Focus on Reading Assessment:
IRA Programs and Resources

The best assessment informs decision-making about the needs of individual learners. Properly designed and used, assessment can lead to instruction that addresses students’ weaknesses and builds on their strengths.

IRA has numerous resources to help you understand and implement best practice in assessment. Follow the links below to find more information, or use advanced search and select “Assessment” under the Topic heading to identify more resources. You can narrow your search to particular types of resources, or to defined learner levels.

Recommended reading

Books and articles

Report: National reading achievement

Parent brochure: Prepare your child for reading tests

News stories on assessment, from Reading Today Daily

Podcasts—NEW!

In this podcast, Peter Afflerbach, author of Understanding and Using Reading Assessment, K–12, discusses how classroom assessment, not NCLB accountability testing, influences reading achievement. He highlights the need to support teachers so that they provide excellent instruction to all students.

Download the IRA Insights podcast “Afflerbach on Reading and Assessment”

Position statements

High-Stakes Assessments in Reading

Resolutions

On Assessment for Children in Special Education Experiencing Reading Difficulties

On Literacy Assessment

Meetings and events

IRA’s annual convention always includes numerous sessions on topics in assessment. The following sessions appeared on the program for the 2007 convention.

Session: “Using Benchmark Assessments to Determine Reading Levels and Inform Teaching (K–8),” Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas, presenters

Session: “Retheorizing Assessment: Values, Judgment, and Design,” Sharon Murphy, presenter

Session: “Informal Reading Inventories and Functional Reading Levels: Finding Out a Student’s Reading Level—Some Myths and Some Facts,” Roger Farr, presenter

Session: “High Stakes Testing in Reading Must Be Discontinued,” Dale Johnson et al., presenters

In addition, IRA’s biennial world congress and annual state/provincial and regional conferences routinely include sessions on reading assessment.

Community

IRA’s Issues In Literacy Assessment Committee is charged with monitoring and providing advice on current issues related to student assessment and with providing suggestions and assistance in developing and disseminating assessment information to IRA members through conference presentations and publications.

For more information about the Association’s initiatives in the field of assessment, contact IRA’s Public Information Office.