Book excerpt: "Classroom-based formative assessment monitors student progress, and also impacts your planning and instruction. An important everyday consideration of your planning and teaching is assessment. You control some of this. Understanding the important role of assessment not only in measuring student progress, but also in monitoring and informing instruction. Assessment of student learning is the responsibility of every school district, every school, and every teacher. Understanding and being able to use assessment to assist in teacher planning and instruction is an important element of a teacher's preparation and ongoing success in the classroom. Such assessment literacy includes being able to create, select, and effectively use classroom assessments and being able to select and effectively interpret and use results from external summative assessments"--