Initiating Assessment of Student Needs in Content Areas

As students move through the elementary grades they encounter more and more reading in the content areas: social studies, science, mathematics, and English. Most teachers are aware of the burden that vocabulary and concept load place upon each student\u27s ability to understand what he/she has read. Although teachers usually group students according to reading ability to facilitate basal reading instruction, there is often little or no effort expended to meet individual or group reading needs in the content areas. One reason for this neglect may be that teachers lack systematic ways of assessing students\u27 mastery of the technical vocabulary in the content areas