Characteristics of Various Types of Reading Assessment
Additional Methods of Assessing Student Progress in Reading
Assessing student progress in your classroom regularly will give you the data needed to drive your instruction. It is important to continually test to determine your students' academic growth and adjust your lessons and goals accordingly. That way you can provide the most complete learning experience for your students.
In this section you will engage in activities that will introduce you to useful methods for assessing your students' progress.
Performance-Based Assessment
- Performance-based assessments are used to give teachers information about the way a student understands and uses knowledge. This is accomplished by having students perform an authentic task. These tasks are often scored through the use of rubrics, checklists, and narratives.
- Performance tasks are measured using pre-set criteria. A performance criterion allows both student and teacher to be absolutely clear about the expectations of the task and allow both to evaluate the task objectively. This performance can be documented in several ways. Click on the colored word below to see the explanation, click on the colored word again to turn off the explanation.
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Rubric: A rubric is a type of scoring guide
that enables you to quickly see exactly how much of a specific, pre-set
criterion is met. For example, a rubric for an essay might tell students
that their work will be judged on purpose, organization, details, and
mechanics. A good rubric also describes levels of quality for each
of the criteria, usually on a point scale. Under mechanics, for example,
the rubric might define the lowest level of performance as "many
misspellings, grammar, and punctuation errors," and the highest
level as "all words are spelled correctly; your work shows that
you understand subject-verb agreement, and how to use commas, and periods." A
rubric helps teachers and students understand the expectations for
quality.
Checklist: This is a simpler version of a
rubric, which uses a check to indicate whether or not certain elements
are present in a performance-assessment task.
Narrative: A narrative is a written record
that basically tells the story of how the student did when performing
the authentic task.
Memory: A memory observes the task and decides
whether the student has met performance criteria.
Rating Scale: A
rating scale indicates to what degree standards were met. Scales are
usually numerical—for
example, a rate from 0-5, with 0 standing for not meeting the standard
at all and 5 standing for meeting the standard completely.
