An interdisciplinary advisory panel for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has unanimously recommended Lexia Learning’s Lexia® RAPID™ Assessment (RAPID) as a literacy screener for children ages five and up. The Early Literacy Expert Panel selected RAPID after a five-month review process as part of the State’s effort to develop effective comprehensive assessment systems.
Lexia RAPID Assessment is a K–12 computer adaptive universal screener that screens the skills most predictive of end-of-year reading success. Administered up to three times a year, RAPID for Grades K–2 measures students’ foundational skills in the key reading and language domains of Word Recognition, Academic Language, and Reading Comprehension. RAPID for Grades 3–12 measures complex knowledge, understanding, and application of skills within these domains. In addition, RAPID provides actionable data that identifies the literacy instructional priorities at the district, school, class, and student level through the use of immediate scoring and online reports. Based on those profiles, the program generates instructional groups and links to instructional resources.
Panel members partnered with the State’s Birth to Third Grade (B–3) Advisory Group to develop a set of criteria that included components related to administration, cost, population served and content. Input from members of the public helped panel members determine which criteria to prioritize for the selection of a literacy screener, and they developed a short-list for further review. The criteria included the following:
- Ability to administer more than once a year
- Ability to administer digitally
- Low cost, reliable and valid (research-based)
- Offers meaning and code-based tasks
- Ability to be administered in 20 minutes or less
