Overview
The Qualitative Reading Inventory, Sixth Edition (QRI-6; Leslie & Caldwell, 2017) is a criterion-referenced instrument that can be administered individually or in a group format. It was designed to emphasize the authentic assessment of students’ reading abilities from emergent to advanced readers. The QRI-6 can be used with students PK-12 to assess oral reading accuracy, rate of reading, and comprehension of passages read orally and silently. It includes both narrative and expository passages at each level from pre-primer through high school. Research rationale is included in the manual, as is a system for oral reading miscue analysis and prosody rating system for materials used for Grades 1-6. Uses of this instrument include (a) identifying reading levels to match students to appropriate materials; (b) verifying a suspected reading problem; (c) determining reading strengths and needs; and (d) suggesting directions for intervention instruction. The technical manual addresses alternate-form reliability, inter-scorer reliability, reliability of diagnostic judgments, concurrent validity, and classification validity.
Summary
Age: Grades: Pre-K -12
Time to Administer: Depends on grade level and components given
Method of Administration: Individually- or group-administered, criterion-referenced, informal reading assessment measure of accuracy, rate, and comprehension.
Yields accuracy and fluency scores- words per minute [WPM] and words correct per minute [WCPM] scores; reading levels (independent, instructional, frustration), error frequency, miscue analysis.
Subscales: Word Identification, Comprehension, Concepts, Unfamiliar/Familiar Text
Autism Related Research
None found. Although there is no published research regarding the use of the updated QRI-6 with autism populations, McIntyre et al. (2017) found that the QRI-5 provided data consistent with and also complementary to the GORT-5 data. Specifically, this instrument was useful for identifying lower reading comprehension performance on the QRI-5 among students with high-functioning autism (i.e., no cognitive or language impairment) compared with students with ADHD or no disability. Moreover, the QRI-5 use in this study revealed that reading comprehension problems among the autism group were most pronounced with regard to items related to implicit meaning or inferential texts. Taken together this research supports the hypothesis that cognitive characteristics of students with autism may interfere with academic development of reading comprehension in many students with autism.