Use of outdated literacy assessment tool can be harmful
In an email to its tutors, the Horry County Literacy Council stated that it would test all students using the Slosson Oral Reading Test R to measure progress. Use of this test, from May 2013 to March 2016 when I was the tutor trainer at the HCLC, resulted in the faulty diagnosis of 12 students' reading ability.
An 11th grader was diagnosed as reading at the 3rd grade level, when his true reading ability was a 7th grade level.
A review of this test stated: “The SORT R assessment tool is intended to [be] used for screening purposes; therefore it is not useful to collect data points of students' performance.”
The latest edition of this test is the SORT 3, which is not used.
Sharyn Bauer, Myrtle Beach
This story was originally published November 30, 2016 at 9:33 PM with the headline "Use of outdated literacy assessment tool can be harmful."