The video clip was informative for me in how a classroom teacher can gather evidence of students’ word knowledge, fluency, language, comprehension, writing and motivation and interests. While formal assessment remains important to gain insight into each student’s reading level, it is recommended that teachers use a wide variety of assessments as well as classroom activities and observations that can help the instructor understand the strategies students use for comprehension and understanding. The teacher must consider how each of their students performs in different contexts with the class: independently, paired, or group activities. The teacher must also consider the types of scaffolds and differentiation to employ in learning activities so that all students can use their strengths and abilities, and what are the best strategies to employ so that all students in the classroom learn. For example, what is the student’s reading level for a book that is assigned to him/her versus a book he/she chooses to read independently? Also, how does the student perform academically when he/she reads independently compared to a small group setting or with a reading partner? Answers to these questions can help an educator with creating and implementing scaffolded lesson plans which cater to a wide variety of learning styles and abilities.
Teachers should keep a file on each of their students as a portfolio of the students’ work. For example, writing assignments highlighting the main ideas of a reading selection are good data to collect as evidence of a students writing and comprehension skills. Informal reading inventory such as the QRI-5 helps to identify students’ word knowledge and comprehension. A profile on each student with various forms of assessment can help the teacher understand the strategies individual students use to build knowledge and can help educators identify individual strengths and weaknesses in terms of their word knowledge, fluency, language, comprehension, writing and motivation and interest. This data will help teacher to create lesson activities that will be engaging (to help with interest and motivation) and will cater to students varied abilities and interests.
I like your idea to create a profile on each student in order to gauge every students' progress. I also never thought of to keep in mind how a student would read an assigned text compared to one of their own choosing.
ReplyDeleteEd,
ReplyDeleteNice job! Is very important that you mentioned every component of literacy when it comes to students being literate and having success for the real world. I would personally hate to see a student read fluently and not understand the material and still be passed on. This would be a recipe for disaster. Keeping organization such as a portfolio is imperative too!
John
Ed,
ReplyDeleteGreat insight! Various assessments must be administered to asses every component in literacy; no one size fits all method here!! Monitoring progress weekly or bi-weekly is essential to! Teachers must employ strategies such as RTI in the classroom to be successful at what they do; teach! As for an answer to your question (which is a good one!) teachers should include a wide array of assessments to assess more than one component of literacy. However, if you are looking for specifics, I would say assessments that the students would have prior knowledge of and assessments for reading comprehension.
John