Assessment Rounds and Reassessment

Please note: a select few districts have minor customizations to how they define an instructional and independent level on Literably. If you work at one of these districts, some of the definitions described below may not apply. If you’re wondering whether your district has customized definitions, please reach out to [e-mail].

The flowchart below provides a visual for how teachers can think about reassessment within each round:

Question 1: What is an assessment round? 

Answer:

• Each school or district signs up for a certain amount of assessment rounds per year with Literably and the # of rounds can vary by grade level. As an example, some schools/districts might sign up for monthly assessment rounds with Literably and some others might sign up for 3 assessment rounds per school year with Literably.   
• Your school or district leaders can decide when your assessment rounds begin and end & expectations around those timelines are handled via internal communication between staff and not within the Literably product itself. As a default, Literably will NOT prevent students from logging into Literably, regardless of the assessment round (start and end) dates set by your school or district leaders.
• District leaders can update Literably's default assessment round dates within the Literably product via these directions, however, this will only affect the "Completion Reports" that can be downloaded in Literably and will not dictate when students can or cannot log into Literably.

Question 2: How much should I assess my students in each assessment round?

Answer:

• During each assessment round, Literably wants teachers to find their students' instructional levels (and estimated independent levels) in Literably and feel comfortable with the data Literably is providing them on their teacher dashboards - so they have both an accurate benchmark for where students are currently reading and data that can help inform their instruction until their next assessment round.
• Some students may need to take multiple assessments in order for Literably to find their instructional level, and teachers should feel free to have students reassess on Literably as much as needed in each assessment round to obtain this data.
• That said, teachers may want to be cautious about overassessing students in each assessment round as having a student take an additional 4th or 5th assessment, as an example, might not actually get teachers that much new/useful information about the student (that they didn't already have from the first 3 assessments they took on Literably).   

Question 3: Can I reassess students even if Literably doesn't recommend reassessing them?

Answer:

• Yes. Regardless of whether or not Literably recommends a reassessment, you can reassess any or all of your students at whatever level you choose until you're confident you've found their instructional reading levels. These re-assessments do not "count against" whatever plan you're on.
• For example, suppose your school has subscribed for 3 rounds of assessment on Literably (fall, winter, and spring). You assess one of your students in September. Literably does not recommend a re-assessment, but you're still not sure you've found the student's instructional reading level. You can go ahead and re-assess the student immediately on Literably at whichever level you think will give you the information you need. You do NOT need to wait until January. We're here to help you find your student's instructional reading levels, and we know that re-assessment is a necessary part of that process.
• Conversely, even if Literably recommends a student for reassessment, we leave it up to the teacher to decide whether or not to have that student reassess.

Question 4: Some of my students who completed an assessment have a star next to their instructional level. Why?

Answer:

• In short, the star means that Literably is estimating the student's instructional level (info. here). Some districts/schools/teachers feel comfortable just getting students' estimated instructional levels in each assessment round. If that's the case, no further reassessments would be needed if you see a student with an estimated instructional level on your dashboard.
• Literably will confirm an instructional level if the student reads an assessment with 90-94% accuracy and at least 60% comprehension (yellow cells HERE).
  • As an example, if a student reads a level S assessment with 92% accuracy and 60% comprehension, Literably will confirm that student's instructional level at level S. There will be no star next to the "S" on the teacher's dashboard for that student.
  • As a counter-example, if a student reads a level S assessment with 95% accuracy and 80% comprehension, Literably might estimate that student's instructional level at level T (and would place a star next to the "T" on the dashboard for that student).

Question 5: Some students have the star next to their instructional level AND a reassess symbol associated with their name on my dashboard. Why?

Answer:

• Here is more information on reassessing on Literably. 
  
• For these students, the reassess symbol signals that they have most likely performed extremely well or poorly on their last assessment (upper left corner/bottom right corner of our leveling grid) and Literably is recommending that a reassessment could be useful/worth the student's time (in terms of narrowing in on where the student's true instructional/independent level might be).
• Ultimately, however, we leave it up to each district/school/teacher if they want to follow these reassessment recommendations from Literably.