Diagnostic Evaluation of Writing Skills

The most accessible and useful material for diagnos-tic teaching is a student’s own writing. The written production is especially valuable because in the pro-cess of transferring thoughts to words, the student learns everything necessary to become a proficient reader and a good writer. The student with deficiencies in both areas welcomes diagnostic teaching. It gives him concrete evidence that improvement is possible if his mistakes are analyzed one at a time, then corrected with the teacher’s help until he is able to function independently in monitoring his own work. The complexity of the writing task makes evaluation of the written product difficult unless the components are separated for diagnosis and remediation. An example of a simplified, individualized assessment instrument is presented in a form that facilitates the