Assessing Reading Level with In-Take and Progress Monitoring Assessments

When logging into LevelUp Reader for the first time, students complete an in-take assessment. This establishes a starting Lexile reading measure for each learner. Each in-take assessment consists of 25 test items. Assessments are untimed, but an in-take may take 20 to 30 minutes for a student to complete. If needed, teachers also have the ability to trigger an intake assessment at any point.

For more details on the onboarding process, and descriptions of LevelUp Reader resources designed to help teachers determine the appropriate time for students’ in-take assessments, download our onboarding flyer.

With a starting Lexile measure established, students are shown their personalized bookshelf. It displays books 100L below to 50L above a student's Lexile measure. According to MetaMetrics, this targeted range has been shown to maximize reading growth. Materials in this range are appropriately challenging—neither too easy and boring nor too difficult and frustrating.

LevelUp Reader periodically assesses students. Students become eligible for a progress monitoring assessment when two conditions are met: 

1. 14 days have elapsed since an assessment was completed
2. the student has read sufficiently in that time by completing at least 5 books at an appropriate reading level or reading for at least 2.5 hours
   

A progress monitoring assessment consists of 6 test items. It is untimed but can be completed in a few minutes. Upon completion, the student receives an updated Lexile reading measure and his or her bookshelf adjusts accordingly. 

LevelUp Reader's assessment system is entirely automatic. Teachers do not need to take any action. However, they can closely monitor student progress in Reports. 

Under the Class Roster in My Classroom, teachers have the ability to manually trigger a progress monitoring assessment. In rare cases, a teacher may find this necessary—for example, if a student hasn't read enough on LevelUp Reader to receive an assessment but the teacher believes he or she has made progress anyway.

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