Suggests that informal reading inventories (IRIs) should include both narrative and expository passages. Describes a study of several reading inventories indicating that some current secondary school IRIs have been constructed with some consistency of text types, but failed to reveal a clear picture of text structure for the inventories. (HTH)

Presents a method, based on the language experience approach, for informal diagnosis of young children's awareness of the technical aspects of print. (FL)

Living in an age of communication, literacy is an extremely integral part of our society. We are impacted by literature during our infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. "Literacy for the New Millennium" includes information from specialists in the field who discuss the influence of popular culture, media, and technology on…

The transition to adult life for students with reading and writing challenges is an area that is not often addressed. The purpose of this article is to relate the informal assessment process to the broader context of high stakes assessment, high school exit exams, diploma options, and transition planning; identify the competencies needed for a…

The results from two informal measures (a cloze test and a group reading inventory and a standardized reading test were compared in a study of instruments available for measuring adult reading performance. The three instruments were administered to 158 undergraduates enrolled in reading improvement classes. From this group, 75 subjects were…

Describes how the retelling of stories can reveal (1) the point or points students see in the stories they read and (2) the problems students have organizing the different elements of a story into a coherent whole. (HOD)

Divided into four sections, this monograph focuses on effective evaluation in the whole language classroom. The first section discusses the whole language philosophy and classroom, and lists the beliefs that proponents of this approach hold about whole language teaching and teachers, language, and language learners. The second section addresses…

Noting that most classroom teachers use informal reading inventories (IRI) as diagnostic instruments, a study examined what oral reading accuracy level is most appropriate for the instructional level and whether repetitions should be counted as oral reading errors. Randomly selected students from the second through fifth grades at two elementary…

The four sections of this guide provide information for use by educators who wish to find means other than standardized tests for assessing the reading performance of students. The first section of the guide deals with two methods of determining the readability of classroom materials, the Fry Readability Graph and the cloze procedure. The second…

Presents five reading activities including "Reading Buddies" (Joyce Kemp); "Documenting Reading and Writing Growth in the Primary Grades Using Informal Methods of Evaluation" (Clifford J. Kramer); "Problem Solving Our Way through Writers' Workshop" (Ann Walker Christensen); "Real Audiences for Real Writing"…

This paper explains two observation guides that teachers can use to describe emergent reading behaviors among young children during the children's interactions with familiar storybooks. The guides are derived from a review of research and focus on independent and assisted interactions. When observing children's independent interactions with…

Each of the five sections in this book deals with one of the five major components in a diagnostic/prescriptive model of classroom reading instruction: instructional purpose, evaluation, materials, methods, and classroom management. Articles in the "Instructional Purpose" section discuss the affective component of instruction and the relationship…

Maintains that continued over reliance on traditional skills-based assessment of reading abilities provides the whole-language teacher with little, if any, useful information for instructional planning. Suggests informal assessment procedures that focus on the language learner and provide a rich information source on which to base instructional…

In response to a recent shift toward informal measures of teaching/assessment in reading education, this study investigated types of assessments and instructional strategies being taught in teacher education programs in five midwestern states. Surveys of reading education professors at state universities indicated that direct, informed assessment…

This digest is intended to help and inform those teachers who are contemplating using children's literature to teach reading, and provides a brief review of material in the ERIC database on literature-based reading instruction. The digest includes sections on recent research, basic resources, assessing literature based reading, diverse methods…