- Drills down to identify literacy components students must learn
- Helps teachers quickly respond with personalized instruction
- Builds on highly regarded Degrees of Reading Power assessment
Touchstone Applied Science Associates (OTCBB: TASA) today launched Reading Power Essentials (RPE), offering school districts an important new tool to help struggling readers in grades three to eight improve their literacy skills in classrooms across America.
“RPE includes a coordinated set of new assessment tools to help educators meet the challenge of No Child Left Behind,” said Anne Hunt Cheevers, senior vice president and chief operating officer. “Building upon data generated by our flagship comprehension assessment, Degrees of Reading Power (DRP), RPE drills deeper to identify the essential “components of reading” individual students must master to achieve successful grade level comprehension.”
“Through a series of short and easy-to-administer specialized assessments, RPE provides a student-specific assessment of core literacy skills in the areas of vocabulary, fluency, word recognition and decoding,” Cheevers added. “Knowing the importance of instructional follow-through, RPE then gives teachers suggestions and references for intervening with a focused instructional program. Through this process, students can acquire the essential skills they need to successfully comprehend their grade-level written materials, and schools can ensure NCLB requirements are being met.”
Cheevers said she expects early adopters of RPE will be found among those currently utilizing TASA’s flagship Degrees of Reading Power assessment tool. A leading comprehension assessment for over two decades, DRP is used in more than 3,400 elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities across America and overseas.
The new TASA program is available in grade-specific Reading Power Essentials Kits that contain everything a teacher needs to administer, score and record the RPE Vocabulary; RPE Fluency; and RPE WoRD assessments for up to 25 students. Each RPE kit also directs teachers toward current and relevant educational resources so they can plan a focused instructional program for their struggling readers.
TASA, based in Brewster, N.Y., designs, develops, calibrates, publishes, markets and sells educational assessment materials primarily to elementary and secondary schools throughout the United States. TASA also provides scanning, scoring, and reporting services for all of its tests to states, schools and districts as well as to third parties. Through its custom assessment subsidiaries, the company provides consulting services, including test design and development, state standard setting, curriculum evaluation, psychometric consultation, field testing and evaluation, and technology and web-based solutions.