Updates to the LLARS reading assessment

We give away our reading assessment for free because we believe it is so important to have an assessment tool that fully supports your teaching sequence and approach.

The Little Learners Assessment of Reading Skills has been downloaded well over 30,000 times just in the past 22 months. We're delighted when we get feedback and can take the opportunity to make improvements.

Before we look at the updates, here's a reminder of what skills and knowledge the LLARS assesses ...

Stage 7.4 has been removed from Subtest 1. This subtest now assesses phoneme-grapheme correspondences from Stages 1-7.3.

Why? At Stage 7.4 (a huge body on knowledge concerning the complex vowel code) graphemes can represent many phonemes. For example, 'a' at Stage 7.4 could viably be /a/ as in apple, /ar/ as in fast or /ā/ as in taste (or even /o/ as in salt!). Following feedback from users and trials, we no longer believe including Stage 7.4 in Subtest 1 is the best use of teacher and student time. At this stage in a student's development Subtest 2 (decoding non-words) is more effective and fair on the student - it will tell you if students can use their Stage 7.4 Phoneme-Grapheme Knowledge code in context of a word.

The LLARS Subtest 2 originally comprised a list of decodable words for each stage. When the LLARS was last updated in 2020, non-words were added to Subtest 2. In this new edition the Subtest 2A Reading Single Words has been removed, leaving just the non-word assessment.  Allowed alternative pronunciations have been added.

Why? In a nutshell - to save time! You can feel confident that students are decoding non-words and not memorising them because they have never seen them before. Non-words simulate the scenario we want to prepare ALL students for – being able to read any word familiar or not by using their phonic knowledge.

We should be focussed on the core purpose of an assessment – Subtest 2 is assessing students’ ability to apply their knowledge of phonemes and graphemes to decoding unfamiliar words. Conversely, Subtest 4 assesses students’ ability to read real words in an unseen decodable story. Subtest 4 allows teachers to track the percentage of words read correctly by decoding and the percentage read automatically. Comprehension of the text is checked at the end, and fluency judged.

The LLARS only contained Stages 1-4 Heart Words. This was due to feedback from the original trials of the LLARS several years ago. In this update we've added all the Heart Words to the assessment, but we've made the entire subtest optional.

Why? Time is precious and we're prioritising! The most important takeaway from the LLARS must be - have children mastered the alphabetic code you have taught to date? And to what extent? (to decode unfamiliar single words, or to read a connected text with developing fluency?) Heart Words have a role in reading and writing connected text, we suggest that teachers leave this subtest for most students. If Subtest 4 highlights an issue with Heart Words, you may like to refer to this subtest to find out more. It can also be handy in the early stages, if you are unsure students are 'getting it'.

To support a more consistent teacher judgement on fluency, Fluency observation sheets have been added  to Subtest 4 for Stages 4 - 7.5 Unseen decodable texts. Teacher forms have been adjusted accordingly to include the new fluency judgement scale - Beginning, (B) Developing (D), Fluent (F). Comprehension scores have also been added to the Teacher form. We've also made a few small corrections and updates where needed - but nothing that will concern your data sets.

Marking support:

More administration and marking guidance has been added to the LLARS Manual, detailing a marking procedure for a wider variety of possible student responses. A new cheat sheet has also been included.

Data management:

The Class Record spreadsheets have been updated accordingly. This data recoding and analysis tool includes a tab for each subtest and a summary view showing students' assessment results for each subtest in Term 2 and Term 4.

You might like to watch this quick 'how to' video to support you to use the LLARS Class Record spreadsheet:

Support available:

• Book a free webinar on the LLARS
• Explore the LLARS "How to" webpage with videos
• Read the LLLL benchmarks blog and the LLLL fluency blog
• Book a 2-day LLLL professional learning workshop
• Explore the accompanying spelling assessment - the LLASS

Download the LLARs New Edition: