My assessment tool

Oh boy! What a week! Monday I did not have a good day! I saw my grade posted in the email and I was pissed!!! (really) I had worked on my project for weeks and I was devasted! I had never worked so hard and received a grade like that. I understand that I cannot always get A's but I was appalled. I went to class with very little motivation. Well today I feel better. I met with Dr. Wilson and she explained what I did wrong. I am more relieved because I can fix it and I feel alot better about myself because I was feeling pretty lousy. I came home and worked on the rubric that I needed and feel alot better. I feel challenged when I am working on a project or presentation and I want to do the best that I can. So this C really knocked me down. I AM ALRIGHT KNOW!!!!!

Chapter 7 Using informal and formal assessments

Chapter 7 dealth with assessing and if assessing is useful. Will the assessments help the teachers plan instruction, monitor progress, determine special education services and accountability? I feel that sometimes there is so much assessment that it takes from the teaching. I agree that as teachers we must know where our students are. I think that assessment is important in the beginning of the year, middle of the year and at the end of the year. In my class and in my grade level, on the first day of school I give an informal assessment by giving everyone a blank sheet of paper. I ask them to write their name, draw a picture of themselves. I pretty much can tell who has gross motor skills developed on observing how they hold the pencil. If they are able to draw and squiggle something I have an understanding of it. I then give them a ditto of a bus to color and cut. Just by observing I can tell who can color, has concept of holding a crayon, and who can cut holding the scissors correctly. I pretty much can group my student accordingly. After a couple of days when they have stopped crying I do a formal assessment on letters, counting, recognizing shapes, colors, etc. That is more depth and I can once again group my students accordingly. Most of the time the ones that started out in their comfort zone are the top group. They have been exposed to school supplies before they entered school. I am not against assessments but I am against of overdoing it. For example this last three days I have been testing, monitoring the students as they take TAKS! We have not even completed the TAKS (because tomorrrow is make up day) and there is an assessment for TPRI due. Poor kids they pretest, practice test and then the real thing comes along and they are burned out. I specifically tested a child with the accomodated version and by the end of the first hour she was exhausted. Then she tells me I am so tired of testing because we had so many practice tests and now I am tired. So in my opinion I think that assessing should be in moderation and not overwhelming for both the teachers and the students. So assessment do help the teacher with everything from instruction to identifying special needs students but I still think it is a little to much.

Chapter 6 Formal Group Assessment: Focus on accountability

As I read through the chapter with all the different assessements made me realize that alot of
research has gone into this. I was really appalled at the findings of the NAAL (National Assessment of Adult Literacy in 2003. 11,000,000 adults were considered nonliterate in English, 7,000,000 could not answer simple questions due to cognitive and academic limitations and 4,000,000 could not take test due to language barriers. Scary isn't it? As teachers we are the foundation of the education that children receive. It is up to us to do it. I teach PK Bilingual children and I do my best to expose language and vocabulary both in Spanish and English so that they can be better prepared in Kindergarten. Assessment is a necessity so that we can determine where our students are. I still agree that sometimes it is to much but research shows me why it is done. The different assessments were created for the different areas and it should be helpful in our job.

Chapter 5 Formal assessments of Reading: Individualized Assessment

In this chapter formal individualized assessment was discussed. It compared the different ways testing is scored with raw and percentile scores. Experts prefer standard scores for making comparisons. It also talked about basals and ceilings being established in a test. Achievement and diagnostic tests typically can be used to determine special services because they provide thorough information about the student's domain. Group testing is also referred to as high stakes testing because important decisions are made based on the results. I can make a connection on the high stakes tests because depending on the results of the TAKS the school will be low performing, acceptable, recognized or exemplary. All the schools want to be exemplary but sometimes the scores are not high enough for it to happen. Teachers are expected to create miracles when it comes to TAKS because of high stakes. Teachers work out and beyond expectations but sometimes the students still do not pass. Testing has taken a priority and teachers are exhausted at trying to do everything expected with TAKS and teaching the curriculum along with all the paperwork. Teaching has become so demanding in the upper grade levels that some teachers are leaving the field because of these high stakes tests.

I think assessement is important in all grade levels but sometimes it is to much testing done. The poor students get practice TAKS and then the real TAKS comes along and they are burned out. The students feel it is a waste of time because it is testing the same thing over and over and they could be learning new things instead of testing all the time.

Chapter 4 Informal Assessment: Progress monitoring

As the assessment continuum as the chapter refers it to listed several types of reliability and validity assessments. I was intrigued with all the different types and the formalities of each of them. Between the consistency, raters, consistency among items, parallel or equivalent administration, content validity, construct validity, concurrent validity and predictive validity. So many explanations and on some of them I had no clue what it was about. (OK I am being honest). As a Kindergarten teacher I am familiar with DIBELS. I never administered it because I am a bilingual teacher and it was only done with the English teachers and I could hear the grips every time that they had to do it. I never quite understood why DIBELS in English and nothing in Spanish but when I left Kindergarten the assessment was IDEL for bilingual students and two years later it became Progress Monitoring. I understand that as teachers we have to do assessments and that is part of the job but in my own opinion I think it goes overboard (but that is my personal opinion). I knot that there are benchmarks that we all have to follow and the expectations are there. I have heard about the BRIGANCE assessment with Special Education. I have no clue on what it has and what the expectations are with Sp. Ed students and teachers. The goal of all these types of assessments help us identify children at risk for reading failure and I understand what is behind it but I still think it is to much.

Chapter 3 Informal assessment:forming instruction

Chapter 3 was a very long chapter and I read it through twice. I agreed with Goodman on the most common type of assessment. Teacher observation something I practice throughout the year. I do not think of it as "kidwatching" as Goodman calls it. In the beginning of the year I establish a portfolio on each of my students. The chapter described portfolio assessment as a purposeful collection of student work that tells the story of the student's efforts (Arter & Spandel, 1992). As the year progresses I add to the folder and make comments (I use post it) and just jot something that is important. I have not developed an easier way to make the comments but was told of a suggestion at a teacher inservice and I want to try it for the following school year. I also use a calendar with happy faces to make the parents aware of any problems with their child. I also use it as a positive acknowledgement if the child has done something that is WOW! I write it in the square and most of my parents acknowledge my comments. The chapter described several types of informal and formal assessments teachers use. I personally have never done a running record but when I was a teacher assistant and worked with first grade I became familiar with them. Because I teach PK and have taught Kinder I have never administered running records to my students. According to the readings in the chapter running records provide an authentic assessment. It provides for several reading strategies and what the outcome should be. The reading also emphasized that there should be special considerations in the informal assessment of young children. It focused on teachers should master both the declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge. The declarative being the early reading and child development and the procedural the engaging and motivating the student. I really agreed on the statement that teachers should focus on the student's needs during the early years, not the curriculum, will be most effective in moving the student forward (McGill-Franzen, 2006). I agreed with this statement because I have to meet the student's needs before I can teach them.

Chapter II: Nature of Reading

This chapter discusses several models of Reading. The models discuss that one cannot acquire reading without the skills. One must be able to do one thing before going on the next level. If the reader is struggling with early reading skills he cannot move on and start to read fluently. In the transactional view of reading Rosenblatt addresses the importance of the reader's selective attention during the reading process. I am a firm believer that if a child is struggling with reading he must try to to read something he is familiar with and not be forced to read something he has no clue so that he can be successful.