AN ACT Relating to the second grade reading assessments; and amending RCW 28A.300.310 and 28A.300.320.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1.  RCW 28A.300.310 and 1999 c 373 s 101 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) ((The superintendent of public instruction shall identify a collection of reading passages and assessment procedures that can be used to measure second grade oral reading accuracy and fluency skills.)) The purpose of the second grade reading assessment is to provide information to parents, teachers, and school administrators on the level of acquisition of oral reading accuracy, comprehension, and fluency skills of each student at the beginning of second grade. The assessment procedures and each of the reading passages in the collection must:

(a) Provide a reliable and valid measure of a student's oral reading accuracy, comprehension, and fluency skills;

(b) Be able to be individually administered;

(c) Have been approved by a panel of nationally recognized professionals in the area of beginning reading, whose work has been published in peer-reviewed education research journals, and professionals in the area of measurement and assessment; and

(d) Assess student skills in recognition of letter sounds, phonemic awareness, word recognition, and reading connected text. Text used for the test of fluency, and comprehension, must be ordered in relation to difficulty.

(2) ((The superintendent of public instruction shall select reading passages for use by schools and school districts participating in pilot projects under RCW 28A.300.320 during the 1997-98 school year. The final collection must be selected by June 30, 1998. The superintendent of public instruction may add reading passages to the initial list if the passages are comparable in format to the initial passages approved by the expert panel in subsection (1) of this section.

(3))) The superintendent of public instruction ((shall develop a)) may provide an estimated per-pupil cost for ((the)) assessments ((in the collection that details the costs for administering the assessments, booklets, scoring, and training required to reliably administer the test)) aligned to the Washington state learning standards. To the extent funds are appropriated, the superintendent of public instruction shall ((pay for the cost of administering and scoring the assessments, booklets or other assessment material, and training required to administer the test)) provide districts with funds to purchase assessment materials and professional learning for educators about the district's newly adopted reading assessment system for the second grade.

Sec. 2.  RCW 28A.300.320 and 1999 c 373 s 102 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) The superintendent of public instruction shall create a pilot project to identify which second grade reading assessments selected under RCW 28A.300.310 will be included in the final collection of assessments that must be available by June 30, 1998.

(2) Schools and school districts may voluntarily participate in the second grade reading test pilot projects in the 1997-98 school year. Schools and school districts voluntarily participating in the pilot project test are not required to have the results available by the fall parent-teacher conference.

(3)(a) Starting in the 1998-99 school year, school districts must select an assessment from the collection adopted by the superintendent of public instruction. Selection must be at the entire school district level.

(b) The second grade reading assessment selected by the school district must be administered annually in the fall beginning with the 1998-99 school year. Students who score substantially below grade level according to the publisher's guidelines when assessed in the fall shall be assessed at least one more time during the second grade. ((Assessment performance deemed to be "substantially below grade level" is to be determined for each passage in the collection by the superintendent of public instruction.

(d))) (c) Each school must have the assessment results available by the fall parent-teacher conference. Schools must notify parents about the second grade reading assessment during the conferences, inform the parents of their students' performance on the assessment, identify actions the school intends to take to improve the child's reading skills, and provide parents with strategies to help the parents improve their child's score.

--- END ---