We know children develop literacy and their ability to construct meaning by 'trying out' their reading and writing and making approximations. Therefore, tests or procedures that require absolute mastery at a given level or complete mastery of a given set of words before moving to a new book are completely contrary to how we know children learn. We must select assessment tasks that honor children's developmental levels of learning. At the same time, we must consider the cultural diversity of our classrooms. We must take these into consideration as we plan our assessment procedures.
Effective assessment identifies students' strengths.
Children learn to construct meaning by doing what they already know how to do and by getting support in gaining new strategies and techniques. Effective assessment therefore must help us identify what our students do well. This is contrary to how students acquire language and contrary to how they learn to construct meaning. Assessment must be based on what we know about how students learn to read and write. This entire text has focused on how students learn to read and write and construct meaning.