The basic purpose of assessment is to be used to intervene; to enable educational decisions to be made; to follow the progress of pupils; and to propose appropriate procedures to achieve the maximum development of their abilities.

The main function of assessment is to regulate the educational process. A teacher should undertake actions and have availability to change the strategies, situations and relationships that are necessary for the continuous improvement of the pupils.

Observation of how pupils carry out the usual classroom activities in relation to reading is the basic instrument for obtaining useful information for adjusting or modifying educational action. This observation covers both what the child does, says and feels when they are involved in a reading activity. It also covers what they are able to produce when another individual helps them; asks them questions; or makes suggestions. We thus analyse what the pupils do, feel or say in interaction with other people who have more experience of reading than they do.

It is complex to construct instruments that facilitate knowledge of the students' processes, since, as we have seen, reading is not the sum of certain skills and strategies, but the integration of all of them, which allows progress in this learning process.

We now go on to present some of the instruments that allow for the continuous regulation of the process of learning to read:

• Observation guidelines in which aspects to observe in relation to the group of pupils and the reading process are recorded.

• Children's productions such as dictations, free texts, dates, messages to adults and peers.

• Class diary helping teachers to reflect on what they are doing and how to continue the process.

• Interview with the student and the family to find out their concerns and needs and to be able to move forward together in the process which begins in schools, but which is part of the child's routine almost from birth.

1. Emergent (3-6).

2. Initial (6-9).

3. Developmental (9-12).