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- abstract below
- a PowerPoint presentation is available on the conference CD.
For details of how to obtain the CD, please contact the BDA.

Educational assessment by specialist teachers: the Dyslexia Institute model and the ladder of quality

Martin Turner

The Dyslexia Institute, Staines, London mvlturner@clara.co.uk

Abstract

Between the teacher who is happily oblivious of all that is involved in assessment, and the intrepid specialist who attains the BPS Level A in Educational Testing, there are many steps: these are like rungs on a ladder. Over the last fourteen years, the Dyslexia Institute has evolved - pioneered - the training of teachers from the non-specialist to the certificate, to the diploma, to the post-qualification levels of update courses and continuing professional development (CPD). It may be timely to review these levels of specialist knowledge of assessment that are achieved by teachers, to see in what they consist and to determine how such knowledge aggregates from one level to the next. In part this is a matter of giving the teacher access to good quality tests (and persuading her not to use others of unacceptably low quality); in part of how greater sophistication in statistics and psychometrics can resolve many surface problems and dilemmas. In addition to such recently enhanced theoretical content in training, however, there are formidable problems in practical training also, notably in the phonological testing that is central to dyslexia assessment. This presentation will attempt to convey an overview of what we have achieved and the distance still to go.

Disclaimer: all the abstracts presented here have satisfied the academic committee as appropriate for presentation at an international conference. However, the material reflects the views of the authors, not necessarily those of the academic committee or the BDA. No endorsement of any approach, product or service is intended or implied.

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