Obtain the most current edition of the "Qualitative Reading Inventory-5" by Lauren Leslie and JoAnne Schudt Caldwell, published by Pearson.
Choose a quiet spot to administer the inventory. Use an empty classroom or area away from outside distractions such as ongoing class instruction, children playing or office noise. Provide the child with a student-sized chair and table, desk or other surface to place the reading materials on.
Find the word list for the student's grade level, preschool through high school. Other than the 17-word-long preschool list, all grades will have a 20-word list. Ask the student to read the words on the list to you. This allows you to assess how quickly and accurately the child can read the words. Assess whether the student can read the word accurately, recognizes the phonetic units of the word and/or has memorized it.
Test the student's ability to read silently to herself and orally through the passages section. Provide the student with the age-graded narrative passages. Instruct her to read them to herself and out loud to you. Have the student retell the story to you in her own words. Ask the questions that are provided about each narrative passage. Assess the student's ability to correctly answer the questions after the initial reading. Children in grades three and up may look back, or review the passage after you ask the questions. Assess the ability for these students to correctly answer questions after rereading parts of the passages.
Score the inventory results. Rate the child according to her ability to recognize and read the word list accurately as well as her performance on the narrative passages task. Assess her ability to correctly retell the story that she reads in terms of narrative conventions such as setting, sequence of events, details, ideas and background.