The Informal Reading-<i>Thinking</i> Inventory: Twenty-First-Century Assessment Formats for Discovering Reading and Writing Needs—and Strengths

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the Informal Reading-ThinkingInventory (IR-TI), an informal reading inventory built on an easily recognized legacy model that also branches out into new realms. The IR-TI provides tools for assessing reading the lines, reading between the lines, and reading beyond the lines. This is a 21st-century assessment instrument that reaches out to track critical aspects of social and cognitive development. The IR-TI includes innovative prompts for gathering data on schema activation, personal-emotional responding, elaborative thinking, engagement, metacognition, and response to text writing. The optional IR-TI tasks shed light on overlooked student strengths as well as student needs. The instrument urges fresh thinking as it points out unexpected strengths in weaker readers and weakness in seemingly proficient readers. Seeming outlier findings such as these stimulate new knowledge as they challenge popular but ambiguous theories and practices.