Balancing the priorities of the classroom teacher with the imperatives of high stakes assessment of reading: An English perspective

Abstract

The question underpinning this paper, and the international symposium on reading assessment at the University of Nottingham which preceded it, is this: “In what ways can we learn from each other how to improve reading assessment, at the personal, classroom, local and national levels?” This paper will attempt to answer the question “How can we learn from each other?” in the following ways: first some background information on the New Paradigms in Reading Assessment (NPRA) seminar will be presented; second, an account will be offered about what has been happening in language arts assessment (the subject termed ‘English’) in the United Kingdom, which goes some way to explaining why in England there has been a particularly urgent need to learn from the experiences of other countries; third, some examples will be given of new approaches to assessment in other countries, particularly the United States, Australia, and Scotland (which has the same government, but a different education system from that in England and Wales) from which those of us in England might learn; fourth, some principles which might underpin new assessment approaches within the English system will be put forward; and finally, an indication will be given of how some of these principles are being put into practice in classrooms in England, as pilot work on an international collaborative study.