MSPAP Proficiency Levels -- Reading, Grade 8
DESCRIPTION OF LEVEL 1 (Top)
Students at Proficiency Level 1:
When reading to be informed, readers:
- Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the text.
- Make clear connections between their ideas and the text.
- Indicate more than one perspective regarding the text.
DESCRIPTION OF LEVEL 2
Students at Proficiency Level 2:
When reading for literary experience, readers:
- Demonstrate a developed understanding of the text.
- Analyze literary elements.
- Provide support for conclusions using personal experience and text-based support.
- Support responses with relevant, explicity text-based information.
- Make clear connections between their personal experience and the text.
When reading to be informed, readers:
- Demonstrate a developed understanding of informational sources
- Make clear connections between their ideas and the text.
- State relevant opinions, personal judgments or interpretations, and support them with references from the text.
- Extend information from text to real-life (authentic) situations.
- Utilize narrative information in conjunction with graphic information to construct meaning.
DESCRIPTION OF LEVEL 3
Students at Proficiency Level 3:
When reading for literary experience, readers:
- Demonstrate an adequate understanding of the text beyond the literal level.
- Make connections between texts and support with text-based information.
- Make connections between personal experience and the text.
- Support responses with relevant text-based information.
- Demonstrate an adequate understanding of literary elements.
- Make predicitions that are logical and justified by either text-based or personal references.
When reading to be informed, readers:
- Demonstrate an adequate understanding of informational sources.
- State relevant opinions, personal judgments, or interpretations and support them with references to the text.
- Organize, connect, and elaborate ideas from the text.
- Support responses with implied references to the text.
- Make connections between personal experience and the text.
DESCRIPTION OF LEVEL 4
Students at Proficiency Level 4:
When reading for literary experience, readers:
- Demonstrate little understanding of the text.
- Respond with relevant personal experience and/or text-based information without connections.
- Recognize an author's techniques and interpret their effect.
- Demonstrate minimal understanding of literary elements.
When reading to be informed, readers:
- Demonstrate a superficial understanding of informational sources.
- Identify main topics and some subtopics in informational
sources.
- Provide responses to the text that are overly general, overly specific or are unrelated ideas.
- Support responses with minimal text-based information.
When reading to perform a task, readers:
- Demonstrate a general understanding of the text.
- Locate and organize some relevant information from the text.
- Relate the text to their personal experiences.
- Follow directions.
DESCRIPTION OF LEVEL 5
Students at Proficiency Level 5:
When reading for literary experience, readers:
- Demonstrate an inadequate understanding of 8th grade appropriate
text.
- Identify literary elements.
Students at level 5 are likely to have provided some responses to
assessment activities at Level 4, but not enough assessment
activities to place them at proficiency level 4.
For comments and inquiries, send email to:
Cam Miller
Curriculum Planner
Berlin Middle School
Worcester County