V05-26, V05-27, V05-28, V05-29

In recent years, directors of remedial reading programs have struggled to find a way to provide their students with sustained independent reading practice in texts that challenge students to apply their phonics and word-decoding skills without overwhelming them. In response to this quandary, Roger Wade, the director of a private corporation known as the Reading Readiness Institute, piloted a system of in-class assessment that would, ideally, have allowed teachers to make individual recommendations for the difficulty level of book where each student could read independently with the most success. The six Institute teachers testing the program were required to build two 10-15 assessment periods into each class session, during which they would use company-issued Reading Rating Sheets to evaluate each student’s performance on a specific section of text, which came from a book of pre-determined difficulty. Teachers would then assign students one of three rankings – A, B, or C – based on their comfort with the text on the Rating Sheets. Parents were also required to complete short Homework Surveys, which provided teachers with additional, but similarly-focused, information about student reading at home.

The program was temporarily discontinued after only 6 weeks, however, when all six teachers protested that the addition of assessment periods had forced them to drop other activities that they considered vital from their curricula. Teachers also complained that time spent assessing individual students took attention from general classroom management. The Reading Readiness Institute has taken teacher complaints into account and is currently adjusting its individual assessment program.

1. Which of the following titles best summarizes the contents of the passage?

(a) Remedial Reading Programs: A New Focus on Phonics and Word-Decoding Helps Students
(b) Parents and Teachers Together: A New Perspective on Homework Feedback
(c) Rejected Outright: Reading Readiness Institute Abandons Individual Assessment
(d) Reading Readiness Institute: Corporate Demands Create Trouble for Teachers
(e) Individual Assessment: A Good Idea Encounters its First Obstacles


2. The passage suggests that which of the following is a problem faced by current remedial reading programs?

(a) Teachers are too slow to evaluate the needs of individual students.
(b) In-class time is poorly managed.
(c) Parent involvement is not well coordinated.
(d) Practice texts are often overwhelming to students.
(e) Potentially useful programs are too short-lived to be effective.


3. It can be inferred from the passage that a successful revision of the individual assessment program would result in

(a) a way to make individual recommendations for students without over-burdening teachers
(b) the resumption of the most effective class activities.
(c) a challenge to students of their phonics and word-decoding skills
(d) the omission of at least one in-class assessment period
(e) better cooperation among Institute executives, teachers, and parents of students


4. The author uses the word “ideally” primarily in order to

(a) suggest that the individual assessment program was doomed from the beginning.
(b) introduce the concept of individual recommendations for independent reading.
(c) highlight the good intentions of the assessment program while acknowledging its failure.
(d) forestall argument about the eventual success of the program.
(e) draw attention to the fact that the program was the idea of the Institute’s director.