Monitoring Student Progress in Reading
Reading is assessed within the subject of Mother Tongue and Literature. The Finnish National Agency for Education conducted national assessments of learning outcomes as part of its responsibility for developing education until 2014, when the responsibility of assessments was transferred to the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre. Primarily conducted at the end of basic education, national assessments are sample-based and focus on the central content of the national curriculum. The latest national assessment of Mother Tongue and Literature (Finnish and Swedish) was administered to ninth grade students in 2014 and focused on grammar, basic concepts of linguistics and literature, and writing skills. Students in Grade 9 were assessed in 2010 with a focus on basic concepts of linguistics and communication, variation of language in different contexts, sentence structure, and vocabulary. The latest assessment for Grades 1 to 6 was in 2005, and focused on third grade students’ skills on basic concepts of Finnish linguistics, grammar, and vocabulary.30
National assessments provide schools and teachers with updates about the knowledge and skills of their students in relation to other schools and national objectives of instruction.31 Teachers are responsible for student assessment in the classroom and may decide on the methods of assessment, which typically include examinations made by teachers, examinations based on the textbook, and continual observation of student progress.