Teacher Accuracy: An Examination of Teacher-Based Judgments of Students' Reading With Differing Achievement Levels

The authors asked 74 teachers to predict average- and low-performing students' reading performance using a rating scale and actual curriculum-based measures of oral reading fluency. The authors compared teachers' judgments with students' performance on curriculum-based measures and a standardized achievement measure of reading. Comparisons between the accuracy of teacher judgment, as reflected in correlational relations among measures, and a how-close analysis showed that although correlations between predicted teacher scores and actual student performance ranged from moderate to strong, teachers did poorly in a how-close analysis comparing actual with predicted student scores. Teachers had lower levels of accuracy for lower achieving students. The authors discuss practical implications relative to teacher judgments of student performance.