Teaching reading in today’s elementary schools

Assessment and Intervention

Chapter 3

Current trends in assessment

Assessment is the process of collecting and analyzing data for the purpose of measuring student achievement.

Enables teachers to discover student’s strengths and weaknesses

Plan appropriate instruction Evaluate the effectiveness of teaching strategies Should involve multiple measures Observations Conferences Interviews Work samples Formal means

assessment

Formative Assessment

Summative Assessment

Continuous and ongoing

Feedback on progress for both teacher and learner

Observation records

End of an instructional period

Summarize progress of students

Formal- standardized tests

Current Trends in Assessment

Curriculum standards- statements or descriptions of expectations outlining what students should know and be able to do at a particular grade level and in specific content areas

AYP- adequate yearly progress- a component of NCLB that requires states and school systems to collect annual data that represent the progress of students in meeting established assessment goals or progress

Disaggregated data-scores that show progress of subgroups including racial/ethnic groups, SES, students with disabilities, ELL. Goal of NCLB all students will demonstrate proficiency by 2013-2014

Current Trends – Standards movement Standards Movement- education movement

aimed at getting all students to a specified level or stage.

Purpose of movement – to challenge schools to improve

Academic- core subject knowledge and performance

Content –basic agreement of the body of education knowledge for all students

Performance- what level is good enough for students to be described as advanced, proficient, basic, below basic

Current trends-no child left behind act (NCLB)

4 Pillars-1-Stronger accountability2-More freedom for states3-Proven education methods4-More choices for parents The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

(NCLB), a major reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), was passed by Congress and signed into law by the president on January 8, 2002

Long term goal of NCLB- all students will demonstrate academic proficiency by the 2013-2014 school year

Current trends in assessment-high stakes testing Emphasis on accountability created an

environment of high-stakes testing Teachers prepare students to demonstrate

progress on tests mandated by their states and school districts

Creates a climate that encourages “teaching to the test”

Greater emphasis on reading and math leads to less emphasis on other subjects

Testing has resulted in higher qualifications for teaching

Formal Assessment Formal assessment-The use of a testing

instrument based on extensive normative data for which reliability and validity can be verified.

Standardized tests-a formal assessment that has been constructed by experts in the field and is administered, scored, and interpreted according to specific criteria.

Norm-referenced tests-standardized tests that measure a student’s standing in relation to comparable groups of students across the nation or locally.

Formal assessment Validity- the extent to which a test measures

what it claims to measure Reliability-the consistency of scores students

would receive on alternate forms of the same test

Grade equivalent- grade level in years and months for which a given score was the average score in a standardization sample.

Percentile rank- score in terms of its position within a set of 100 scores

Stanine- scores are divided into 9 equal parts with 5 as the mean

Limitations of standardized tests Do tests really reflect what we know

about the reading process today?

Is the test fair to diverse learners?

How are test scores being used?

Criterion-referenced tests Criterion referenced tests- designed to yield

measurements interpretable in terms of specific performance standards

Designed to match standards or expectations of what students should know at successive points or benchmarks

Intended to be used as guides for developing appropriate instruction

Students do not compete with other students but only try to achieve mastery of each objective

Can make reading appear to be a series of skills taught Difficult to set appropriate standards- too high or low

Alternativeauthentic assessments

Alternative- all types of assessment other than standardized tests

Authentic- a measurement of a student’s performance on activities that reflect real-world learning experiences

Alternative assessments- informal Observation-

>Anecdotal Records- written accounts ofspecific incidents in the classroom>Checklists and rating scales-a quick glanceon accomplishments and weaknesses

Conferences and Interviews-scheduled or spontaneous

Retellings-a student’s retelling of a story can be done oral or written response

Rubric Portfolio-enables students and teachers to

reflect on student work to evaluate progress

Informal tests- reading skills Informal tests of specific skills- worksheet type

format Cloze procedure- a method of estimating reading

difficulty by omitting every nth word (usually 5th) in a reading passage.

Multimedia and computer approaches-video recordings, presentations, on-line testing

Informal reading inventories (IRI)-designed to help teachers determine a child’s independent (on his or her own), instructional (read with help), frustration (baffles), and listening comprehension levels (comprehend when read to).

Informal tests- reading skills Miscue analysis-reading miscue inventory

(RMI) considers both the quantity and quality of miscues (unexpected responses)

Running records- detailed account of a student’s reading behavior. Used to record miscues during a student’s oral reading and gain information to guide further instruction.

Alternative assessment Subjective- the teacher’s personal biases may

influence judgment Can be time consuming it takes longer to

write narrative reports about each student than it does to grade a test

Teachers must know how to interpret and apply information gained

Collect alternative assessments from multiple sources

Assessment of emergent literacy NAEYC- National Association for the Education

of Young Children sets guidelines and recommendations for assessments that are developmentally appropriate for young children.

Marie Clay- Concepts About Print-1st 2 years of literacy instruction- provides observation data An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement – another component used in early literacy assessment

Using assessment to guide intervention

Teachers use information collected on student performance data to identify instructional needs for each student and implement an intervention plan of strategies to scaffold student learning.

An intervention plan includes: What is to be taught How it is to be taught What will provide evidence that learning

occurred

RTIResponse to Interventions

The RTI model provides a framework for a responsive classroom where the learning environment is modified by three tiers of differentiated instruction

Tier 1- Primary Instruction-classroom level Tier 2- Secondary Intervention- involves

instruction delivered to those students who are not making adequate progress in Tier 1, the interventionist delivers instruction in small focused groups

Tier 3- individual/small-group instruction- students who fail to make progress in Tier 2 are placed in an individual or small group for instruction by a specially trained educator

Assessing text difficulty Methods of identifying text difficulty include

the use of readability formulas, cloze tests, and text-leveling techniques.

Readability-the difficulty of written material Cloze tests-teachers create a cloze passage

from a particular text to determine text difficulty

Text leveling techniques-a process that organizes texts according to a defined continuum of characteristics so that students may be matched with appropriate materials

Assessment is-A process not an eventOngoingA necessary part of an instructional

programKey way to analyze

strengths/weaknessesBest done in a variety of ways