Informal assessment, the use of teacher designed instruments that are based on materials actually used in the content area classroom, is used to determine the student's potential for success with particular materials and the areas of potential difficulty in these materials. Informal assessment also helps to determine the need for supportive reading instruction and for possible supplemental testing. As they build an informal inventory, teachers should be aware of the interaction between the text and the reader in three main areas: (1) the text--teachers need to look at the features of various units the students read in the class, particularly those that affect comprehension and recall; (2) the task--teachers should consider the skill the reader employs in reading the text and its various units as well as the situation in which it occurs; and (3) the reader--the teacher needs to recognize that the reader uses some or all of a configuration of possible strategies in processing the information. (Appendixes include a description of the task condition, suggestions for assessing competency in understanding word meaning in a variety of ways, and alternatives for assessing the student's abilities in using the conventions used by the text author to make the topic and the organization of the material clear.) (HOD)