[AAACE-NLA] FW: NOT THE USUAL KIND OF ASSESSMENT

[David Collings]

NOT THE USUAL KIND OF ASSESSMENT.  "Assessment Strategies and Reading
Profiles" is a new web site funded by NIFL's Partnership for Reading
project, through a grant to the National Center for the Study of Adult
Learning and Literacy.    The web site is for adult education
practitioners on the DIAGNOSTIC assessment of reading.  As an
interactive site, teachers are able to find out about a learner's
reading strengths and needs when they enter a learner's scores on a few
reading sub-skills.  The learner is matched to one of 11 groups of ABE
participants from the Adult Reading Component Study (ARCS) who show a
similar pattern of scores.  Information about the matched ARCS group
highlights the focus of instruction for the learner being assessed.  The
site also offers a mini-course in reading, resources and references to
research.  
The ARCS was a study done by NCSALL researchers that assessed the
reading and language skills of nearly 1000 adult learners in seven
states.  The researchers grouped these learners based on the similarity
of their reading profiles, yielding a rich portrait of the types of
readers found in adult education classes.  The "Assessment Strategies
and Reading Profiles" site has more information about the ARCS.

Try the site   http://www.nifl.gov/readingprofiles/ and give us your
feedback. 

Rosalind Davidson
Research Associate
National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy Harvard
Graduate School of Education Nichols House Cambridge, MA 02138
tel: (617) 496-8952
fax: (617) 495 4811