This booklet contains the practice tests for the fourth-grade Ohio Proficiency Tests. The work students do on these tests helps the teacher know how well the student understands the subjects of reading, writing, mathematics, citizenship, and science. The writing test consists of two writing tasks. The other tests are made up of multiple choice,…

The Florida Writing Assessment was implemented in grades 4, 8, and 10 in 1998 as required by the Florida legislature. The assessment is designed to measure students' proficiency in writing responses to assigned topics within a designated testing period. This report contains writing assessment results for the whole state, school districts, and…

This sampler discusses California's English-language arts assessment program and presents examples of elementary school reading assessments, writing assessments, and writing prompts. The first section of the sampler takes an integrated look at Year One of the California Learning Assessment System. The second section presents the scoring guide for…

Presenting the full range of students' writing, this paper provides administrators, teachers, and students with samples of students' writing that exemplify the criteria used to score responses to the June 1992 Grade 6 English Language Arts Achievement Test. After an introductory section, the paper presents a general commentary; the writing…

This sampler discusses California's English-language arts assessment program and presents examples of elementary school reading assessments, writing assessments, and writing prompts. The first section of the sampler takes an integrated look at the changes which make up the new English-language arts assessment. The second section presents the…

The effectiveness of an optimal item selection method in designing parallel test forms was studied during the development of two forms that were parallel to an existing form for each of three language arts tests for fourth graders used in the Connecticut Mastery Test. Two listening comprehension forms, two reading comprehension forms, and two…

Student engagement during testing in the full range of writing process activities they had been taught was studied. Results with 28 third-grade draft sets, 21 fifth-grade sets, and 38 eighth-grade sets on the Maryland School Performance Assessment writing test show that students' peer responses are unengaged, minimal, and formulaic, and that their…

A study examined methods for helping students earn their Literacy Passport, mandated for all students by the Virginia Department of Education, prior to entering the ninth grade, beginning in grade 6. Teachers were trained at North Accomack Elementary School (Virginia) in the use and implementation of the writing process and in writing to a prompt.…

This booklet contains the practice tests for the Sixth-grade Ohio Proficiency Tests. Student work on these practice tests helps the teacher evaluate how well the student understands the subjects of writing, reading, mathematics, citizenship, and science. The writing test consists of two writing tasks based on one stimulus passage, and the reading,…

This study assessed how goal setting and progress feedback affect self-efficacy and writing achievement for 20 male and 20 female fourth graders. Children received writing strategy instruction and were given a process goal of learning the strategy, a product goal of writing paragraphs, or a general goal of working productively (control condition).…

This manual contains directions for the teacher and oral directions to be read to students taking the practice tests of the Ohio Proficiency Tests for grade 6. Directions are ordered in the sequence of the sections in the Practice Test booklet (writing, reading, mathematics, citizenship, and science), and they are similar, but not identical, to…

A study compared teachers' assessments of students based on alternative evaluation techniques to student assessments based on standardized tests. Teachers in seven kindergarten classrooms evaluated their students (approximately 130 each year) in each of 3 successive years according to how well they had mastered a set of criteria which the teachers…

The purpose of this study was to compare how learning outcomes are influenced by a number of key student composition (language background, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and gender) and school context variables on a direct writing performance assessment. The sample was randomly selected from a population of 13,604 third graders in 175 public…

This is one of a series of reports that document the formative research that supported the development of the "First Steps" program designed to improve the literacy and numeracy of primary school students in Western Australia, particularly those considered at-risk. The four themes of First Steps (reading, writing, spelling, and oral…

An arts-based supplemental education program was evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively. It was hypothesized that this classroom program would cause gains in critical thinking skills, as measured through writing ability. The program provided 87 teachers in grades 3 through 12 with a classroom set of "Arts Indiana" magazine and an accompanying…