The Swedish National Agency's compulsory assessment : An effective early identification of students in need of extra support?

In Sweden, a compulsory national assessment of all students’ reading skills has been implemented by the National Agency at the end of 1st grade to improve early identification of students in need of extra support in their reading development. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate to what extent the compulsory criterion-referenced assessment identifies children with poor reading skills in comparison to two commonly used standardized and norm-referenced assessment materials measuring word reading skills and reading comprehension. Fifty-three Swedish students participated in the compulsory national assessment at the end of 1st grade and were administered the norm-referenced assessments of reading comprehension and word reading at the beginning of grade 2. Furthermore, a survey was distributed to 27 teachers in primary school to explore teachers’ experiences of using the compulsory national assessment in grade 1. Results indicated that the national compulsory assessment in grade 1 only identified 8 % of the students identified with reading comprehension difficulties and weak word reading skills in the norm-referenced standardized assessment in grade 2. A majority (70 %) of the teachers question the criterion based national assessments’ capacity to identify children at risk in their reading development. Implications for early identification of reading difficulties in Swedish primary school are discussed