Assessments are an important part of instruction.

Teachers use them for many reasons and using

the right ones at the right time is a useful teaching skill. This lesson will outline types of reading
assessments and when and why we use them.

What is Reading Instruction?

Learning to read is a big job that starts with making sounds and ends, well, never really; even
adults continue to learn things about reading. However, the bulk of intentional reading
instruction begins in preschool or kindergarten, when students are taught about letter sounds and
symbols. After children understand the basics of sound/symbol relationships they move on
to decoding text, or putting letter sounds together to make words. We start to become fluent
readers, or able to read at a good, steady pace with an engaging voice, only after we're confident
sight-readers, usually between third and fifth grade. From that point on, teachers focus reading
instruction on helping readers become more fluent and, more importantly, understanding what
they read, or comprehension.
How do teachers know what to teach and when to teach it? In addition to a reading curriculum,
they actually rely on assessments for this purpose, among other reasons.

Assessment Basics
When we use the word assessment in education, we're talking about a method used to determine
students' understanding of a skill or concept. They're sometimes also referred to as tests. We're
tested in many ways in our lifetime; from reading out loud to a teacher in elementary school to
navigating a road test to get our driver's license, assessments are just a part of life.
There are two main types of assessments teachers use. See if you can figure out which kind is
used while reading with a teacher and which is used during a road test.
Formative assessments are used to determine whether or not a student is progressing in a
subject or topic. The important thing to remember about formative assessments is that they are
not meant to be a grade, but rather a measurement, or monitoring, of understanding. We'll get
into this more in a bit. Summative assessments are used as a final measure of comprehension and
understanding of a subject or topic. In other words, these tests are given at the end of instruction,
after a student has had enough time to practice and learn.
If you guessed that reading with a teacher is formative and a driver's test is summative, you're
right! Nice job. Let's go ahead and talk about how and why we use assessments when teaching
reading.