Yes, you are right. The lower levels DO allow oral retelling. But once you get beyond a certain level (I'm thinking 26 or so?) the retell is written. We have the same standard for where to stop testing, but I always test further b/c I think it's ridiculous! For example, I had a child last year who in mid-first grade could not test beyond level 26 on the DRA. When tested with the WJ the gifted coordinator at our school told me that he was reading at a fifth grade level (comprehension) and decoding was middle school level. That gave me more information than the DRA although I did learn through the DRA that he was having trouble sythesizing information and analyzing text so that was what we were working on in class.
