Standard 3 - Assessment and Evaluation

Candidates use a variety of assessment tools and

practices to plan and evaluate effective reading
instruction.
Evidence that demonstrates competence may
include, but is not limited to, the following:
Reading Specialist/Literacy Coach
Candidates
3.1 Understand types of assessment and their
purposes, strengths, and limitations.

3.2 Select, develop, administer, and interpret

assessments, both traditional print and electronic,
for specific purposes.

3.3 Use assessment information to plan and

evaluate instruction.

3.4 Communicate assessment results and

implications to a variety of audiences.

Assessment must be holistic in nature, but it

should also be sensible. The closer the assessment
to the actual use, the better it is going to be. For
example, the Informal Reading Inventory is
effective because it has both oral and silent
components similar to actual classroom
performance expectations.
Reliability or consistency, validity or accuracy,
and fairness are important when considering
assessment. Many commercialized tests provide a
correlation coefficient to allow statistical
evaluation of the results of the test. If not, a
Standard Error of Measurement can be used to
estimate the difference between the actual test
score and the scored that would be produced with
a perfect test.
When selecting assessment, it is important to
remember that reading and writing are too
complex to be assessed with one simple onedimensional test. All of the factors--cognitive
ability, working memory, associative learning,
individual cognitive processes, phonological and
orthographic processing, study skills, vocabulary,
writing, spelling, vision, hearing, etc.may need
to be evaluated in the event of reading difficulties.
In addition, when considering results, it is
important to hone in on what students can do
rather than what they can not do.
Assessment needs to measure what the student
can do at the present moment and what a student
is capable of doing. In order for this to happen, the
assessment needs to be ongoing. What the student
may be capable of doing and the students zone of
proximal development. Considering this, the
quality assessment gathers baseline data, involves
teaching and recording, retesting and evaluation
of intervention.
Data gathered from daily assessment should be
evaluated along with formal assessment data. This
can be used to prepare reports of student test data,
both for individual students and by grade level for
a group of students. These reports should be
shared with administration and specified
departments. Presentations of this data should be
made available during professional development
or for the literacy committee.
Reports of student test datafor individual
students and by grade levelshould be presented
annually to administration and by department.
Furthermore, teachers should be provided with the
analysis of data in order to revise and evaluate the