Assessing Student's Growth in Reading?

This year I will be starting a Reader's Workshop in my 4th grade classroom. I am fortunate to have the support of my administration as I do this, but am planning on collecting evidence of how this program is or is not successful. I will be using a variety of measures, but would like something which is empirical in nature (besides student surveys, which can only be called borderline empirical). Does anyone know of any diagnostics which I could use a few times (I was thinking once at the start, once in the middle, and at the end) which would let me show that students grew X amount? Thanks in advance.

Assessing Student's Growth in Reading?
DIBELS test is a great asesment tool. Go to a reading first web site or just google Dibels tests. You give each child a timed reading for a minute to assess for fluency. Then have them retell what they read for a minute for comprehension.


Great diagnostic tool as well to zero in on what interventions need to take place for more growth.
Reply:When you consider figuring out if a program is effective make sure you take into account how a student learns. A student who learns primarily though visual means will not show up accurately on most evaluation methods. Keep that in mind because there are a lot of naive teachers out there with little or no psychological expertise trying to evaluate things and they rarely look at how a student learns which means anyone who knows even a little bit about developmental psychology will make you look like a total fool in any kind of presentation.
Reply:Running Record! I prefer the Rigby kit. However my school did not have it (and it costs about $300.00) so I subscribed to readinga-z.com. Check out the site and go under guided reading for more info.
Reply:There are many formal reading assessments: DIBELS, IRI, QRI, DRA, etc. Your school should have or be using some of these. If not, they are easy to come by.