Evaluation of the National Assessment of Educational Progress - Literature review Example

Recent reports by the NTC assisted in bringing out the significance of writing and reading proficiency that was released into the public domain for debate (4). Ghraib also highlighted several key elements found to be fundamental to the improvement of the writing skills and experience to the youth taking English as a foreign language (64). He defined strict guidelines that both the learners and the tutors must abide by so that learning both written and spoken English could be of great assistance to the students (Ghraib 67).

NTC’s report sought to candidly address the teaching of both spoken and written English to ESL learners through hypothetical analysis of the levels the learners are expected to reach in English writing while examining, the effectiveness of the present pedagogical or instructional methods employed for teaching writing skills in Saudi Arabia.  The National Assessment of Educational Progress took a study that was aimed at determining the writing skills of fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders and recorded their scores in three levels of skills.

These levels are basic, proficient, or advanced. An alarming discovery was that around 20% to 25% of learners passed the Proficient level among the three grades and that a handful of the graders were found to be able to write in the Advanced level as depicted in the study. To make it worse, a great proportion of learners were established to be ranging below the Basic level. In addition, 15% of fourth and eighth graders and 25% of twelfth graders rated below the Basic level. However, about 60%, 55%, and 50% of learners ranked at the Basic level.

In total, at least 70% of fourth-graders, 65% of eighth-grader, and 80% of the twelfth grader did not attain the NAEP requirements in writing skills. NAEP concluded from the results that there was a need for quick interventions to aid the youth to become better writers. The majority especially those who score at or below the Basic level during the NAEP test required more help than others (16).