The use of young children's drawings as aids in assessing their levels of cognitive development and their readiness for reading is recommended in this paper. After showing how drawing development can be examined from a Piagetian point of view, the paper reports on an investigation involving 76 children aged five through eight years, which revealed…

A nationwide survey of preschool programs (N=178) serving handicapped children revealed that approximately half had formal written exit criteria, the most common of which was chronological age. Other factors included formal test results, team staffing decisions, and the child's developmental skill level. Formal written exit criteria differed…

This experiment explored the effect of teacher expectations on vocational students' cognitive and psychomotor skills and on attitudes. Although teachers' expectations changed student attitudes toward teachers and subjects, neither expectations nor attitude change had an effect on student achievement. (SK)

Argues for a diverse response to the issues and objectives concerning assessment. Highlights a wide variety of assessment procedures from foreign schools, each one relevant to the local culture and educational objectives. Discusses the inherent dangers in overemphasizing, as well as underemphasizing, assessment. (MJP)

Public school speech-language clinicians (n=266) in California were surveyed regarding methods for assessing the language of children ages 4-9. Results are discussed in terms of formal and informal expressive and receptive language assessment and ways in which new assessment tools are identified and incorporated. (Author/JDD)

In the context of a project implementing Belgian observation and assessment scales in German kindergartens, a study examined German practitioners' attitudes toward systematic observation of children. The most significant overall finding was the low priority attributed to systematic observation in teacher training and practice. These findings are…

This investigation compared the performances of 24 African American children (mean age 6) with language impairments (LI) to typically developing African American peers on five traditional informal language assessment measures. Performances of the LI children were significantly lower on all measures than typically developing peers. Implications for…

Literacy Volunteers of America (LVA) affiliates were surveyed regarding standardized and informal assessment devices they currently used and their frequency of use and effectiveness. A literature review focused on assessment tools and their limitations. The survey was sent to 39 LVA affiliates in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and…

Adapted screening devices and teacher observation were used in a 1974 study of 1003 Finnish students (ages 6-8) in an effort to predict future learning difficulties. Six areas were assessed: gross motor skills, sensory-motor integration, perceptual-motor skills, arithmetic skills, socioemotional adjustment, and verbal ability. In a follow-up study…

The Austin Independent School District Office of Research and Evaluation (AISD-ORE) has recently completed a three year study of the effects of retention on elementary students. As in other studies comparing the academic achievement of elementary retainees and similar students not retained, findings indicated that promoted students generally show…

The utility of employing teacher reports about characteristics of students and their parents to assess family economic status was investigated using multiple regression analyses. The accuracy of teacher reports about parents' educational background was also explored, in addition to the effect of replacing missing data with logical, mean, or modal…

An experimental design was employed to assess the impact of standardized tests on 47 second grade Irish teachers' judgments of their 1,566 students. Teachers receiving test results showed greater shifts in their ratings of students than teachers not receiving test results. However, these shifts tended to be in the positive direction and for only a…

Described is the development and evaluation of a module for teaching special education teacher trainees to determine a pupil's instructional reading level through the use of an informal reading inventory (IRI). Among the topics covered in Part I on developing the instructional module are needs assessment, a review of relevant literature, review…

A challenge in online collaborative learning teams is assuring that all members of the virtual learning team are actively engaged and contributing to the work of the team. One strategy to hold individual members of a learning team accountable for their contributions is through the use of peer and self evaluations. This paper provides a summary of…

Recommends the use of the Group Reading Inventory (GRI), an informal survey instrument, to identify general reading abilities of individuals in correctional facilities. Discusses why the GRI is appropriate for use, guidelines for constructing a GRI, and procedures for administering, scoring, and interpreting the instrument. (NRJ)