Assessment can sometimes feel like that pile of puzzle pieces—which ones fit together? How do data fit together to create a comprehensive picture of a school, classroom, or individual student? Much is now known regarding which skills are highly predictive of later reading outcomes, and several excellent tools are available for this purpose. In kindergarten and first grade, timed tasks including letter naming, basic phonemic awareness, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) provide insight into who is at risk and to a certain extent; why.

The science of reading ... has allowed me to transition from a traditional classroom teacher to a virtual classroom teacher. Anyone can open a reading program and read the scripted text, but what happens when you do not have that reading program? LETRS provides you with the why (science) and the how (science) to teach reading, no program needed. LETRS teaches the science of reading which can be applied to any student, while being based on their individual level.

After time away from live classroom instruction and what middle schoolers knew as the “norm,” how can we make the transition back to school easier, to engage students in learning immediately, and to effectively create literacy success for all students?

How does a test taker’s response, indicated through a selection or entry in a digital assessment, get evaluated and scored by a machine? It's easy to understand that computer code can be programmed to score a multiple-choice item. If the correct answer is selected by the test taker, that selection is compared to the correct answer in the scoring program and if it matches, it is then recorded as correct. But what happens with more sophisticated technology-enhanced items or items that require written responses like essays?

A selection of short, on-demand presentations to help you make the most of professional learning time this summer. Whenever you have 30 minutes to spare, you can join a quick and informative on-demand webinar hosted by expert educators, and expand what you already know about a variety of topics.

Writing your own items is one way to gather evidence from students about their knowledge and skills. This evidence can support inferences you make about student learning to help with decisions about the next unit of instruction, placement in learning groups, needs for remediation, and other classroom choices. For writing TEIs, there are some special considerations. Here are five tips to writing your own TEIs.