Offers six Arizona teachers' comments on the new Arizona Student Assessment Program (ASAP). Discusses how the test affects children, whether the testing procedure is easily understood by teachers, how the ASAP differs from a standardized test, how the classroom teaching process has changed as a result of the test, concerns about the test, and…

Reports on available and forthcoming computer software packages for reading assessment, in the areas of informal reading inventories, comprehensive assessment packages for decoding, an open-ended test generation program, diagnostic simulation, and expert systems. Offers ideas for learning about assessment techniques. (SR)

A review of public demand for accountability uncovers three types of educational assessment problems: demand for valid reading measures, need for a broader range of assessments, and value of assessments for various audiences. Integration of the various types of assessments is recommended. (SK)

Examines the historical course of reading-comprehension assessment practices over 25 years (from the 1970s to the mid-1990s), examining changing views of reading processes, practices, and policies. Characterizes progress in terms of political and practical constraints. Finds that, although very different formats are used today, the functions of…

A general framework for assessing differential functioning of items and tests (DFIT) that was recently proposed is expanded to include differential bundle functioning as a mechanism for identifying sources of differential functioning. The expansion is illustrated with a dataset of 4000 fourth-grade students from a reading comprehension…

Measured both reading speeds and comprehension in two groups of learners exposed to intensive and extensive reading programs. The extensive group was exposed to a regime of graded readers, while the intensive group studied short texts followed by comprehension questions. Results indicate that subjects exposed to extensive reading achieved both…

This brief article describes the development and content of a braille adaptation of the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability. Differences in the braille form of the test and precautions in its use are noted. (DB)

Strategy use and its impact on standardized reading test performance were studied with 128 high school students. Students in a standardized test condition used more strategies than those asked merely to identify main ideas. Thinking aloud had detrimental effects on ability to identify main ideas. (SLD)

Describes a 20 item self-report psychometric scale that was used to assess test anxiety levels in 67 students. Reports that the higher the anxiety level, as measured by the Revised Test Anxiety Scale (RTA), the lower the score on a reading and writing competency exam taken subsequently, and that students who received extra time on the reading test…

Explored the relationships between depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in English as a Second Language. Results support the hypotheses that scores on vocabulary size, depth of vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension are highly and positively correlated; and scores on depth of vocabulary knowledge can make a…

In two separate studies, 100 South Korean kindergartners and 100 second graders were administered tests of speed of processing and phonological-processing skills as well as a Korean Hangul reading test. Speed of processing tasks were significantly correlated with most of the reading-related tasks but not with Hangul reading itself. Across studies,…

In this study we examined the contexts and practices of 6 Vermont schools whose students met or exceeded standards set for performance on statewide reading tests administered at second and fourth grade. Demographic data on all elementary schools in Vermont were used in a cluster analysis to identify schools serving low-, middle-, and…

Thirty 8-11-year-old children were administered tests of rapid naming (RAN letters and digits) and reading-related skills. Consistent with the hypothesis that RAN predicts reading because it assesses the ability to establish arbitrary mappings between visual symbols and verbal labels, RAN accounted for independent variance in exception word…

When educators open their "Fibber McGee's closets" of past reforms, a pile of silver bullets will spill out onto the floor. For at least the past 20 years, the sense of public confidence in public education has been fed by an arsenal of such quick, often creative, but largely unsubstantiated remedies for turning schools and kids around.…

The viability of a pencil-and-paper version of the lexical-decision (LD) task to assess children's word decoding skill was investigated. Participants in this study were Dutch second and third graders. Lexical decision and oral reading appear to be highly correlated, in second grade more than in third grade. Retest reliability of the LD tests is…