Created by Spanish reading specialists, DORA-Spanish is a comprehensive, valid and reliable program which assesses a child’s reading skills in Spanish.  It is very similar to the NWEA Reading assessment used in Minnetonka's English elementary program.

Minnetonka Spanish Immersion students take the DORA in winter and spring during Kindergarten, and fall and spring in grades 1 - 5.  

The DORA allows teachers to efficiently and effectively assess their students in Spanish to provide individual information about the Spanish reading abilities of each child.  The comparison group is a national sample that includes both native speakers and Spanish Immersion students.

On the scoring reports for DORA, parents will see a grade level equivalency for the all the subtests, except phonemic awareness.  For example if a child is in the second grade and in the first month of school, the norm would be 2.1 for high-frequency words, word recognition, oral vocabulary, and phonics.  Since the norming group includes mostly native speakers, it is typical that spelling and reading comprehension scores are lower for non-native speakers.  Phonemic awareness is reported as a “% correct” because it is considered a basic skill and is not measured as a grade level.

The DORA reading passages are all non-fiction, which are generally more difficult for students.  The program recognizes that reading comprehension is difficult and if the child struggles with the first few reading comprehension questions the assessment will move onto another subtest so that child is not frustrated.

The DORA assessment includes 7 sub-tests:

• High-frequency words (HFW)-measures the ability to recognize frequently occurring Spanish words. Max score is end of 3rd grade or 3.83.
• Word recognition (WR)-measures the ability to recognize a variety of leveled lists of Spanish words.  Max score end of 4th grade or 4.83.
• Phonics (PH)-measures knowledge of basic Spanish phonetic rules. Max score is end of 3rd grade or 3.83.
• Phonemic Awareness (PA)- percent correct on Phonemic Awareness measures students attention to discrete sounds within words.  Max score is 100%.
• Spelling (SP)-measures Spanish spelling skills. Max score is end of 9th grade or 9.83. It is typical to see a score of 0 in kindergarten.  If the assessment determines the student is not reading,  she will not be asked spelling questions.
• Oral vocabulary (VO) -measures Spanish vocabulary skills using level vocabulary words.  Max score is 12th grade or 12.83.
• Reading comprehension (CO) - measures the ability to answer factual and inferential questions about a silently read story.  Max score is end of 12th grade or 12.83. It is typical to see a score of 0 in kindergarten.  If the assessment determines the student is not reading,  he will not be asked reading comprehension questions. Reading comprehension will typically be a lower score than all other areas because it is the most complex skill. 

DORA-Spanish is an intelligent assessment system which adapts the difficulty of the items according to each student’s performance on the assessment to help target accurate reading abilities and to help a student feel successful throughout the assessment process.  This information will help us provide better individualized reading instruction for each child and to monitor the progress made in reading throughout the year.

District Norms

How do parents view the scores?

1. Go to  www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us and login to MyMinnetonka.
    (If you don’t know your login and password, email:  family.helpdesk@minnetonka.k12.mn.us)

2. Click on “For Parents”

3. Click on “Skyward Family Access”

4. Select the name of the child you wish to view scores for at the top of the screen.

5. Click on “Test scores” on the left-hand side of the screen.

6. You can then select “show scores” for the assessment you wish to view.