There are many procedures to use in the evaluation of student achievement in reading. Each has its pros and cons. No single approach will be perfect, but with a variety of approaches a teacher may determine how much progress each student has made. Standardized, norm-referenced tests, once so popular, have come into disfavor as reading evaluation methods because educators are coming to believe that it is not best to compare one student to another, but rather to assess each student's individual progress. In addition, there are no objectives that a teacher has access to in teaching students to do better on a norm-referenced test. It is assumed that all students have had access to the same or a similar curriculum. Criterion-referenced tests avoid some of the weaknesses of norm-referenced tests. Objectives are available for teacher use, and a major task of the teacher becomes aligning learning opportunities in reading with the stated objectives. Of course, there are some disadvantages to criterion-referenced tests, including the difficulty teachers may have in locating activities that harmonize with the stated objectives. Teacher observation is another way student reading achievement is assessed. The contextual assistance provided by the reading teacher as well as self-analysis by the involved student may really assist reading development. Discussions and conferences with pupils provide other ways to evaluate reading achievement. Another approach is through the use of portfolios, an approach that has become quite popular. Using the results from evaluation of student reading, a better reading curriculum could be developed. The best objectives, learning opportunities, and appraisal procedures should be stressed in ongoing lessons and units in the teaching of reading. (SLD)