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The Indiana Reading Diagnostic Assessment - Kindergarten serves as a tool for teachers to use in gaining information about the developing reading skills of their students. The assessments are generally given in August, January, and April. Each assessment is relatively brief, and most can be administered to either a small group of students or the entire class at the same time. The sections of the assessments are designed to be easy to administer, score, and incorporate into instructional plans.

The Center for Innovation in Assessment has completed several studies that establish the Indiana Reading Diagnostic Assessments as both valid and reliable. The results of these studies are compiled as technical reports for each grade level. To view the technical reports or for references to other research supporting the Indiana Reading Diagnostic Assessments, visit the Research tab of this website or click here.

Alphabet Knowledge: Individual students are shown letter cards. The students are asked to name the 26 lower-case and upper-case letters of the alphabet. Students are then asked to state the sound made by each letter of the alphabet.

Concepts About Print: Using a classroom book, the students show the correct book orientation for reading, identify book parts, and distinguish between words and letters.

Phonemic Awareness: Students are asked to identify beginning sounds in words, to discriminate between two words, and to produce a word that rhymes with a given word.

Environmental Print: Students are shown environmental signs and labels (included). The students are asked to find and name common signs and labels.

Decoding and Sight Word Recognition: Students are asked to identify and read sight words. There is space to add additional sight words with which your class is familiar.

Writing: Students are asked to read their own names as printed by the teacher. They are then asked to write any word(s) they know.

Comprehension: Students are asked to match sentences to pictures. Students are asked to listen to a short story and choose a picture that matches the story.

Phonics: Students are asked to match pictures of words that rhyme. Students are asked to match words that have the same beginning or ending sounds as stimulus words. (Words are represented by pictures.)

Vocabulary: Students are asked to match words to pictures and to recognize words.

Phonemic Awareness: Students are asked to blend sounds to form words and recognize individual sounds in words.

The Indiana Reading Diagnostic Assessments provide immediate feedback about students' abilities so teachers can plan instruction. The Center for Innovation in Assessment provides an online scoring tool called The ROAR System as an integral part of the Indiana Reading Diagnostic Assessments. Scores can be directly entered into The ROAR System, which tallies scores and quickly produces student and class reports for the teacher. These reports can be shared with parents and administrators. To find out more about The ROAR System, click here.

Teachers who do not wish to use the ROAR system may use an included paper Score Recording Form to tally answers and identify skill area needs.

General Information Booklet: The General Information Booklet contains information about goals, administration, and scoring. Also included are sample parent letters, student progress report forms and standards checklists.

Resource & Intervention Guide: The Resource & Intervention Guide includes: the Indiana Academic Standards for English, and short diagnostic/practice pages for defined skill areas. It also contains Classroom Activities that can be used to help students develop standards-related skills and strategies, and a resource list of childrens' books and teaching materials.

Download the Kindergarten Resource & Intervention Guide in PDF format.

The Center for Innovation in Assessment conducts research to analyze assessment and intervention programs to determine whether they are supported by scientifically-based reading research, and to discover whether they are reliable and valid. CIA recently finished such research on the Indiana Reading Diagnostic Assessments. Click here to view the Indiana Reading Assessment - Kindergarten Technical Report.