Salisbury North R-7 School: Assessment tools

Developmental Assessment Resource for Teachers (DART)

We chose this tool because we had to find some national measurement against which to measure our students when we began the project. DART is ideal because it has been developed by the Australian Council for Education Research (ACER), and uses national Profiles against which to measure students. Until 2001, South Australia also used the national Profiles as their unit of measurement. DART was also used in the 1997 National Literacy Survey so we had a very large cohort of Year 3 and 5 students against which to measure our own.

When we began the project, we were determined to work on all aspects of literacy, including listening and speaking (hence the name of the project). However, we quickly decided against focusing on speaking as well as reading and writing. One reason was the short time line we were given before the end of the official project (6 months). The other reason was that the DART speaking assessment tool is too vague to provide us with data to measure distance travelled in a child's performance. It does not take into account dialect or register as criteria for measuring student performance, and consequently was of little use to us.

The Viewing, Reading and Writing measurement tools, however, are very useful. They are integrated within one topic, so that by 'building the field' in one area, we are able to test all three aspects of literacy. There is a kit for Middle and Upper Primary, and the pro forma provided to record results gave us both summative and diagnostic information which we use to inform our teaching. The downside of the kit is that it is very time consuming; it takes the best part of one week to administer each part of the test to all qualifying students. They participate in groups at the appropriate year levels.

Viewing and Reading tests are marked by individual teachers. The writing test, however, is open to interpretation, and consequently a team of teachers mark these to ensure moderation.

Marie Clay Early Diagnostic Test

This test was chosen because it is internationally recognised, and also provided some sort of cohort of similar ages against which to measure our students. The test is administered individually, and takes about an hour for each child. It is not without its faults, particularly in testing sight words and writing vocabulary. These tests disadvantage our beginning readers and spellers, in that they test sight words that the students may not yet have come across, and expect 100% accuracy in spelling, even when students might be attempting quite complicated words. Students able to write three letter blends rapidly will be privileged in this test.