The goal of this booklet is to describe some of the special challenges posed by early childhood assessment in general, and particularly as they apply to Title I program evaluation. The booklet has four purposes: (1) to describe special issues in early childhood assessment; (2) to describe briefly alternative approaches to early childhood assessment; (3) to suggest how these issues relate to various purposes of assessment, particularly to that of Title I program evaluation; and (4) to provide some general guidelines on how to select and use early childhood tests and instruments. Subsequent chapters correspond to these four purposes, and appendices provide notes on recommended reading for further information on early childhood assessment, a listing of early childhood instruments and sources of review information on each, annotations to illustrate how potentially useful instruments can be initially screened, and descriptive reviews of instruments to illustrate information helpful in selecting among candidate instruments. The focus is on special issues in the educational assessment of young children. Educational assessment is broadly defined as systematic measurement, via testing or observation of individual behavior, traits, or other educationally relevant characteristics. (Author/GK)