12.3 Formal and Informal Assessment Instruments
Key Takeaways
- Standards 4.C–4.D require CALTs to know the relevance of informal tools and the characteristics/uses of both formal and informal instruments.
- Formal instruments are typically published, standardized, and often norm-referenced; they support screening, diagnosis, eligibility documentation, and benchmarking.
- Informal instruments—running records, word lists, spelling inventories, writing samples, and instructional probes—provide frequent, fine-grained data for diagnostic-prescriptive MSLE lessons.
- Informal assessment does not replace formal evaluation when identification or comprehensive documentation is required; the two streams complement each other.
- Instrument selection should match the decision: formal tools for peer comparison and comprehensive profiles; informal tools for immediate instructional adjustment.
12.3 Formal and Informal Assessment Instruments
Quick Answer: Formal instruments are usually published, standardized (and often normed) tools used for screening, comprehensive evaluation, and benchmarking. Informal instruments—running records, word lists, spelling inventories, writing samples, and lesson probes—supply frequent, instructionally specific data. Standards 4.C–4.D require knowing both the relevance of informal tools and the distinct characteristics/uses of each type.
After terminology (4.A) and evaluation components (4.B), the ALTA blueprint asks therapists to operationalize assessment through instruments. Standard 4.C focuses on the relevance of informal assessment tools for dyslexia and related disorders. Standard 4.D requires identifying characteristics and uses of formal and informal instruments. Together they answer a practical question every CALT faces: Which tool, for which decision, right now?
Characteristics of Formal Assessment Instruments
Formal instruments typically share these features:
- Published manuals with administration, scoring, and interpretation guidance
- Standardized procedures that constrain examiner behavior
- Technical data on reliability (score consistency) and validity (evidence the test measures its intended construct)
- Normative samples when the tool is norm-referenced, enabling peer comparison
- Structured subtests aligned to constructs such as phonological awareness, rapid naming, decoding, orthographic processing, fluency, or comprehension
Common formal categories in dyslexia-related practice include comprehensive achievement batteries, phonological processing tests, timed word and pseudoword reading measures, and oral reading fluency/comprehension inventories administered under standardized rules. Exact product names vary by setting; the exam cares more that you know what formal tools do than that you recite a publisher catalog.
Primary Uses of Formal Instruments
- Screening — Efficiently identify students needing deeper assessment.
- Comprehensive evaluation / diagnosis support — Build the multi-component profile described in 4.B.
- Eligibility and documentation — Provide defensible, comparable scores for school teams, 504/IDEA processes, and private reports.
- Benchmarking and reevaluation — Compare status across longer intervals (for example, annual or triennial review).
Formal tools are less ideal as the only weekly lesson planner. They are often time-consuming, expensive, and too molar to tell a therapist whether yesterday’s vowel team needs five more minutes of review today.
Characteristics of Informal Assessment Instruments
Informal instruments are flexible procedures embedded in instruction or clinical observation. They may be published inventories used flexibly, therapist-designed probes, or structured analyses of authentic work. Typical examples:
- Running records / oral reading samples with error coding
- Graded or skill-based word lists (real words and nonsense words)
- Spelling inventories and dictated sentences
- Writing samples analyzed for handwriting, encoding, syntax, and composition features
- Phonological awareness quick checks tied to current lesson targets
- MSLE program mastery tests and cumulative review probes
- CBM-style classroom probes used for instructional decisions (overlapping with 4.A terminology)
Informal does not mean careless. Strong informal assessment is purposeful, recorded, and linked to teaching hypotheses. A random stack of worksheets without analysis is not high-quality informal assessment.
Primary Uses of Informal Instruments
- Pinpoint the next instructional target (for example, closed vs. open syllables)
- Conduct error analysis that formal standard scores cannot narrate in detail
- Monitor response to teaching between formal testing cycles
- Engage students in metacognitive review of their own error patterns
- Communicate concrete progress examples to families (“Jordan moved from 28 to 42 WCPM on parallel passages”)
Why Informal Tools Are Especially Relevant in Dyslexia Therapy (4.C)
Students with dyslexia need intensive, diagnostic-prescriptive instruction. Formal evaluations may occur once or twice a year; therapy sessions happen multiple times per week. Informal tools keep the therapist’s model of the student current. They reveal:
- Error patterns — vowel confusion, nasal influence, suffix omission, syllable-division failures
- Transfer — whether skills taught in isolation appear in connected reading and spelling
- Automaticity status — accuracy present but rate still labored
- Affective and strategic behaviors — guessing, avoidance, self-correction, fatigue
Without informal assessment, MSLE risks becoming a rigid script that ignores the student’s changing profile. With only informal assessment and no formal data when identification is at stake, teams risk under-documentation and delayed services. Relevance means complementarity, not replacement.
