1st Edition

Assessing Reading 1: Theory and Practice

By Colin Harrison, Terry Salinger Copyright 1998

    This book, along with its companion volume Assessing Reading 2: Changing Practice in Classrooms, was originally conceived as the major outcome from an international seminar on reading assessment held in England. It focuses particularly on theoretical and methodological issues, though with a clear series of links to practices in assessment, especially state and national approaches to classroom-based assessment in the USA, the UK and in Australia, at both primary and secondary levels.
    Chapters offer new perspectives on the theories that underlie the development and interpretation of reading assessments, national assessments and classroom-based assessment, challenging readers to think in different ways.

    PART I Theories and assumptions underpinning reading assessment 1 Responsive reading assessment: is postmodern assessment of reading possible? 2 Ten dilemmas of performance assessment 3 Feminist poststructuralist perspectives on the language of reading assessment: authenticity and performance PART II What are the new approaches, and what are they attempting to achieve? 4 Australian perspectives on the assessment of reading: can a national approach to literacy assessment be daring and progressive? 5 Assessing reading in the English National Curriculum 6 The national assessment of reading in the USA 7 New emphasis on old principles: the need for clarity of purpose and of assessment method in national testing and for national monitoring 8 Curriculum-based assessment of reading in England and Wales: a national pilot study 9 Taking a closer look: a Scottish perspective on reading Assessment 10 Using direct evidence to assess student progress: how the Primary Language Record supports teaching and learning 11 Challenging the assessment context for literacy instruction in first grade: a collaborative study 12 Consequential validity of an early literacy portfolio: the ‘backwash’ of reform

    Biography

    Colin Harrison is Professor of Literary Studies in Education at the University of Nottingham and Terry Salinger is a Senior Research Analyst at the American Institutes for Research, Washington DC.