Informal Assessment Strategies: Asking Questions, Observing Students, and Planning Lessons That Promote Successful Interaction with Text

Luke Lawson is a teacher and administrator in Vancouver, B.C.

Aimed at the Grades 3–9 teacher and educator, this slender book
presents a number of literary-promoting strategies.

Referring at times to her own experiences , Charlton focuses on
assessment of reading and writing skills through discussions of
approaches to formal assessment, observing and recording how the student
processes text, assessing comprehension, independent reading as a time
for assessment, and using assessment results to make instructional
choices. While some of the ideas presented in the book are good (for
example, student/teacher conferences and peer sharing), the author tends
to simplify much of the assessment of student progress on reproducible
worksheets—the antithesis, as a far as this reviewer is concerned, of
creative writing and expanded reading.

None of the book’s content is new or really inspiring; much of it is
taught in teacher education courses. In addition, some chapters are too
short to be of practical use. Further detail in many of the chapters and
the removal of the numerous worksheets would have made this book a
better guide.