Fiction vs. Nonfiction Genre Identification Probes

About this resource

One skill, start to finish. A fiction-vs-nonfiction IEP goal for telling genre from content alone, six equivalent probe forms that measure it, and a graph scaled to the probe. Baseline on Monday, goal written by Tuesday, first data point on Friday.

Every blurb carries its own closed, checkable signal instead of a title or a giveaway word: a nonfiction blurb states a measurement, explains a cause and effect, lists numbered steps, gives an approximate quantity, or defines a tool or landform; a fiction blurb opens a story, quotes someone speaking, tells a moment that goes comically wrong, names an impossible creature, or shares an invented character's private thought. Five fiction and five nonfiction blurbs a form, the same ten blurb types every form, so a missed item names which genre signal is not yet caught, not just a lower score.

WHAT IS INCLUDED - 18 pages, six probe forms, 365 type-in fields, a binder cover and divider tabs, a family update page, a two-page teacher answer key

A Binder Cover And Divider Tabs

• A binder cover with student, case manager and school year fields, cut and slide into a binder front or folder tab
• Six divider tabs, one per section of this file, print and cut

The Goal Page

• What the probe measures, in one paragraph
• A sample goal, invented, with every bracket meant to be edited by the team
• The six-part goal frame as type-in fields: by (date), given, student will, criterion, on ___ of ___ consecutive probes, as measured by
• A baseline table: three probes and the median
• Three benchmark rows with target date, target score, actual score and met
• The administration and scoring directions
• Lines for this student's own scoring rules, and a box for what the errors say to reteach

Six Probe Forms, A Through F

• Ten short blurbs per form: five written as fiction, five as nonfiction, the same 5/5 split on every form
• The five nonfiction types are the same every form: a measurement or count fact, a cause-and-effect explanation, numbered how-to steps, an approximate quantity, and a one-sentence definition
• The five fiction types are the same every form: a story opening, a quoted line of dialogue, a moment that goes comically wrong, an impossible or fantastical character, and an invented character's private feeling or wish
• The student writes only the one-word genre in a boxed blank -- never a rewritten blurb -- so the answer key stays short and the score stays specific
• Sixty different blurbs across the six forms, none on two forms
• The ten blurbs are shuffled into a fresh order on every form, so there is no position on the page that always holds the same answer
• A controlled, invented cast of first names only; no real person, no health or family-structure content anywhere in the bank
• Every form is a student sheet and nothing else: a big My name line, a small date line, one short instruction with a pencil picture, the ten problems numbered with room to work in every box, and one small gray tag naming the skill and the form letter. No goal text, no scoring strip, no directions: nothing on the page is written for an adult
• Rounded sans-serif type throughout, large, with white space (built to the store's student page standard)

The Answer Key And Scoring (Two Teacher Pages, 16 And 17)

• Every answer for all six forms, generated by the same code that draws the problems, in a numbered table that matches the numbers on the student sheet
• Under each form's answers, a row of boxes to mark each item and a Correct ___ / 10 box, so the scoring strip that used to sit on the form is here instead
• The giving-the-probe directions from the goal page, repeated on both pages, with the scoring rules: untimed, self-corrections count as correct, log the score the same day

The Data Log And Graph

• A y-axis already scaled 0 to 10, twelve probe columns, and the instruction to draw the aim line from the baseline to the criterion first
• A twelve-row log: date, form, correct, errors, the score used on the graph, and notes

The Caseload Summary

• Twelve student rows, baseline and criterion, eight probe columns, a trend column and a decision column
• For the data meeting: rows that are flat together are a group, a row that is flat alone is a different question

A Worked Example

• Jordan, third grade, invented. Twelve weekly probes: the baseline taken as a median, the aim line, three points under it forcing a teaching change (sorted a stack of mixed blurbs into a fiction pile and a nonfiction pile before writing an answer, instead of answering blurb by blurb), the criterion met, and the progress-report sentence the log produces. Every number in that sentence is on the log.

A Family Update And Team Handoff Page

• A family update with blanks for this week's score and how it compares to the goal, ready to send home or read at a conference
• A phrase bank of eight observable-language starters for the family update's "in our own words" line -- never a diagnosis or a label, every phrase describable from the log in front of you
• A team handoff checklist for a substitute, a new provider or a shift change, so whoever gives the probe that week knows exactly what to do
• A meeting summary sentence with blanks for the two numbers off the log, ready to drop into the progress report
• A second setting: a short note for the general education teacher or paraprofessional during regular class reading -- a different setting from the six scored probe forms, no rubric to learn

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF. The goal page, the data log, the caseload page, the name and date lines on every student sheet, and the mark boxes and Correct box on the answer key are type-in fields: open the file in a PDF reader, click a line or a cell, type, and Save As once per student. The probe forms are meant to be printed: one copy per student per week, the student writes on the form, and that same sheet is the one you score. It works offline with no account or subscription. It does not calculate percents or draw the graph.

It is not a norm-referenced assessment and it carries no benchmark score or "typical" rate. The criteria in the sample goal are in brackets because your team sets them from the baseline and the student's IEP. Every probe is untimed on purpose; the goal page says so, so the condition stays the same all year.

Who This Is For

Second, third and fourth grade special education teachers and case managers writing reading-comprehension goals for any age student, intervention and Title teachers, and the paraprofessionals who give the weekly probe.

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