Formative assessment is an expression that covers several practices. Whereas this variety has led to the development of studies with different methodological characteristics in the international context, in Italy, there is a lack of experimental research to control the effectiveness of a unitary set of formative assessment strategies and practices. This experiment, therefore, explores the effects of implementing formative assessment practices in the classroom on students’ text comprehension abilities. A two-group experimental plan had been realized, and it involved students from two first classes of a lower secondary school located in Emilia Romagna. They were randomly assigned to the treatment or control groups. After administering an initial task on text comprehension abilities, the researcher developed 15 formative assessment activities, each two hours long, with students of the treatment group; at the end, students’ texts comprehension abilities were measured again by administering two instruments: the same comprehension test used in the pre-test phase, and a parallel task that catches the same skills, but that contained different texts and questions. Post-test- pre-test difference between the two groups was verified. Given the small number of cases, non-parametric tests were run (Mann Whitney U) that have not revealed statistically significant differences between the two groups. Still, a trend has shown a slightly higher increase in the achievements of the treatment group compared to the one of the control group. Although results can’t allow the researcher to reject the null hypothesis, the value of the project lies in its intention to open the debate on the efficacy of formative assessment practices in the classroom for improving students’ achievements in Italy.