Types of Diagnostic and Summative Assessment Available in LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers

Diagnostics

Looking to get an idea of your students’ proficiency with some core reading and writing skills? LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers includes eight diagnostic tests, a pre- and post-test covering reading skills; reading strategies; sentence grammar; and punctuation, style, and mechanics. Assigning the diagnostics at the outset of your course can help you identify problem areas, choose which units you want to assign in LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers, and track student proficiency.

Diagnostic Test	Corresponding Units in LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers
Reading Skills	Identifying Topics, Main Ideas, and Supporting Details Recognizing Patterns of Organization Understanding Vocabulary
Reading Strategies	Pre-Reading Strategies During Reading Strategies Post-Reading Strategies Reading and Writing Arguments Reading Critically Reading Interpretively and Making Inferences
Sentence Grammar	Fragments Pronouns Run-ons and Comma Splices Subject-Verb Agreement Verbs Verbs for Multilingual Writers
Punctuation, Style, and Mechanics	Apostrophes Appropriate Language Capitalization Commas Modifiers Parallelism Quotation Marks Semicolons and Colons Sentence Structure for Multilingual Writers

Each diagnostic test includes access to class and roster reports that allow you to see student performance overall and by sub-topic.

If you have assigned both the diagnostic pre- and post-test for a topic, you will also have access to comparison reports. Comparison reports are accessible through the instructor dashboard inside each diagnostic post-test.

You can use the diagnostic comparison reports to:

• Track improvement across multiple sections, or across a program (reports are exportable)
• Create opportunities for students to see a visual representation of their progress in the course (reports can be printed for students)
• Continually adapt your teaching based on real performance data

For more help, see:

• How do I assign Diagnostics?
• How do I view Diagnostic reports?

Pre-made quizzes

If you are using LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers in conjunction with a Bedford/St. Martin’s reader or rhetoric, you can find reading comprehension quizzes from most of our recent editions within your LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers course. These book-specific quizzes are hosted in the question library. Here are the steps to find and add quizzes.

Exercise Central

Bedford/St. Martin’s Exercise Central has been a longtime favorite of instructors and students who want an effective way to practice building skills that are critical to students’ success as college writers. The full bank of Exercise Central quizzes is available in LaunchPad Solo for Readers and Writers, allowing you to:

• Offer additional interventions based on your students’ diagnostic quiz results
• Assign pre-built exercise sets on the fly, as you notice patterns of error in your students’ writing
• Create additional post-tests with new questions

To learn more about adding Exercise Central quizzes to your course, see How do I add Exercise Central questions to my quiz?