Independent Reading Assessment: Fiction

I am "getting my feet wet" with the Independent Reading Assessment: Fiction (Grades 3 – 5) by Jennifer Serravallo.  It is in a word: AWESOME! This is the tool teachers have been waiting for - and it is going to transform how teachers assess, plan and teach readers in workshops across the globe.  It's not that teachers might not have been doing this kind of work - looking at student post-its and reading entries, listening to their conversations, and using that data to inform their instruction.  However, for the first time, this assessment tool helps to organize the teacher’s thinking and sharpens their focus in looking through particular lenses.  

Further, it give the teacher a full picture of a reader’s experience with a text, from start to finish and provides an abundance of resources along with Jen’s incredible guidance and expertise through this vast terrain.  I am using it with a student I am tutoring and I was floored with the responses to some of the questions in a text that was deemed just-right for this particular reader based on running records.  Readers, for those who have experience using the assessment, what have you discovered? Did student responses surprise you? How did you use it to create instructional plans for students?  If you would like more information or would like to order it for your classroom or school, you can find more information and a short video clip about it at the following link: http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/independentreadingassessment/index.htm