A revolution of sorts is coming to primary schools. For the first time standardised tests will be used in every primary school. These will tell parents how their child is doing in relation to national averages in literacy and maths. So, how will they work? Eugene Wallprovides a guide for parents

What is happening at the moment with regard to standardised testing?

At present, significantly more than 80 per cent of pupils in Irish primary schools between first class and sixth class have their progress in reading assessed each year by means of a standardised test. The corresponding figure for maths may be somewhat lower but part of the reason is that for a period of time over the past few years the main tests were not fully aligned with the revised maths curriculum.

As a result, a small number of schools had stopped administering tests in this area. Nonetheless, teachers do assess pupil progress in these areas through other means such as teacher-designed tests and informal assessment.

Standardised testing in schools is largely confined to these two areas - reading and maths.

A small number of pupils are also tested on general ability tests, sometimes referred to as intelligence tests. Some of this testing is conducted by schools, but in the main it is being done by clinical psychologists or by educational psychologists from the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS).

What changes are about to take place?

From this year, all national schools will be required to test pupils in reading and maths using standardised tests at two points during their schooling. The first of these points is at the end of first class or the beginning of second class. The second is at the end of fourth class or the beginning of fifth class. Schools may choose whether to test at the beginning or the end of the school year. Schools will also be in a position to choose which tests they use, as long as the tests have been specifically developed for pupils in this country and are based on the revised primary school curriculum.

In practice, this means that schools will use existing tests, such as the Drumcondra tests in reading and maths or the MICRA-T and SIGMA-T, which were developed in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

Why are we doing this?

Standardised tests can provide teachers and parents with valuable information about the learning progress of children. Teachers already gather quite a lot of assessment information about children's progress across the spectrum of curriculum subjects but standardised tests can add an important dimension. One of their main strengths is that they enable teachers to compare the performance of pupils in their classes and in their school with national standards of achievement. Teachers and parents will therefore have an objective and reliable measure of how well pupils are progressing.

Secondly, not only are these tests used to help identify which children are experiencing learning problems - which most teachers will already know - but they are designed to quantify the extent of the problem too.

For example, by administering a reading test, a teacher might establish that a particular child's reading level is in the bottom 2 per cent of children nationally. Establishing the seriousness of a learning difficulty is an important first step in deciding how to try and overcome the problem. Standardised test results help teachers to decide which pupils require learning support and they are also used to identify which pupils qualify for specialist resource teaching. Furthermore, once a child's learning problem is identified and quantified through standardised testing, more intensive diagnostic testing can be initiated to pinpoint both the specific areas of difficulty and, possibly, the cause of the problem.

It is especially important that children with reading disabilities are identified at the earliest possible stage. Some American research demonstrates that where children with reading disabilities are not identified and provided with appropriate teaching interventions by age nine, in three-quarters of such cases their problems are likely to persist into their late teens and possibly beyond.

On the other hand, standardised achievement tests can also highlight where pupils are making adequate or even exceptional progress.

Test results provide important confirmation of this for parents, for children and for their teachers. Standardised tests can also provide useful feedback to teachers on those areas of the curriculum which children have mastered, as well as indicating areas requiring further attention. They can, therefore, be of benefit to teachers in programme and lesson planning.

Will the tests identify children with dyslexia?

The tests will certainly identify children who are experiencing problems in learning to read. However, there are many different causes of reading problems, of which dyslexia is but one. In order to establish the precise cause or causes of a child's reading difficulties, it may be necessary to administer a range of diagnostic tests. Depending upon the type and the extent of the reading problem, this additional testing may be conducted either by a learning support teacher, a resource teacher or, in some cases by a psychologist. Where dyslexia is suspected, it may be necessary to obtain an educational psychological assessment as a test of general ability is often required.

Will parents get a report card?

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) - an advisory group to the Minister for Education - is currently trialling a range of different types of report cards which will be made available for use by schools.

These report cards will contain a section where a teacher can give details of a child's performance on the relevant standardised tests. As part of this trialling, teachers and parents are looking at how best to present the results so that they make most sense to parents. The report cards currently being trialled are available on www.ncca.ie.

However, the optimal way of providing this information is in the context of a parent-teacher meeting where the teacher and parent(s) can not only discuss the child's performance on the test but can also discuss its significance and its implications.

Will the school ever withhold information?

Under the terms of the Education Act 1998, schools are required to report regularly to parents and guardians on the educational progress of their children. FOI legislation also entitles parents to receive information on test scores. Currently, when schools communicate with parents, they do not necessarily supply test results in all their formats.

Test results are expressed in terms of percentiles, standard scores, STEN scores and, sometimes in the case of reading tests, reading ages. Schools differ in the ways in which they report this information to parents. As a result of the trialling of new report cards, it is likely that schools will adopt a common approach to the reporting of standardised test scores to parents.

Secondly, although standardised test results are generally very reliable, the score obtained by an individual child can sometimes be erroneous and therefore misleading. For example, a child who is quite proficient at maths may underperform on a standardised test due a range of factors such as high anxiety, fatigue, lack of persistence, lack of care, lack of test motivation or poor test-taking skills. This is why it is important for teachers to calibrate test scores against other indicators of a pupil's ability. Where a teacher is convinced that a child's test score is not an accurate estimate of his or her real ability, it is sometimes better to disregard the result altogether rather than generate unwarranted anxiety on the part of a parent.

On the other hand, some teachers may prefer to report the score to parents but provide reassurance by pointing out why, in their judgment, the score is inaccurate.

Is there any cost to parents?

On the contrary, the Department of Education and Science is providing a grant to each school to cover the cost of buying the tests. Up until now, this cost was borne by parents in many schools.

Can you coach your child for the test?

The main standardised tests can be purchased only by teachers and schools so most parents would not be familiar with the content of the tests. Besides, it would be self-defeating for a parent to coach a child on the specific content of a test.

The whole purpose of administering the test is to establish whether a child is making appropriate progress and, if not, to put in place the necessary measures to address the child's particular learning needs. By artificially inflating a child's score, a false impression would be created of how well the child is performing and this would not be in the child's interest.

Coaching on tests and, indeed, cheating on test administration, is more a feature of educational systems which use "high-stakes" testing. With this type of testing, there are major negative consequences for pupils, for teachers and/or for schools if they produce poor test scores.

Is Ireland one of the few OECD states without standardised testing?

As already mentioned, a considerable level of standardised testing is already taking place in Irish schools and the level of test use has been growing in recent years in line with the increasing emphasis in Irish schools on meeting the needs of pupils with learning difficulties.

In virtually all OECD countries, there is a heightened awareness of the role that educational assessment can play in improving national standards of achievement, particularly in the areas of literacy and numeracy.

In many of these countries there is a corresponding realisation that unlocking the potential of educational assessment cannot be accomplished by standardised testing alone. The increased use of other equally valid forms of assessment by teachers throughout the learning process (formative assessment) can greatly enhance the quality of pupil learning in schools.

However, in some countries there is an unhealthy fixation on test scores and especially on their power to create accountability. This is usually accompanied by a belief on the part of policy makers that standardised testing can, and should, be used as a major instrument to drive school reform.

The approach being adopted in this country is, in my view, more balanced and judicious. It recognises the modest benefits of standardised tests but avoids the damaging excesses of high stakes testing that have been evident in other countries.

There is little sense that the tests will be used to help compile school league tables or to pit one school into competition with another.

Dr Eugene Wall is the vice-president of academic affairs at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick. He is a co-author of many of the tests now in use in primary schools.