For the last blog, I read chapters 10, 11, and 12 in Catching Readers Before They Fall. The authors talk about authentic, ongoing, and informative assessments. As teachers, we continually look for what readers can do and can almost do, and make a note of behaviors in order to provide support and guide your teaching decisions. Informal assessment tools include anecdotal notes taken during reading conferences or observing students. During conferences, teachers can look for what the child can do independently, what they can almost do, and what they can't do yet. Note-taking while observing allows us to see behaviors or patterns. Running records allow us to gain insight into which strategies are being used as well as the appropriate reading level for the student. Formal assessments include benchmarks, running records, and tests. Teachers usually use benchmark assessments at the beginning, middle, and end of the year in order to get information on a child's instruction level, comprehension, and fluency. "The more that we know about what students' strengths are and what they struggle with, the more closely we can match our instruction to what each child needs to learn next." Assessments ultimately inform our teaching. When assessments indicate that only some children need practice with a skill, then guided reading groups or conferences may be useful rather than teaching the whole class and repeating to other students. Every time that you instruct a struggling reader, you must help build his or her reading process system and ongoing, authentic, and informative assessment is what helps that to happen.
Chapter 11 focuses on sharing information with families. "The majority of parents are not educators and therefore they rely on us to inform them of how children best learn to read." It's our job to help families understand how they can help their children at home. This chapter is very useful because the authors wrote down common questions that families have and went through each of them to suggest ways that you can talk to parents about their child's progress. This will help strengthen the connection between home and school.
Chapter 12 reinforces that teachers make a difference. "School administrators and teachers alike should remain vigilant about finding ways to teach all children, no matter what their strengths and weaknesses." All children can learn. However, children learn at different rates and in different ways. Teachers must identify the needs of all of their students in order to provide the most effective instruction and maximize instructional time. Teachers have to change the world a little bit at a time.
I must say that I was wondering how we could sort all of the information we find out about students as we confer with them. I like the idea of looking for ". . . what the child can do independently, what they can almost do, and what they can't do yet." That seemed like such an epiphany for me. That helps you help the child and also helps you create like groups. It seems as if it would be a great way to organize all of the information you will be gathering.
ReplyDeleteHi Kayla,
ReplyDeleteGreat job summarizing what you learned from the last three chapters in your chosen text. Chapter 10 provides teachers with a variety of formative assessment tools that we can use to gather valuable data about our students' progress as readers and writers. Making sense of the data in a way that we can use to inform and guide our instruction is where the true benefit of assessment comes in, as well as when the assessment is beneficial for the student such as conferencing with the teacher or doing a miscue where the student is able to read and answer questions but then immediately receive feedback that is targeted.
Sincerely,
Dawn and Melissa