About the Assessment

Are you in need of a useful, reliable, and accurate measure to pinpoint a student's overall reading ability?

Then this article about the San Diego Quick Assessment is just the thing! The norm-referenced San Diego Quick Assessment has been used by teachers, tutors, and parents for decades to quickly ascertain a student’s grade level. One can use the Assessment both to inform instruction and to serve as a first-step screening tool.

Even though it's from 1969, this public domain, norm-referenced assessment is still fairly accurate for today's readers! The San Diego Quick Assessment measures a student’s recognition of words in a list format. Generally, proficient readers read as accurately both in and out of context. Given that word recognition is highly related to reading achievement, this quick measure can serve as a handy proxy for overall reading achievement.

Word recognition tests identify strengths and needs in two areas:

1. sight vocabulary , the set of words that a child can immediately recognize without the use of decoding strategies because they have been orthographically mapped , and
2. decoding strategies , how sound-symbol relationships are used to read a word.

Listen in as Jennifer Nowicki, Reading Simplified’s Content Manager and Literacy Specialist, explains tips for using this remarkably simple tool!

1. Print or copy the word lists below (or request a PDF version from us on this page).
2. Begin with a list that is 2 or 3 grades below her current grade level. (Or begin with Pre-Primer for K students.)
3. Show your student(s) only one list at a time so she won’t get overwhelmed.
4. Ask her to read the words if she can. (If she's not sure, encourage her to attempt the word: then record her misreading so you have more data about her approach to attacking unknown words.)