These workshops included practice sessions with the instruments. The assessors were essential to the success of this project. They brought a wealth of experience as elementary classroom teachers and a deep knowledge of reading literacy. They increased the reliability and validity of the assessment data. Initially, we had planned to rely on university students as assessors. However, we realized they did not have the background to effectively gather the quantitative and qualitative data.

In developing the workshop training, we hired a literacy consultant, Jane Abernethy, to plan the workshops and provide the training. We appreciated her commitment to this project.

Findings and Analysis

This section reports on the quantitative results of the assessments. The following results are from two assessment periods. The initial assessments were completed in the fall of the grade 4 school year. These same students were assessed at the end of the project while they were in grade 5.