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A pre-assessment is a way for teachers to gather information about what students already know prior to instruction. Using the evidence from the pre-assessment, teachers are able to plan instruction to meet the needs of their learners. Some pre-assessments are wide spread, addressing grade-level or course learning goals, and are administered at the beginning of the school year. Others are smaller in scope and are administered at the beginning of a new unit or lesson, focusing on specific learning targets.

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1. Clarify the purpose for the pre-assessment.
Teachers must think about why they are pre-assessing and what method they will use to gather information. It is important to also explain to students the reason for the pre-assessment and to assure them that the results are only used as a tool to find out how much they know already.

2. Determine how you will use the information.
The results of a pre-assessment should be used to adapt teaching to increase students' knowledge. Some ways in which an educator can adapt their teaching is by reviewing key knowledge, addressing misconceptions, linking content to students' interest and differentiating instruction for a student or group of students.

3. Use pre-assessments judiciously and efficiently.
Pre-assessments are meant to be used to gather information about students' knowledge in a quick, efficient way to guide instruction.

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First, start with a clear goal of what all students should know, understand, and be able to do. Next, think of what knowledge or skills students must already possess. Then, as you design questions, make sure that the pre-assessment focuses on measuring student understandings rather than just knowledge and skills. Finally, limit the amount of questions, it should be short to the point.

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1. Determining Students’ Prior Knowledge and Skills
Teachers should find out what students know, or think they know, about new topics or concepts.

2. Monitoring Student Progress
Teachers can monitor students' progress at the beginning and end of a unit to find out how much they have learned.

3. Communicating Expectations
Carefully constructed pre-assessments can be used as a tool to activate prior knowledge, preview the content, and guide students’ thinking.

4. Focusing Students’ Attention on Learning Targets
At the end of a unit, students’ responses to a post-assessment should demonstrate growth and deeper understanding.

5. Checking for Misconceptions
Teachers can identify misconceptions with pre-assessments and then target them directly in their instruction.

6. Identifying Students’ Interests, Talents, and Preferred Ways of Learning
At the beginning of the school year, a pre-assessment may help teachers find out about their students' interests, hobbies, talents, etc.

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Drawbacks:
1. Beginning on a Bad Note
If the pre-assessment just shows students how little they know about a topic, it can cause a negative affect the students.

2. Wasting Instructional Time
If the pre-assessment does not provide any new information and only confirms what the teacher already knows, then there is instruction time that is wasted.

3. Creating Management Challenges for Teachers
The data collected from pre-assessments can present challenges when the results reveal students at multiple knowledge and skill levels.

4. Taking Too Much Time to Analyze
If the pre-assessment is lengthy and complicated it can take teachers too long to analyze results.

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A study conducted in 1983 by Fernando Leyton-Soto showed that teaching students specific prerequisite skills at the beginning of a course or unit can influence how well they can learn more advanced ideas. To test his idea, Fernando chose high school courses in which prerequisite knowledge and skills crucial to students' success were easily identified. Nevertheless, these findings showed that when teachers use the results from carefully designed pre-assessments to help students develop the prerequisite knowledge and skills they need to succeed, the results can be significant.

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Guskey, Thomas R. “Does Pre-Assessment Work?” ASCD, 1 Feb. 2018, https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/does-pre-assessment-work.

Hockett, Jessica A., and Kristina Doubet. “Turning on the Lights: What Pre-Assessments Can Do.” ASCD, 1 Dec. 2013, https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/turning-on-the-lights-what-pre-assessments-can-do.

McTighe, Jay, and Thomas R. Guskey. “PRE-ASSESSMENT: Promises and Cautions.” UKnowledge, Apr. 2016, https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=edp_facpub.