Sally First---to your last point! YES! Share some running records and miscues and let's discuss the miscues and what it says about students. If you have some to start us off with, go right ahead with my blessing. I think a lot of us would find that a powerful learning experience.
Second... I think many teachers confuse purposes for assessments...or they try to make one assessment do too many things. Some assessments are meant to fuel instruction. These are the more formative assessments that you are describing below. We listen to kids read. We infer about their reading process through their miscues. We look at their writing and infer their knowledge of text structure...phonics and writing conventions. Dibels, though the company might argue otherwise, is a different sort of assessment. The purpose of DIBELS and also TPRI is really to identify kids at risk. Students who can't meet a certain benchmark are at risk of being unsuccessful readers. A student who can't read a certain number of words per minute is usually (not always) struggling in reading. It is used to figure out who (which students) to spend more time on...not necesarily how to spend that time. Example...letter name knowledge is one of the strongest predictors of whether or not a student is going to be able to read successfully...BUT, teaching letter names is really going to ensure kids can decode. Think about it...when we sound out a word, we really only need to know the sound, not the name. Students who are very slow readers may truly be at risk...but unless you know why they are slow readers, you cannot remediate accurately and therefore we get into all kinds of bad practices like training kids to speed read. Districts/schools have a vested interest in knowing exactly who might struggle. If we do our jobs well, we don't use DIBELS info alone to set up an intervention program. We do what YOU are suggesting...get into observing specifics and intervene where students are coming up short as they process text. And then there is the type of assessment that is used to track progress for schools. State tests really can't inform day to day instruction...but there is a need for districts to be able to tell whether or not schools are, overall, successfully teaching. State tests are used legitimately for that purpose... but we often try to make that data work for other purposes...and it's not meant to. When we are deciding on a new assessment, we have to think...what do I need to know? Who is the audience for this data? If we want to inform classroom instruction...it needs to be ongoing...in the moment...not added on, but part of what we do every day. If we use something like Dibels (which I have NEVER been a fan of), we do need to make sure we use it for what it is meant to do. Identify kids who may need intervention. How we intervene, requires different assessments altogether Jennifer L. Palmer, Ed. D. Instructional Facilitator National Board Certified Teacher Magnolia Elementary (home school) 901 Trimble Road Joppa, MD 21085 410-612-1553 Fax 410-612-1576 "Reaching, Teaching, Learning, Changing Lives!!" Norrisville Elementary 5302 Norrisville Road White Hall, MD 21161 410-692-7810 Fax 410-692-7812 Where Bright Futures Begin!! ________________________________________ From: Mosaic [mosaic-bounces+jennifer.palmer=hcps....@literacyworkshop.org] on behalf of Sally Thomas [sally.thom...@verizon.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 12:11 PM To: Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group Subject: [MOSAIC] a question I guess I understand that the powers that be don't trust teachers to assess their own students. And I do "get" that it is useful to do some kind of assessment where teachers can come together around agreed upon understandings of what a child's strengths and needs are. So overall i get doing some agreed upon assessments perhaps several times a year. For me I prefer assessments that are closer to the actual work involved - like writing a real text or reading a real book. so I like the DRA better than anything remotely like Diebels. (I actually prefer miscue analysis and like the Teachers College assessments which are similar to DRA but more interesting texts etc. but that's just a preference.) but here is my question. At the beginning of the year I needed to get to know my students well. Needed initial reading and writing assessments to see their strengths and needs. Also to find out their feelings about reading and writing and their interests etc. That provided my baseline data. But after that I always read individually with my kids during reading workshop (besides shared reading etc. in other parts of my literacy time) at minimum once every two or three weeks, more often with those struggling a bit. During those times I listen carefully with miscue eyes and ears and take quick informal notes. I can catch that they are now self correcting. Or see them chunk a word. Or chuckle at a funny part so I know they're understanding. I need that information to see how they're growing and what I need to teach or help with next! I do not get how we support kids without this ongoing assessment. It is easy to do informally along the way. We don't need official numbers etc. You can easily judge if they are struggling with too many words for the chosen text. And i have pretty good ideas (not exact) about the challenge levels of different texts. sometimes here I get the impression that teachers are only assessing through the "official" assessments? And I wrong Maybe it's that teachers are doing most of their teaching whole class with basal type reading programs??? I am just not understanding I guess how many teachers there are who are still teaching in workshop formats at least some of the time. How many teachers assess in ongoing ways all the time? Just wondering. On another list we are sharing some transcripts of kids reading with the actual text and the child's reading of that text and then sharing our interpretations of their miscues and strategies. Is there any interest in doing some of that on this list? Sally _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
