Assessment is meaningful, practical, efficient, and ongoing.

The most common form of assessment in these early intervention programs is checking the students' oral reading of texts that have been part of instruction. Various terms such as running record, miscue analysis, and oral reading checks are used to describe the recording of a child's oral reading performance. Through a series of check marks and other notations made on a copy of the text a child is reading or even on a blank sheet of paper, a teacher can record the accuracy and quality of a student's oral reading. The term running record comes from the notion that because no special materials are needed with this system, the oral reading can be recorded "on the run" without having a copy of the text the child is reading. In other approaches to assessing oral reading, teachers usually make notes on a copy of the text the child is reading.