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York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC)

A more detailed analysis of reading skills: reading accuracy, reading rate and comprehension.

A detailed analysis of reading skills for every phase of learning.

There is a York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC) appropriate to all school age ranges: Early Reading, Primary Passage Reading and Secondary Passage Reading.

This individually-administered reading assessment allows you to closely observe a student’s reading behaviours, strengths and areas for development. It breaks down the components of reading so that you can target specific skills to bring about rapid progress. Parallel forms of the assessment allow you to measure the impact of interventions.

YARC can be used independently or as a follow-up assessment, aligning with the Simple View of Reading to provide a balanced profile of decoding and comprehension skills.

At a glance

Age ranges
4-7 years
5-11 years
12-16 years
Test duration
20–30 minutes
Test format
Paper (online reporting tool)

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How YARC can help you

Detailed report analysis

Administer YARC to provide a more detailed analysis of reading skills: reading accuracy, reading rate and comprehension. YARC can be used independently or as a follow up to NGRT and data can be used as evidence for students eligible for Access Arrangements – Extra Time or a Language Modifier.

Identify strengths and challenges

As YARC is individually administered, you can closely observe a student’s reading behaviour. The component skills of reading are broken down so you can see precise areas to target provision to bring about rapid progress. Parallel forms of the test enable you to measure the impact of interventions.

Time-saving score conversion tool for reporting

Input student details and raw scores into a simple template, to generate a one-page PDF report including standard age scores, percentile rank and age equivalent.

FAQs

What are the subtests/skills assessed?

Early Reading

  • Letter sound knowledge
  • Early word recognition
  • Sound deletion
  • Sound isolation

Passage Reading

  • Single word reading
  • Reading accuracy
  • Reading rate
  • Reading comprehension
  • Fluency (Secondary)

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What do the assessment sets contain?

  • Early Reading set contains: test material, manual, record forms (x 10)
  • Passage Reading Primary set contains: test material, manual and record forms (x 10)
  • Complete Primary set contains: all materials from the Early Reading and Primary Passage Reading sets
  • Passage Reading Secondary set contains: test material, manual and record forms (x 15).

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What does each part of YARC assess?

There are three parts to YARC:

  • Early Reading (age 4 –7): Four short tests assessing a student’s phonological skills, alphabetic knowledge and word reading. These are among the most sensitive type of assessments for beginner readers and may be administered up to three times during a school year.
  • Passage Reading Primary (age 5–11): Developed to identify reading (decoding) and comprehension skills using fiction and non-fiction texts. It assesses accuracy, reading rate and comprehension.
  • Passage Reading Secondary (age 12–16): Fiction and non-fiction passages, designed to be read silently, to assess reading accuracy, fluency and comprehension. There are two supplementary passages for students with reading difficulties that are not able to access the texts in form A and B.

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When should I use the Early Reading assessments?

The four tests can be used in different combinations and for repeat testing.

Manipulating and isolating sounds are important precursors to successful decoding, so you may want to screen your students early in the autumn term using the Sound Deletion and Sound Isolation assessments.

Students will need some formal instruction using phonics to tackle Early Word Recognition and Letter Sound assessments, so you may want to delay using these until later in the year.

The student record form allows each student to be tested up to three times. A gap of around 12 weeks should be left between testing.

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Does the student need to read both passages in one session?

If you are concerned that administering two passages from YARC might be too much testing for some students, you can split the session across a week-long period.

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My students are used to reading stories with pictures. Why are there no pictures to go with the passages in the Passage Reading assessments?

Children develop their reading skills in various ways and illustrations can help this development by giving clues. To gain the most accurate assessment of a student’s decoding skills, it is now recognised that these clues should be avoided.

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Why do secondary students read the passages in the assessments silently?

Secondary students typically read silently, which helps them to internalise the text. Assessors can annotate the student record form if the student prefers to read texts on form A or B aloud.

The Supplementary Passages are read aloud, so that the error analysis can be carried out.

YARC Secondary includes a test of reading fluency where students do read aloud, so that they can be timed and errors counted.

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