Benchmark Passages help teachers measure student progress and reading comprehension skills and help determine when an intervention may be needed for a struggling student.
Benchmark Passages are automatically given to students after key episodes, and student performance is shared with teachers in their Kids A-Z management hub to help them make instructional decisions.
Benchmark Passages are placed after every ten episodes to evaluate student progress.
Each Benchmark Passage includes a passage followed by reading comprehension questions that focus on comprehension skills and strategies that students have learned up to that point.
While the episodes have built-in formative assessments throughout the entire sequence, Benchmark Passages allow teachers to monitor progress in students' reading comprehension skills and intervene if a student is struggling.
How to Use Benchmark Passages
Students read a Benchmark Passage when they finish episodes 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50, and answer multiple-choice questions that are scored automatically. You can see student performance across all benchmarks by accessing the Kids A-Z Assessments Reports.
The passages and questions can be printed for students to take offline. Students may also find it helpful to mark up and refer to a printed copy of the passage when answering the comprehension questions online.
If a student receives a low score on a benchmark or struggles with a particular type of comprehension question, Headsprout’s Comprehension Strategy Lessons can provide additional practice.