| Feature | Formal instruments | Informal instruments |
|---|---|---|
| Standardization | Usually high / manualized | Variable; therapist-structured |
| Peer norms | Often available | Usually criterion/instructional |
| Frequency | Periodic | Daily to weekly |
| Best decision | Identify, document, benchmark | Plan and adjust lessons |
| Grain size | Broad constructs/subtests | Specific patterns and items |
Matching Instruments to Decisions (4.D)
Use this decision frame on exam vignettes:
- Need peer comparison or eligibility evidence? → Formal, typically norm-referenced standardized measures.
- Need to know if the student mastered this week’s concept? → Criterion-referenced or informal mastery check.
- Need to know if therapy is changing fluency trajectory? → Repeated CBM/progress probes.
- Need to plan tomorrow’s decoding lesson? → Informal word lists, spelling samples, and error analysis.
- Need a comprehensive dyslexia profile? → Formal battery covering essential components, supplemented by informal instructional data.
A high-quality practice integrates both. The formal report might show phonological awareness and decoding at the 5th–9th percentiles with average listening comprehension. Informal probes then show the student reads CVC closed syllables at 70% accuracy, fails VCe consistently, and omits suffixes in writing. The CALT’s lesson sequence writes itself from that combined picture.
Threats to Valid Use of Either Instrument Type
Formal instruments lose value when administration rules are broken, outdated norms are used carelessly, or scores are over-interpreted beyond the construct measured (for example, treating a brief screener as a full diagnosis). Informal instruments lose value when results are not recorded, when probes are confounded by constant coaching, or when therapists generalize from a single atypical day. Both can be biased by sensory issues, language differences, anxiety, or insufficient rapport. Ethical therapists note limitations and seek collaboration rather than forcing certainty the data cannot support.
Scope Notes for CALTs
CALTs are trained to administer informal assessments and to interpret psychoeducational data in order to plan therapy. Formal diagnostic batteries may be reserved for psychologists, diagnosticians, or other authorized examiners depending on jurisdiction and setting. Exam answers should respect that collaborative reality: know what formal scores mean, know what informal tools contribute, and do not claim credentials you do not hold—while still demonstrating deep assessment literacy.
Exam Focus
Expect items contrasting formal vs. informal characteristics, asking why informal tools matter for dyslexia intervention, or selecting the best instrument for a stated purpose. Prefer answers that keep formal tools for identification/benchmarking and informal tools for frequent instructional decisions, used together rather than in opposition.
Why are informal assessments such as running records and word lists valuable alongside formal standardized tests?
Which informal assessment procedure best helps a CALT plan the next decoding lesson?
Which statement best contrasts formal and informal assessment instruments for Standard 4.D?
Putting 4.A–4.D Together
Chapter 12 builds a foundation the next chapter will extend into score interpretation and error analysis:
- Name the tool type accurately (standardized, normed, criterion-referenced, CBM).
- Know which evaluation components must be sampled for dyslexia.
- Select formal and informal instruments that match the decision at hand.
- Use informal data relentlessly between formal cycles to drive MSLE.
Practice Scenario
A fifth grader’s formal report shows average listening comprehension, weak phonological awareness, poor pseudoword decoding, and spelling at the 8th percentile. Before the next therapy block, the CALT gives an informal nonsense-word list and a dictated spelling inventory. Errors cluster on vowel teams and final stable syllables. Weekly ORF CBM will track whether fluency rises as those patterns are taught. That workflow—formal profile, informal pinpointing, CBM monitoring—is Domain 4 foundations in action and mirrors how strong CALTs practice.
Master these distinctions and instrument uses before moving to Standard 4.E’s score language (standard scores, percentiles, stanines) and the interpretive skills that turn numbers into services.
A school team needs defensible peer-comparison scores for dyslexia eligibility documentation, while the CALT also needs daily targets for MSLE lessons. Which approach best reflects Standards 4.C–4.D?