Students As Partners: Using an Equity-Oriented Critical Assessment Practices (CAPS) Approach in Reading to Empower Students and Inform Instruction

This article offers a framework for more equitable classroom reading assessment known as a Critical Assessment Practices (CAPS) approach. CAPS includes a set of four principles that teachers can use to partner with, and to empower, students to support more equitable and informative classroom-based reading assessment. Teachers can apply the CAPS approach to examine and adjust existing classroom reading assessment to make it more equitable and productive for students. The authors first describe a CAPS approach, then outline five stages teachers can use as they partner with students throughout assessment. Finally, the authors offer an example of how one first grade teacher applied a CAPS approach to adjust her existing assessment.