NAEP Board Initiates Reading-Test Overhaul

By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Washington

The governing board that oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress will weigh whether the framework for the NAEP reading test should be modified to better reflect changes in instruction over the past several years.

Such a shift in the reading assessment, which primarily tests students' comprehension and critical-thinking skills in grades 4, 8, and 12, could make it difficult—or impossible—to gauge student progress since previous tests.

The board hired a contractor last month to develop the NAEP reading framework that will serve as a guide for the test, beginning with its 2007 administration. For the first time, the contract does not require that future tests yield results comparable with those on previous NAEP exams. That flexibility could lead to changes that reflect what are deemed scientifically proven teaching methods, which are being promoted under the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001. Those methods, which have been guiding many state and local reading policies and practices in recent years, have led to a greater emphasis on the teaching of phonics and other basic skills...