So I'm a teacher of struggling readers. Our school district does a pretty good job of providing them with additional support. However, everyone at my district is not fully satisfied with a reading comprehension assessment to truly indicate their ability level. We currently use:

Read 180

Pro - This is a great program and does far more than merely assess the students reading ability level. It is an intervention program that we have had in our district for 2 years now and so far the results are looking promising. It also provides a lot of data and is by far the best thing we use.

Con - Super expensive and only can be used for our lowest readers. Those students who are not in Read 180 cannot get their reading levels assessed through that program. I also think the data could be displayed better.

STAR Assessment

Pro This is the best reading assessment I use for all of the students that are not in Read180. It isn't too long (about 20 - 25 min on average) and it responds directly to the students answers so it knows automatically whether a student should have a more difficult, less difficult, or same difficulty level as they test. I convinced my district agree to use this assessment as a secondary measure along with Read180 for the lower students and a primary measure for my non-Read180 students.

Cons - There have been concerns that this isn't as accurate as it claims. The data reports are not nearly as in depth as Read180.

AIMSWEB - I'm not even going to put a link to this one. Our district phased it out and it seems archaic. There is allegedly a newer version of it now but it doesn't give nearly the same insight as the prior two.

Here's my problem: Whenever I ask anyone who should know answers to the best reading comprehension assessments out there I literally get nothing better than the above 3. Teachers - What is out there? I don't mind if it costs money if it gives the data and responds to student answers like Read180 and STAR, but I still would like it cost-effective for a district to employ to more than just the readers that struggle the most. Any help?