Given the focus on increasing student persistence at many community colleges through programs such as "Achieving the Dream", it seems more than appropriate that faculty and institutions integrate more affective measures into their assessments of student readiness. These types of assessment will not determine the grades that teachers give students' work, but they can determine the instructional moves they make to help students develop dispositions that lead to academic success. This article discusses how affective assessment can be important in responding to those students with low levels of motivation and confidence and with negative attitudes toward schooling in general. Affective assessment is particularly important for the area of developmental reading for three reasons: (1) success rates are low for students who take developmental reading courses; (2) reading is the foundation for accessing most any college course; and (3) an examination of the Virginia Community College System course description for "Preparation for College Reading II" mandates that educators focus on affect. The author describes two experiences that led her to begin to share the importance of affective assessment with faculty across the disciplines on her campus. She concludes that the ultimate benefit of affective assessment is that professors' knowledge of their students' affective characteristics leads to more targeted instruction and successful learning experiences for students.