal greater understanding than they do in the initial conversation. Each Benchmark Assessment System Recording Form includes a prompt for students to write about one of the books they have read. This optional assessment provides additional evidence of a student’s understanding through a concrete sample of their thinking.
