Focuses on three informal assessment tools (reading, retelling, and interviewing) for early literacy behaviors, and describes their use with a second-grade student. (SR)

Suggests that, to better gauge children's learning progress, teachers and schools should put less emphasis on standardized tests and more emphasis on continuous classroom assessment of students. (MDM)

Since engagement in physical activity is now identified as an important outcome for students, teachers need to assess their students in ways that measure that behavior. Assessment serves many purposes in an educational setting. It can provide feedback, drive instructional needs, and evaluate outcomes of both students and programs. If done…

The paper describes a "mini-assessment" designed to help teachers understand the nature and extent of students' learning problems. A distinction is made between children with reading problems due to neurological differences and those with problems due to emotional, educational, or cultural factors. The importance of identifying and referring the…

Evaluation and grading are individual and unique components of the formal learning/teaching process. Both acts embrace moral as well as ethical concerns which demand thorough, reflective attention. As teachers, we must admit to the subjectivity of both and use that subjectivity in a positive striving toward fairness. Our concern should be with the…

The paper addresses identification of the young gifted child and explores research on the importance of early recognition and programs designed to meet the needs of gifted students. The history of gifted education and early childhood education is traced. Reasons for intervention, such as maximizing the potential of the gifted child, are pointed…

The Washington State Cooperative Curriculum Project provides an orderly sequence of precisely defined skills, and allows for both assessment and programing of individual exceptional children, and for communication of student progress to parents. (CL)

Investigates how teachers of young children typically evaluate their students' work, focusing on the standards applied. Includes issues and recommendations made after observing different standards. (AS)

Four brief articles look at aspects of curriculum based measurement (CBM) for academically handicapped students including procedures of CBM with examples, different approaches to graphing student performance, and solutions to the problem of making time to measure student progress frequently. (DB)

This study examined the attitudes, knowledge bases, and practices of 20 cooperating teachers and 20 student teachers regarding evaluation of pupil progress. Teachers often wrestled with balancing district demands for grading with pupil needs for affirmation and guidance. The complexity of the process and implications for teacher educators are…

Since thinking is most often performed in problem-solving situations, teachers can become observers by providing situations in which students can practice and demonstrate intelligent behaviors. Some indicators include: perseverance, precision of language, problem finding, decreased impulsivity, metacognition, checking for accuracy, transference,…

Described is a short term (10-12 weeks) diagnostic assessment and teaching class for handicapped children (5-10 years old) intended to provide more valid results of the child's ability by giving him an opportunity to demonstrate his learning strengths and weaknesses. (PT)

Examines two common errors in evaluation and ways to circumvent them. The first error is faulty pretesting or diagnostic evaluation. The second is failure to monitor student progress and plan instruction in relation to the specified learning goals. (SJL)

Describes a middle-school teaching strategy that used anecdotal records to make inferences about students with hearing impairments, identify patterns, and note strengths and needs. The anecdotal records from three ethnically diverse students who are deaf are shared to illustrate how teacher observations shaped educational strategies. (CR)

Discusses several problems associated with standardized testing. Proposes possible solutions to these problems, and calls for a new perspective on testing which utilizes informal tests and teacher observations of reading behavior. (MM)