Showcasing assessment practices that can help teachers plan effective instruction, this book addresses the real-world complexities of teaching literacy in grades K-8. Leading contributors present trustworthy approaches that examine learning processes as well as learning products, that yield information on how the learning environment can be improved, and that are conducted in the context of authentic reading and writing activities. The volume provides workable, nuts-and-bolts ideas for incorporating assessment into instruction in all major literacy domains and with diverse learners, including students in high-poverty schools and those with special learning needs. It is illustrated throughout with helpful concrete examples. This book is divided into four Parts and nineteen chapters. Part I: Foundations for Trustworthy Classroom Assessment of Children's Literacy Knowledge, begins with: (1) Inquiry-Oriented Assessment (Sheila W. Valencia); (2) A Pathway for Connecting Standards with Assessment: Backward Mapping of Assessment Tasks (Mark W. Conley and Kristine Gritter); (3) Promoting and Assessing Effective Literacy Learning Classroom Environments (D. Ray Reutzel and Lesley Mandel Morrow); and (4) Assessing Children's Motivation for Reading and Writing (Linda B. Gambrell and Victoria Ridgeway Gillis). Part II: Assessing Word Knowledge and Reading Fluency, continues with these chapters: (5) Language and Literacy Assessment in Preschool (Lea M. McGee); (6) Assessing Word Recognition (David Chard, Sara McDonagh, Sangeun Lee, and Virginia Reece); (7) Effective Oral Reading Assessment (or Why Round Robin Reading Doesn't Cut It) (Melanie R. Kuhn); and (8) Assessing Students' Spelling Knowledge: Relationships to Reading and Writing (Shane Templeton, Donald R. Bear, and Sandra Madura). Part III: Assessing Comprehension and Composition includes: (9) Assessing Vocabulary: Examining Knowledge about Words and about Word Learning (Janis M. Harmon, Wanda B. Hedrick, Lina Soares, and Michelle Gress); (10) Assessing Literacy Understanding through Book Talk (Nancy L. Roser with Charles Fuhrken and Peggy Semingson); (11) Assessing Strategic Reading (Peter Afflerbach, Heather Ruetschlin, and Sharon Russell); (12) Assessing Students' Understanding of Informational Text in Intermediate-and Middle-Level Classrooms (Karen D. Wood, D. Bruce Taylor, Brenda Drye, and M. Joyce Brigman); and (13) Assessing Student Writing (Karen Bromley). Part IV: Broadening the Context: Looking across Assessments, Classrooms, and Schools, provides: (14) A Classroom Portfolio System: Assessment "Is" Instruction (Susan Mandel Glazer); (15) Formative Uses of Assessment: Cases from the Primary Grades (Camille L. Z. Blachowicz, Roberta Buhle, Sharon Frost, and Ann Bates); (16) Authentic Assessment of Authentic Student Work in Urban Classrooms (Kathryn Glasswell and William H.Teale); (17) Putting CIA System to Work: Linking Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment to Improve Student Achievement (Douglas Fisher, Diane Lapp, Nancy Frey, James Flood, and Kelly Moore); (18) Developing an Individualized Education Plan: What Counts as Evidence? (Rachel L. McCormack, P. David Pearson, and Jeanne R. Paratore) and (19) Classroom Assessment and Standards-Based Change (Kathryn Au and Taffy Raphael).