This component provides an overview of students' reading and writing skills and behaviors and serves as insightful baseline evidence for accelerating reading and writing skills.

These assessments inform us how your students approach writing a short piece independently. Unlike the reading comprehension component, we are not assessing their comprehension but rather how they organize thoughts, whether they include key details, and how they approach spelling larger and more complex multisyllabic words. In the primary grades, we will dictate sentences. The Upper Grades assessment includes a short story your students will read before writing. The stories will give the students something to write about. Two stories are provided, each targeted to the level students should be tested at.

Students practice making sense of grade-appropriate literary and informational texts by reading with purpose, noticing text structure, and checking understanding as they go. The focus is on finding the central idea or main idea, tracking supporting details, and making inferences that can be explained with evidence.

Students grow vocabulary by using context clues, word relationships, and word parts to determine meaning. Learners practice decoding unfamiliar multisyllabic words and using Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes to unlock meaning while reading.

Students build fluent reading through accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression that matches punctuation and meaning. Learners practice rereading and self-correcting so their reading sounds smooth and helps comprehension.

Students analyze key literary elements—characters, setting, events, conflict, theme, and point of view—to explain how a story or poem works. Learners practice using details from the text to describe character change, theme development, and the effects of figurative language.

Students read informational texts to find central ideas, understand text features and structures, and explain the author’s purpose. Learners also evaluate claims by identifying the reasons and evidence an author uses and comparing how different sources present information.

Students learn to answer text-dependent questions and explain their thinking clearly in both speaking and writing. The emphasis is on selecting accurate evidence, distinguishing what is stated from what is inferred, and building responses that stay on-topic and well supported.

Students strengthen sentence structure, grammar, and mechanics so their writing is clear and correct. Learners practice complete sentences, verb tense and agreement, conjunctions and clauses, punctuation (including dialogue), and editing for common errors.

Students plan, draft, revise, and edit writing that matches purpose and audience. Learners write well-developed paragraphs with topic sentences, supporting details, transitions, and conclusions—and extend those skills into opinion, informational, and narrative compositions.

Students practice gathering information from print and digital sources, taking notes, and organizing evidence for writing and speaking. Learners use digital tools to plan, draft, and revise, and they create simple presentations that use visuals or audio to support main ideas.

Students apply reading strategies, vocabulary skills, evidence selection, and writing conventions to assessment-style questions and prompts. The focus is on interpreting directions, identifying keywords, eliminating unsupported choices, managing time, and reviewing work for accuracy and completeness.