This text examines the many purposes of assessment in early literacy development. Issues in early literacy assessment, assessment material, the purposes of literacy assessment, government policy, practice in schools, baseline assessment of literacy, and the need for new research measures of early literacy are all recurrent themes in the book. The author reviews and discusses three decades of policy and practice in assessing literacy development in the years three to five - from recognizing in the late 1960s that literacy in these years exists, to proposals in 1997 for official assessment of literacy at five years. "Recognising Early Literacy Development" reviews and evaluates a large number of existing texts and assessment instruments, and some LEA baseline assessment documents. The author considers the theoretical, political and educational purposes of literacy assessment, and discusses assessment practices as found in an original survey of assessment practice in one LEA. She explores the need for a new approach to measurement for research, which is more attuned to assessment for teaching, and the importance of appropriate approaches to finding out what young children know about literacy. The book includes the Sheffield Early Literacy Development Profile.