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New Progress in Reading Assessment (PiRA)

The New Progress in Reading Assessment (PiRA) is a revised form of the PiRA, and is a standardised, curriculum-linked series of tests designed initially for whole-class use, with pupils of all abilities. It offers three tests for each primary school year, enabling monitoring of pupils' progress in reading term by term. It was re-standardised in 2019 on 15,000 children.

Separate tests are available for autumn, spring and summer terms for English Years 1–6, and for the spring and summer terms in Reception. It provides summative, diagnostic and predictive information with standardised scores and reading ages, plus a diagnostic profile. Tables include English National Curriculum levels. You can choose from paper or digital tests. The revised PiRA includes an increased number of inference, comparison and vocabulary questions that reflect national test question coverage more closely.

Age range

Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Designed to link mainly with the English Curriculum but used currently by many teachers in Wales and Northern Ireland. For Scotland, see PiRA for Scotland.

Who can use it?

Teachers or anyone working in an educational setting.

How is it used?

The tests are simple and quick to administer, taking 30–40 minutes to assess a whole class. Pupils can take the tests digitally, with instant marking and reporting, using PiRA Digital Interactive. There is a video tutorial at the start of each test, helping children to become familiar with the online format.

What can it tell us?

The PiRA can digitally generate individual progress predictions and individual reports. A new assessment and reporting kit, My Access and Reporting Kit (MARK), identifies specific gaps in knowledge based on pupil performance in PiRA and suggests learning sequences to address these. Each learning sequence for reading includes step-by-step teaching notes, text extracts and questions, as well as modelling software to take pupils through the skills they need. Additional intervention activities will be available online in 2021. 

Pros

  • Standardised assessment.
  • Recent and up-to-date test.
  • Good informative charts produced.

Cons

  • More applicable to England as linked to the English curriculum.
  • It is a group test often used by schools for screening, so a deaf pupil may have already taken it as a regular class test.
  • Expensive for small numbers of children as different test papers are needed for each year group.

Is there a cost?

Yes.

Where can I find it?

New PiRA website