Read Theory
Read Theory is a free testing website that measures reading level and comprehension (using the Lexile framework) of students. We use this site as a school to let teachers track their students’ progress, as well as to keep parents in the loop on their child's reading level and growth. None of the scores or testing information is shared with anyone outside of LIGHT staff.
About
Here's a short video on Read Theory to help you (and your child) understand how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4112dDFmtwQ
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When you first log in to Read Theory (readtheory.org) using the login information we will send home with your student, it will give you the option to change the password. We recommend doing this and saving it! It will then give the student a pretest. The first passage may be hard, especially for the younger kids, because it adjusts accordingly with the level of difficulty, based on their score. PLEASE DO NOT HELP YOUR CHILD READ ANY PART OF THE TEST. This includes the questions and correcting mispronounced words. After each test (excluding the pretest), you'll have the option to go through the answers with them and that would be a great time to show them how to pronounce words they missed or explain the answers to them.
The student needs to read the passage alone, then answer the questions. They can look back at the passage any time as they're answering the questions. Please remind them that this is just for measuring their personal growth throughout the year, this is not to be compared with anyone but themselves! If your child is on a really hard passage of the pretest that you know they can't read, just tell them to guess on the answers and submit them. This will let the site know that the passage was too hard and it will adjust the level for them accordingly. We don't want them to be frustrated when they get to a really hard passage- again, the testing will adjust based on their test scores. If they don't do well on a test, encourage them that the level was higher than they needed and it will adjust on the next one. The pretest will show what level they need to start at so it's important that they take this alone.