2026 READ Act Advisory List of Assessments Review

Background

The Colorado Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act (Colorado READ Act) was passed by the Colorado Legislature during the 2012 legislative session. Interim, diagnostic and summative assessments are a required part of the READ Act and are to be administered to students in grades K-3. The READ Act requires that at least one interim, diagnostic and summative assessment shall be available in Spanish. Districts and schools must choose from the approved list for their use of assessments to meet the requirements of the READ Act.

The main purpose of K-3 assessments in the Colorado READ Act is to identify students who have a significant reading deficiency and to screen for characteristics of dyslexia in grades K-3.

Interim assessments are administered to all students three times each school year.  Those students identified as having a significant reading deficiency must then have diagnostic assessments administered to pinpoint those students’ identified area(s) of weakness and provide in-depth information about students’ skills and instructional needs.  Students identified with a significant reading deficiency are required to have an intervention plan called READ Plan. The students’ READ Plan will include targeted, scientifically-based or evidence-based intervention instruction to address and remediate the students’ specific identified reading skill deficiencies. Then, once instruction has begun, teachers must use progress monitoring assessments to determine whether students are making adequate progress and to determine whether instruction needs to be adjusted.

READ Act Assessments must screen for characteristics of dyslexia, including phonological processing, phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle, encoding and word-decoding skills, letter naming, oral reading fluency, and rapid automatized naming. C.R.S. 22-7-1209 (2.5)(a)(II). 

The criteria for the advisory list assessments has changed to include universal dyslexia screening. All assessments that are currently on the advisory list must submit to be reviewed during this review cycle. See SB25-200 for additional information.