Creating a fair, reliable, teacher-made test is a challenge. Every year poorly designed tests fail to accurately measure many students' learning--and negatively affect their academic futures. Salend, a well-known writer on assessment for at-risk students who consults with schools on assessment procedures, offers guidelines for creating tests that…

Using typography as its exemplar with its lack of clear performance criteria, this article questions what is good design and how to measure a designer's accountability. Evaluation criteria are teased out from various perspectives: credibility, ease of use, stakeholder inclusion in the design process, respect for cultural dimensions and whether it…

The matching of students with language learning disabilities and dyslexia to appropriate reading materials is discussed, and formal and informal methods are presented for determining reading levels for accuracy, fluency, and comprehension instruction and practice. The Spache Readability Formula, the New Dale-Challe Readability Formula, and…

Provides step-by-step procedures for developing an index which uses the Gunning Fog technique to evaluate the level of reading difficulty of textbooks. Cites examples, illustrations, and several warnings in the discussion. (RT)

One of the key requirements of the Common Core State Standards for Reading is that all students must be able to comprehend texts of steadily increasing complexity as they progress through school. By the time they complete the core, students must be able to read and comprehend independently and proficiently the kinds of complex texts commonly found…

Training students in assessment can not only help lighten grading load but also--and more importantly--equip students with a lifelong skill. The goal of educators in grading is to reinforce teaching concepts by identifying students' strengths and weaknesses. If educators require students to create Web site as a class project, this can become a…

Discusses how an experienced educator's Web site recommendations can help learners use the World Wide Web in ways bookmarks alone cannot. Highlights include browser-based and page-based annotations; examples; useful information to include (title or topic, operating instructions, description, special site features, cautions, and helpful…

Describes a reading assessment technique (different from most reading level evaluations) involving identification of the concepts for study, categorizing the statements about the concept, and analysis both within and between texts. Analysis allows teacher to make judgments relating to convenient order of concepts, rate of development, and…

The multicultural pattern in recent Australian immigration poses a pressing issue for reading instruction. Students coming from homes where only English is spoken, or English and a Northern European language are spoken, perform better on reading tests than do students from homes where other languages are spoken. There is also little reflection…

In 1978 the New York State Board of Regents initiated action to establish statewide high school graduation standards for reading comprehension. The process began by measuring the readability levels of materials used in core courses and materials that adults normally read (newspapers, news magazines, and feature magazines). To do this,…

The nine articles presented in this yearbook were drawn from Arizona State University's Annual Reading Conference which focused on new directions in reading. Four of the articles deal with evaluation techniques in reading and include discussions of developing culture-fair informal reading inventories, what oral language tests really measure, and…