Description
Book SynopsisMany standard reading assessment approaches fail to capture the strengths and needs of students from diverse sociocultural, linguistic, and academic backgrounds. From expert authors, this book guides educators in planning and conducting meaningful, equitable assessments that empower K-5 teachers and students, inform responsive instruction, and help to guard against bias. The book's holistic view of reading encompasses areas from text comprehension and constrained skills to building trusting relationships and promoting studentsâ agency. Twenty-eight assessment strategies are explained in step-by-step detail, including helpful implementation examples and 32 reproducible forms that teachers can download and print in a convenient 8 1/2 x 11 size.
Trade Review"This book issues a resounding call to remove the cloak of invisibility in literacy assessment and foster more informed and equitable instructional practices. Building on their extensive experience and research with children and families, the authors make teachers and students visible, and show what standard assessments fail to tell us. The book features authentic vignettes with roadmaps to guide literacy professionals in implementing assessments in a diversity of school settings across different geographic locations. This is a much-needed resource for empowering students and teachers in today’s schools."--Doris Walker-Dalhouse, PhD, Department of Educational Policy and Leadership, Marquette University
"A child's understanding of reading is about more than decoding--it involves prior experience, linguistic knowledge, agency, interests, and emotions. This book embraces cultural responsiveness in assessment, and is a needed professional development resource and text for all who provide reading instruction. The chapters present research, theory, and procedures for conducting assessments that capture children’s capabilities as well as their needs."--Lesley Mandel Morrow, PhD, Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Literacy Development, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
"Elish-Piper, Matthews, and Risko definitively place assessment back in the hands of teachers and their students. The authors’ strengths-based, humanizing approach to reading assessment puts students’ sense of self and agency first, and respects teachers as professionals and decision makers about what is right for their students. The book is packed with how-to suggestions, theoretical knowledge, and classroom vignettes. Teachers, administrators, and teacher educators will find clear guidance on a full suite of assessments that move beyond standardized measures toward ways to promote deeper engagement and learning. The authors demonstrate their deep understanding of the complex undertaking of assessing each student’s reading identities and abilities.”--Dana A. Robertson, EdD, School of Education, Virginia Tech-
Table of ContentsForeword, H. Richard Milner
1. The Urgency of Now: Addressing Assessment Inequities
2. Understanding Students’ Funds of Identity
3. Building Trusting Relationships: The Linchpin of Productive and Effective Reading Assessment
4. Using Student Talk to Assess Students’ Reading Comprehension
5. Assessing Readers’ Text Comprehension
6. Assessing Constrained Skills within the Big Picture of Reading
7. Using Assessment to Support Students’ Development of Agency
8. Starting with Student Strengths
9. Literacy Assessment as Oeuvre: Teachers and Students Building a Visible Body of Work
References
Index
