Overview

Improving Learning Through Dynamic Assessment is a practical tool for helping to assess and support children aged 4+ with learning challenges based on an innovative approach. Contrasting with traditional 'static' assessment methods, this resource enables educational psychologists and related professionals to involve the child actively in the process of assessment - allowing them to measure not just what the child has learnt, but also how the child learns, how responsive they are to attempts to intevene, and what is holding them back from learning. It outlines the relevant theory and offers a staged assessment process to follow, with strategies for assessing cognitive and affective capacity. The resource contains all you need to carry out dynamic assessment, featuring photocopiable activities, checklists, handouts for teachers/parents to use with children and training materials which explain the approach in terms understandable to all participating adults. The first practical resource on how to carry out this popular and innovative form of assessment, Improving Learning through Dynamic Assessment is an important resource for educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs), specialist support teachers and other professionals working with children with learning challenges.

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9781849053730

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Reviews

Dynamic assessment sounds an interesting concept and should be practical to implement within the classroom. The materials contained in the book and on the website look as though they could add another layer of assessment input regarding the pupil. This resource would complement the toolkit of many professionals. -- Special Children This will be an excellent resource for educational psychologists and fellow professionals for carrying out the sometimes complex ideas underpinning the dynamic assessment approach. Highly recommended. -- Dr Simon Gibbs, Reader in Educational Psychology, Programme Director for Initial Training in Educational Psychology (DAppEdPsy), Newcastle University, UK Lauchlan and Carrigan have managed to do something that many attempt, and fail. They have produced a very usable book which bridges the gap between theory and practice in applied psychology. For too long dynamic assessment remained in the hands of academics and it always sounded like a good idea but in practice there was little guidance for practitioners to make the move from the more traditional forms of cognitive assessment to a dynamic approach. I cannot recommend this book highly enough and it should be in the hands of all practising educational (school) psychologists. -- Dr Chris Boyle, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Inclusive Education, Monash University, Australia The book briefly summarises dynamic assessment and the basic principles... The emphasis of the book seems to be to provide lots of practical ideas and resources...it more accurately suits upper primary children... could be used with some secondary aged students with significant language or literacy difficulties... This book is as it describes, a very practical resource packed full of useful ideas and readymade resources that can be photocopied. These can be used with a variety of different presenting difficulties. -- Emma Baldwin, SLT NAPLIC Matters The book provides guidelines for all stages and divides DA into two broad themes-cognitive and effective-with checklists and principles for both. There are profile sheets, factors sheets, and tailored strategies that are matched to the learning profile checklists and break down learning principles by theme. Not only does each stage have accompanying photocopy-ready handouts, there are also professional development materials to provide to teachers. Involving teachers, parents, and the students themselves in the stages of DA is very important and this is made easy using the structures and tools supplied. In all, this is a valuable, well-structured book. It is full of useable strategies and aids for planning and implementing interventions guided by dynamic assessments. The Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist The intention behind this book is to provide an accessible and efficient version of dynamic assessment, which can be used by educational psychologists and others in schools to provide ideas for focused intervention... I thoroughly approve of the way this approach has been designed to be very accessible to classroom teachers and to provide a framework for collaboration in which insights from dynamic assessment can be integrated into a simple intervention plan, which is also accessible to the child. The handbook has some notable strengths, I found the checklists of learning and affective principles helpful in structuring observations and the child-friendly versions of the learning principles have been cleverly designed... I found this to be a theoretically-sound and practical handbook. It offers a useful entry point for those wanting to begin doing some dynamic assessment and a helpful additional resource for those with additional experience of the field. -- Nick Bozic Educational Psychologist, Worcestershire EPS and University of Birmingham Debate - British Psychological Society

