To be effective teachers of literacy for students who read braille, we need to know what our students' strengths and needs are as all these components come together in braille literacy. Using an appropriate assessment that addresses the skill sets involved in braille literacy is critical to putting together effective intervention packages for our…

We report results from children learning to read in one of four different languages: Croatian, English, Estonian and Swedish. The languages all have an alphabetical script but vary greatly on the dimension deep-shallow (or complexity-simplicity, or opacity-transparency), i.e., how close orthography and phonology are related. These languages also…

Romania's education system has made impressive strides over the past two decades, with an increasing share of students mastering the basic competencies that they need for life and work. But these average improvements mask significant disparities in learning outcomes and attainment, with an increasing share of students leaving education early…

In this study we evaluated whether the sophistication of children's invented spellings in kindergarten was predictive of subsequent reading and spelling in Grade 1, while also considering the influence of well-known precursors. Children in their first year of schooling (mean age = 66 months; N = 171) were assessed on measures of oral vocabulary,…

This study, through multilevel analyses of the data of four English-speaking nations (i.e., Canada, England, New Zealand and the United States) from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2001 database, investigated the relationship between teachers' uses of various types of classroom assessments and their fourth-graders'…

This article reports on an English for academic purposes course designed following the tenets of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) to address the needs of language minority (LM) high school graduates entering Canadian universities. The language used in and required of post-secondary study is challenging for many LM students,…

This exploratory study investigated potential sources of setting accommodation resulting in differential item functioning (DIF) on math and reading assessments for examinees with varied learning characteristics. The examinees were those who participated in large-scale assessments and were tested in either standardized or accommodated testing…

Reading is typically considered a survival skill in our technology- and literacy-bound culture. Individuals who struggle with learning to read are at significantly elevated risk for a number of negative outcomes, including school failure, under- and unemployment, and special education placement. Thus, those who do not learn to read fluently will…

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a system of international assessments that allows countries to compare outcomes of learning as students near the end of compulsory schooling. PISA core assessments measure the performance of 15-year-old students in mathematics, science, and reading literacy every 3 years. Coordinated by…

Results from the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) indicate that English as a Second Language (ESL) and English Literacy Development (ELD) students have comparatively low success and high deferral rates. This study examined the 2002 and 2003 OSSLT test performances of ESL/ELD and non-ESL/ELD students in order to identify and…

On national and international assessments, students attending French-language schools in Ontario usually perform worse than students attending English-language schools. Interpreting these results is challenging because the French- and English-language schools differ both in prescribed curriculum and in how the curriculum is taught. In addition,…

When commercially available tests failed to match their whole-language instructional practices, resource teachers in a Canadian school district developed their own instrument. Assembled over a five-year period, the Multi-Layered Assessment Package (MAP) is a set of procedures accompanied by suggested books, transcripts, and retelling and recording…

This article explores definitions of reading comprehension, research on how reading comprehension is assessed, and issues in assessing the reading comprehension of English language learners (ELLs). By way of illustration, I present aspects of the literacy practices of an intermediate-grade ELL in a suburban school of the Lower Mainland of British…

Summarizing a two-part general report on a reading assessment of grades 8 and 12 in the province of British Columbia, this report provides the general background on the aims and methods of the assessment, presents information on the development of the test instrument, details the administration of the test, and reports its results. In addition,…

Intended for teachers and students, this document updates information about the design, sections, and scoring of the Grade 12 diploma examinations in English 30 and 33 for the 1986-87 school year in Alberta, Canada. It contains blueprints illustrating the relationship between the content and scoring of writing and reading test assignments and…