This book about reading tracks and questions the 30-year campaign that has focused on testing, accountability, and federalization of education to demonstrate that it is not just whole language advocates who are having problems with the National Reading Panel report and the new education laws. The book gathers together a comprehensive collection of…

One of the most threatening events that causes anxiety in students today is testing. When students develop an extreme fear of performing poorly on an examination, they experience test anxiety. Test anxiety is a major factor contributing to a variety of negative outcomes including psychological distress, academic underachievement, academic failure,…

A literate mind is the kind of mind people need to do their jobs well, to adjust as their jobs change, and to be able to change jobs when they need to or want to. This paper contends that today, not enough adults have this kind of literacy, nor are students learning it well enough. A literate mind matters in the following contexts: in changing…

This book explains how to administer, score, and interpret the Basic Reading Inventory. Included are graded word lists and graded passages that can be used with students to help place them in appropriate reading materials, to assess their comprehension, and to determine their strategies for word identification. Significant additions to the seventh…

Providing an overview of some of the effective ways of helping students to develop and improve their spelling skills, this book emphasizes the importance of explicit teaching. The first chapter considers current issues and perspectives in spelling. The second chapter discusses how children acquire spelling skills, and the third chapter discusses…

This position statement from the Conference on College Composition and Communication begins with a "foundation claim": in all situations calling for writing assessment, the primary purpose of the specific assessment should govern its design, implementation, and the generation and dissemination of its results. It describes 10 assumptions about…

Project GRAD is a non-profit prekindergarten through college reform initiative begun by James Ketelsen, a former CEO of Tenneco, to help students in high-poverty schools to gain the skills and then the financial assistance to go on to college. Success for All is a literacy strategy used by GRAD. Other programmatic components include GRAD…

Whenever international assessments of student achievement are conducted, in which tests of subject matter knowledge are given to students around the world, the United States scores poorly. In this issue of "The Claremont Letter," the author identifies three mistakes American educators make that undermine student learning, and suggests…

This article describes the events leading to the National Education Association policy statement that encouraged the elimination of group standardized intelligence aptitude, and achievement tests to assess student potential or achievement until completion of a critical appraisal, review, and revision of current testing programs. The NEA also…

Testing instructional materials with individual subjects produces unique and invaluable data for revising the instructional materials. Examples of the procedures and the usefulness of individual testing demonstrate the critical importance of the technique in developing validated instruction. (Author)

Reviewed are studies on the educability of intelligence through intervention programs with preschool mentally retarded children. (DB)

Note taking and verbalization are considered as instrumental student activities which influence the relationship between the learning task and the learning outcomes. Alternative theoretical explanations for the effects of note taking and verbalization are discussed, and a structure for future research on these topics is provided. (Author)

Describes an elementary science methods course at Eastern Illinois University designed to interest pre-service elementary teachers in the process of science. Instead of a traditional final examination, students select an open-ended problem and report the results of their investigations. Fifty sample research problems are listed. (JR)

Fifty-seven learning disabled or emotionally disturbed students, 8- to 12-years-old, IQ, 80-129, were given a visual and an auditory memory test to obtain reliability data on the two tests, and to determine the relationship of the tests to the children's reading and listening behavior. (MC)