Formative Assessment & Differentiated Support

American Reading Company’s Independent Reading Level Assessment^® (IRLA^®) is a game-changing formative assessment for reading that changes the daily behaviors of teachers, students, and administrators.

Formative Assessment

The IRLA's Developmental Reading Taxonomy^® begins with Reading On-Ramp, then proceeds through phonics and vocabulary & knowledge developmental sequences. The IRLA delivers specific, actionable data that tells the teacher where a student is, why, and the sequence of skills/behaviors needed to learn next to accelerate reading growth.

The Evaluación del nivel independiente de lectura^® (ENIL^®) is a developmental reading taxonomy for students, paralleling the Independent Reading Level Assessment (IRLA) while reflecting how the stages of learning to read differ between Spanish and English.

Watch It in Action

Watch educators use the IRLA formative assessment to conference with students and determine what they know now and what they will learn next.

The Guide to IRLA Coaching with Multilingual Learners^©

The Guide to IRLA Coaching with Multilingual Learners is organized to provide high-leverage Power Goals specific to students who are developing reading skills as they acquire English-language proficiency, and vice versa.

How It Works

Reading Taxonomy
IRLA Validity
Online Performance Management
Text Complexity

The IRLA is not intended to limit what students read. Rather, the reading taxonomy simplify the complexity of the reading process, allowing teachers to support every reader with whatever books that reader chooses. As one user said, "the IRLA takes the mystery out of teaching reading."

Click to open as a PDF