An efficient assessment cycle is a necessary component of early literacy instruction. To support student growth, educators must screen, diagnose, and monitor student progress. Diagnostic assessments provide critical information that can empower educators to address student needs. Using information from diagnostic assessments requires educators to…

Many students in the upper elementary grades and beyond uniquely struggle with reading comprehension, necessitating explicit instruction and remediation in this area. This U.S. study used data-based decision-making (DBDM), a research-based systematic approach to student data collection and analysis, to intensify the evidence-based Strategies for…

The present study employed a difference-in-difference approach to determine the impact of a technologically enhanced diagnostic and formative assessment system implemented in one US state in kindergarten through third grade on school-level end-of-year third-grade reading test scores and percentage of students receiving special education services.…

Curriculum-based measurement in reading (CBM-R) is a commonly used tool for universal screening and progress monitoring in K-12 education and is one that can add value to decision-making. However, the social validity of this measure among teachers is often questioned. Reasons some teachers have traditionally opposed the use of CBM-R have included…

Despite a growing focus on access to and use of emergent literacy assessment in early childhood, little is known about early childhood teachers' data practices and their associations with children's emergent literacy skills. A questionnaire was used to confirm and elaborate findings from prior qualitative work (Schachter & Piasta, 2022)…

The idea of data-based decision-making (DBDM) at the classroom level is that teachers use assessment data to adapt their instruction to students' individual needs and thus improve students' learning progress. In this study, we first investigate this theoretically assumed DBDM process, and second, we evaluate the effectiveness of teacher support on…

Accurate and efficient universal screening is a foundational component of multi-tiered systems of support for reading. By the time students reach middle school, educators often have extant data available to inform screening decisions. Therefore, the decision to collect additional data to inform screening should be considered carefully. The…

The use of online literacy applications is proliferating in elementary classrooms. Using data generated by these applications is assumed to be helpful for teachers to identify struggling readers. Unfortunately, many teachers are unsure how to use and interpret the plethora of data from these apps. In this longitudinal study, we followed a cohort…

State education agencies are sitting on rich repositories of quantitative and qualitative assessment data. This document is designed to provide a conceptual framework and implementation guidance that can help agency leadership leverage and interrogate student performance data in systematic ways for reporting, outreach, and planning purposes. The…

Over the past three decades Australia has developed an increasingly advanced national system of student assessments, results from which have been used to identify areas of growth, stagnation or decline in student learning. For the most part, trends in different standardised assessments have been considered in isolation. By examining literacy and…

The Early Literacy Program focuses on the development of early literacy skills, with additional emphasis placed on intervention for students at risk of not meeting grade-based reading benchmarks. Resources available to aid these students include interventions and supports for students in grades kindergarten through third grade, standards and…