What Is SRI Testing?

By Staff Writer | Last Updated August 4, 2015

SRI Testing is a “computer-adaptive” reading comprehension test that assesses students’ reading levels and tracks student growth over time. It also matches readers to text and helps guide instruction utilizing the READ 180 program.

SRI, or Scholastic Reading Inventory, testing uses computer-adaptive software that monitors the response of the student taking the test and changes the level of difficulty according to the student’s ability. For example, if the student answers a question incorrectly, the next question is easier. If the student answers the question correctly, the next question is a bit harder. Using authentic text passages for each question, SRI testing assesses the students ability to identify details in a passage, identify cause/effect relationships, draw conclusions, make generalizations, make comparisons and follow a sequence of events. The sources of the text passages used for the 3,000 questions in the SRI include children’s literature (both fiction and nonfiction), classic literature, young adult literature, newspapers, magazines and periodicals.

Scholastic Reading Inventory assessments are usually done on students in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade multiple times throughout the school year to determine the students’ placement in reading intervention programs for the current school year and in the next grade. The students reading skills are classified as one of four different proficiency levels: minimal, basic, proficient or advanced proficient.