High-stakes testing means that one test is used to make important decisions about students, teachers, and schools. This paper comes out against high-stakes testing, taking the position that the central concern is that testing has become a means of controlling instruction as opposed to a way of gathering information to help students become better…

As part of the test development process, this technical report is intended to present technical information from the tryout and the pilot stages of the Michigan High School Proficiency Test (HSPT) in Communication Arts: Reading. There are four major parts to this report. Part 1, Evolution of the HSPT in Communication Arts: Reading, introduces the…

This Digest lists some of the common mistakes made by young readers and suggests teaching strategies that may be useful to teachers who are preparing their classes to take standardized tests. Children must learn to use the text to pick the answer, rather than relying on memory, especially when the story is a familiar one. Teachers can help…

Success for All is the most extensively researched of all comprehensive reform models for Title I elementary schools. It incorporates scientifically based principles of reading, cooperative learning, professional development, tutoring, and family support. Hawaii elementary schools using the Success for All reading program made outstanding gains on…

Describes an assessment instrument for evaluating basic reading skills, the Minimal Reading Proficiency Assessment. (TO)

Authors concluded that if the terms of an actual performance contract would be applied to their results, they were to realize approximately $3,000 profit on a $75 investment. (Authors)

An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of instruction for increasing speed and accuracy of recognition of the one-cell whole word and part-word signs, the two-cell contractions, and short-form words in English Braille on braille reading skills of secondary school students. (CB)

The children in this study scored considerably lower than did the standardized samples on these tests. Further research is indicated. (Author)

Reviews four uses for norm-referenced tests of reading comprehension. Concludes that three of the uses are actually misuses and that the only appropriate use is for predicting future student performance. (FL)

Groups of good and poor readers were tested on free recall of 10-word lists. The poor readers demonstrated as strong a recency effect as the good readers, but showed inferiority in immediate memory span. The results demonstrate a degree of dissociation between the recency effect and memory span. (Author/KC)

Reading comprehension must involve an interaction between the reader's world knowledge and the incoming linguistic message. After examining the measurement of reading comprehension from this perspective, we conclude that existing tests are likely to be unsatisfactory for the purposes of assessing educational gain and diagnosing reading difficulty.…