It was administered in Spring 2005 for the first time in the San Diego Unified School District. The DRP is administered in early fall and late spring in order to provide pre- and post-assessment data. The DRP replaced the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test (SDRT) as the district mandated reading assessment for 2004-05.

The DRP provides information about students’ reading comprehension levels and is used to determine student progress, target individual students who are in need of additional reading support, and provide information on the effectiveness of the support and intervention programs for students.

The Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) assessment measures how well students process and understand increasingly difficult prose material. To report student performance, a readability scale is used that describes the most difficult text the student can read with understanding. Certain characteristics-known as "surface features" of text-contribute to the level of difficulty in prose. For example, text is easier to read when:

	1) there are more common or frequently used words present
	2) short words are used more often
	3) the sentences in the text are shorter and/or simpler.

By measuring how well students understand the meaning of text, the DRP tests determine a student's ability to read under real-life conditions in and out of school. In essence, the tests measure the process of reading rather than products of reading such as main idea and author purpose. Consisting of nonfiction paragraphs and/or passages on a variety of topics where words have been deleted, students are asked to select the correct word for each deletion from a set of multiple-choice options. In order to respond correctly, students must figure out the meaning of the text, using their knowledge of syntax, semantics, and other basic language skills to process prose for meaning. Previous knowledge of the subject matter is not required to answer the items correctly. DRP paragraphs and passages are designed to reduce the likelihood of using guessing and association strategies to generate correct responses. DRP assessment results are reported as Independent and Instructional scores. Independent DRP scores indicate the most difficult text that a student can read and understand without any help. Instructional DRP Scores indicate the most difficult text that a student can read and understand with teachers' or parents' help.

•	DRP Fact Sheet
•	Glossary of Testing Terms
•	Site Operations Circular 1001: Revised Testing Calendar Information for 2006-07

San Diego Unified School District
District Assessment Unit
4100 Normal Street, Annex 11
San Diego, CA 92103

(619) 725-7172 – Phone
(619) 295-6875 – Fax
saadept@sandi.net - Email