Dear Sally, Possibly the most powerful assessments we educators perform are formative assessments. They tell us...and students...immediately how students are doing. Well-timed instruction, delivered at the point of error, goes farther, faster than waiting on periodic district assessments.
However, well-timed assessments that remove the teaching factor-or district benchmarks-are equally beneficial as they give us snapshots of what the students have under control, or learned well and are practicing, as a result of our informed teaching. Combined, these assessments give us valuable feedback as teachers to improve our instuction and help students progress at the same time. So the short answer for me--it's all good! Cindy On Jan 29, 2013 11:11 AM, "Sally Thomas" <sally.thom...@verizon.net> wrote: > 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
