Encourages reading teachers to use journal writing by college students to look beyond basic skill deficiencies, to seek and monitor physical, emotional, psychological, and environmental factors that may impair students' progress in reading. (SRT)

Reports an overall positive response to the tests reviewed, with caveats regarding test reliability and validity. (AEA)

Addresses problems in the interpretation of standardized reading test scores. Focuses on reading age (or reading grade) and demonstrates that converting test scores to a scale of reading ages is essentially meaningless and potentially dangerous. (AEA)

Discusses the differing responses of two groups of administrators and teachers to a new statewide reading assessment--one group saw the ideal and one group experienced the reality. (SR)

This article is written in response to the article published in issue 39.3 of this journal, in November 2005, on the nature of the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum reading tests: "Examining England's National Curriculum assessments: an analysis of the KS2 reading test questions" by Anne Kispal of the National Foundation for Educational…

Finds a number of problems with the test and concludes that there is little real advantage to using it in preference to other published informal reading inventories now available. (FL)

Suggests that continually refined and segmented reading assessment measures may be contributing to reading problems. Discusses three solutions to reading difficulties that have become problems themselves and suggests that more holistic, socially interactive teaching methods are a better solution to reading disabilities. (HTH)

A discussion of the problems inherent in verbal test taxonomies not based on the schematic domain of logic is presented. This discussion is made in the context of syntactically complex tests. A suggested structure for a logically constructed taxonomy developed for use in a federal testing program is delineated. (Author/DWH)

Outlines the main testing needs, problems, and recommendations formulated by Michael Canale and by the four authors who reacted to his paper, "Considerations in the Testing of Reading and Listening Proficiency." Discusses three major and interrelated needs and two key problems found in receptive skills testing and makes recommendations.…

Critically reviews an earlier published study that assessed the sensitivity of the cloze procedure to intersentential integration. (AEA)

Offers six Arizona teachers' comments on the new Arizona Student Assessment Program (ASAP). Discusses how the test affects children, whether the testing procedure is easily understood by teachers, how the ASAP differs from a standardized test, how the classroom teaching process has changed as a result of the test, concerns about the test, and…

Describes a 20 item self-report psychometric scale that was used to assess test anxiety levels in 67 students. Reports that the higher the anxiety level, as measured by the Revised Test Anxiety Scale (RTA), the lower the score on a reading and writing competency exam taken subsequently, and that students who received extra time on the reading test…

When educators open their "Fibber McGee's closets" of past reforms, a pile of silver bullets will spill out onto the floor. For at least the past 20 years, the sense of public confidence in public education has been fed by an arsenal of such quick, often creative, but largely unsubstantiated remedies for turning schools and kids around.…

Argues that process-oriented evaluation of children's literacy by the classroom teacher is more efficient and more instructionally valid than current test-driven evaluation procedures. (FL)

Notes that the National Assessment of Educational Progress's (NAEP) recent assessment found fundamental changes taking place in education and in society which render the apolitical, uniform, "one size fits all" approach to education dysfunctional. Calls for reconceptualizing reading instruction to benefit all readers rather than just the…