"Dynamic assessment sounds an interesting concept and should be practical to implement within the classroom. The materials contained in the book and on the website look as though they could add another layer of assessment input regarding the pupil. This resource would complement the toolkit of many professionals. -- Special Children This will be an excellent resource for educational psychologists and fellow professionals for carrying out the sometimes complex ideas underpinning the dynamic assessment approach. Highly recommended. -- Dr Simon Gibbs, Reader in Educational Psychology, Programme Director for Initial Training in Educational Psychology (DAppEdPsy), Newcastle University, UK Lauchlan and Carrigan have managed to do something that many attempt, and fail. They have produced a very usable book which bridges the gap between theory and practice in applied psychology. For too long dynamic assessment remained in the hands of academics and it always sounded like a good idea but in practice there was little guidance for practitioners to make the move from the more traditional forms of cognitive assessment to a dynamic approach. I cannot recommend this book highly enough and it should be in the hands of all practising educational (school) psychologists. -- Dr Chris Boyle, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Inclusive Education, Monash University, Australia The book briefly summarises dynamic assessment and the basic principles... The emphasis of the book seems to be to provide lots of practical ideas and resources...it more accurately suits upper primary children... could be used with some secondary aged students with significant language or literacy difficulties... This book is as it describes, a very practical resource packed full of useful ideas and readymade resources that can be photocopied. These can be used with a variety of different presenting difficulties. -- Emma Baldwin, SLT * NAPLIC Matters * The book provides guidelines for all stages and divides DA into two broad themes-cognitive and effective-with checklists and principles for both. There are profile sheets, factors sheets, and tailored strategies that are matched to the learning profile checklists and break down learning principles by theme. Not only does each stage have accompanying photocopy-ready handouts, there are also professional development materials to provide to teachers. Involving teachers, parents, and the students themselves in the stages of DA is very important and this is made easy using the structures and tools supplied. In all, this is a valuable, well-structured book. It is full of useable strategies and aids for planning and implementing interventions guided by dynamic assessments. -- The Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist The intention behind this book is to provide an accessible and efficient version of dynamic assessment, which can be used by educational psychologists and others in schools to provide ideas for focused intervention... I thoroughly approve of the way this approach has been designed to be very accessible to classroom teachers and to provide a framework for collaboration in which insights from dynamic assessment can be integrated into a simple intervention plan, which is also accessible to the child. The handbook has some notable strengths, I found the checklists of learning and affective principles helpful in structuring observations and the child-friendly versions of the learning principles have been cleverly designed... I found this to be a theoretically-sound and practical handbook. It offers a useful entry point for those wanting to begin doing some dynamic assessment and a helpful additional resource for those with additional experience of the field. -- Nick Bozic Educational Psychologist, Worcestershire EPS and University of Birmingham * Debate - British Psychological Society * This is a succinctly written, easily accessible and practical ""how to""guide for dynamic assessment... Hard to find anything not to like about this resource as it does what it says on the tin... Recommended for: essential reading for educational psychologists and other professionals working with children and young people who are interested in the dynamic assessment approach. -- Jagdish Barn, Practice Lead/Chartered Educational Psychologist, FocusPsychology * Educational Psychology in Practice *"

Dynamic assessment sounds an interesting concept and should be practical to implement within the classroom. The materials contained in the book and on the website look as though they could add another layer of assessment input regarding the pupil. This resource would complement the toolkit of many professionals. -- Special Children This will be an excellent resource for educational psychologists and fellow professionals for carrying out the sometimes complex ideas underpinning the dynamic assessment approach. Highly recommended. -- Dr Simon Gibbs, Reader in Educational Psychology, Programme Director for Initial Training in Educational Psychology (DAppEdPsy), Newcastle University, UK Lauchlan and Carrigan have managed to do something that many attempt, and fail. They have produced a very usable book which bridges the gap between theory and practice in applied psychology. For too long dynamic assessment remained in the hands of academics and it always sounded like a good idea but in practice there was little guidance for practitioners to make the move from the more traditional forms of cognitive assessment to a dynamic approach. I cannot recommend this book highly enough and it should be in the hands of all practising educational (school) psychologists. -- Dr Chris Boyle, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Inclusive Education, Monash University, Australia The book briefly summarises dynamic assessment and the basic principles... The emphasis of the book seems to be to provide lots of practical ideas and resources...it more accurately suits upper primary children... could be used with some secondary aged students with significant language or literacy difficulties... This book is as it describes, a very practical resource packed full of useful ideas and readymade resources that can be photocopied. These can be used with a variety of different presenting difficulties. -- Emma Baldwin, SLT NAPLIC Matters

Author Information

Fraser Lauchlan is an experienced educational psychologist and owner of Fraser Lauchlan Associates, which offers training and consultancy work relating to educational psychology (www.fraserlauchlan.com). He is honorary lecturer at the School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Scotland, and is Visiting Professor at the University of Cagliari, Sardinia. He divides his time between the UK and Italy. He has published extensively in many areas of educational psychology: his most recent research has explored the cognitive benefits of bilingualism in children who speak minority languages. Donna Carrigan is a Senior Educational Psychologist based in South Lanarkshire, Scotland and co-author of the Framework of Assessment and Intervention for Resilience (FAIR).

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