Introduction to the Special Series: Using Fine-Grained Literacy Analysis to Guide Decision-Making for Instructional Intensification

Formative assessment can be a powerful tool in literacy instruction and intervention. While student assessment is often abundant in schools, it can be challenging for educators to use these data to inform reading instruction due to grain size—the level of detail or specificity at which a skill is measured. Educators often request data at a finer grain size to guide instructional decision-making, especially when intensifying interventions for students with learning disabilities. In this special series, authors guide educators to conduct fine-grained analysis on the component literacy skills that students have yet to master. The four articles in the series address the research-based underlying component skills and include word reading, spelling, reading comprehension, and written expression. Each article describes an innovative way to interpret already-collected student performance information and translates it to instruction that is deeply rooted in the research on how literacy develops.