Commentary

Entering first grade ready to learn takes more than a book and a pencil and the enthusiasm every young child brings to learning. To be better prepared for school, it helps for a child to have acquired certain basic, foundational skills.[1] Let’s look specifically at reading. When young Joy walks into her first-grade classroom on that momentous first day of school, what skills does her teacher hope she brings with her?

Assessment often gets a bad rap. Education stakeholders worry that teachers are teaching to the test rather than teaching to ensure that students have the skills they need to be successful in the world. They also worry that assessments sometimes get used for the wrong purposes—to punish low-performing schools or teachers, for instance—or don’t get used at all, wasting scarce resources. However, when used right—to inform instruction—assessments are absolutely critical. In low-income countries, the lack of systematic large-scale assessments has often meant that governments and other stakeholders do not have a clear picture of learning gaps, which handicaps efforts to address those gaps.