Standards for the Assessment of Reading and Writing

Assessment reform is one of the hottest topics in education today. This document guides decisions about assessing the teaching and learning of reading and writing and reflects advances in our understanding of the best classroom practices.

From the Introduction

This document provides a set of standards to guide decisions about assessing the teaching and learning of reading and writing. In the past thirty years, research has produced revolutionary changes in our understanding of language, learning, and the complex literacy demands of a rapidly changing democratic and technological society. The standards proposed in this document are intended to reflect these advances in our understanding.

Most people reading this document share common school experiences with respect to literacy and assessment. For example, in school we read to get the correct meaning of a text so that we could answer questions put to us by someone who already knew the correct meaning--or by a test (often multiple-choice) for which the correct answers were already determined. In order to develop assessment practices that serve students in an increasingly complex society, we must outgrow the limitations of our own schooling histories and understand language, literacy, and assessment in more complex ways. Literacy, for example, involves not just reading and writing, but a wide range of related language activities. It is both more social and more personal than a mere set of skills.

To improve language assessment we must understand not only assessment, but language and how it relates to assessment. The need to understand language is particularly important. Language is not only the thing being assessed, but also part of the process of assessment itself. Consequently, any discussion of literacy assessment must include a discussion of language: what it is, how it is learned, and how it relates to assessment.