Why do you use non-fiction passages?
Using non-fiction passages with topics taught in most classrooms across the nation provides less variability in assessment results. The language involved in generating non-fiction passages is easier to standardize, as it does not contain conversational colloquialisms that are often regionalized in the U.S. Also, non-fiction passages offer a range of topics common to many classrooms, reducing bias due to race, gender, and culture. While non-fiction is sometimes more difficult for children to read than fiction, Let's Go Learn has made a conscious effort to control for this by writing comprehension questions that are not too difficult and by creating an administration protocol which ensures that children only see questions within their comfort level as the sub-test raises and lowers the difficulty of passages according to success on DORA.
Tags: Why do you use non-fiction passages?