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 classroom assessment of literacy is dominated by methods more appropriate to external mandates. Suggests an alternative method grounded in the teacher's professional judgment and in the relations between curriculum, instruction, and assessment. (FL)

Reviews the literature concerning informal reading inventories and discusses a number of issues related to them, including question choice, scoring criteria, and allowable miscues. Offers guidelines for constructing and using the inventories. (FL)

Reports that reading instructional level scores of a teacher constructed informal reading inventory, the commercially prepared Basic Reading Inventory, the Metropolitan Achievement Test, and students' actual level of placement in books are roughly comparable but that the Wide Range Achievement Test reading subtest places children much higher. (FL)