Assessment is such an important part in the classroom. Does it all have to be formal? I think that formal assessment is needed in the classroom, but I don't believe that is the only type of assessment that should be present. Reading is such an important part of our students education. It is something that individuals can struggle with for the rest of their life if the right teaching methods are not there to help them. I took Reading Ed 430 last semester, and absolutely loved it. We learned so much that we could use in the classroom! There are many different types of assessments that can be used for Reading. I think it is important to include formal assessment even if they aren't any fun. I would some short story or text for my students to read, and then answer questions on it to turn in. These question can be asking to analyze the story to see if they really understand it, comprehension questions, or even sequencing questions. Another formal assessment I would use would could involve something like the Accelerated reader program, or a group presentation or project about a story where each student is assigned a different task. Another formal task I would use for reading would be running records. When I first got into education I was not aware of all of the great ideas there are out there for informal assessments. For reading there are many different assessments that can be done in centers, or small group activities. Assessments can be based on fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, phonics, and so much more. There are many websites that can be used for informal assessment for example, storylineonline.com where celebirties read stories online. Students can listen to the stories and listen to each readers fluency to help practice their own. For comprehension a great informal assessment for students would be asking them to draw a picture or a comic strip of they main and key ideas within the story. For things like vocabulary and spelling students can be at centers or in small group where they are asked to put like words together, or draw pictures for what vocab words mean and then turn them in for assessment. There are so many resources that teachers can choose from to help enhance assessments in the classroom. I'm sure most of us are more farmiliar with the formal reading assessments out there so I found an article from Scholastic.com that talks about informal reading and writing assessments. This article talks about the importance of informal assessment "Informal measures are best results are specific as to what you need to teach instead of just one solid score" (Scholastic). This article includes ideas for assessment for grades K-5. For example a suggestion for K-2 comprehension is " present the student with a cloze passage (words are left out of the passage) as the student to pick out words that can fit in the sentences and relate what is happening in the story" (Scholastic).
Weaver, Brenda. "Informal Reading and Writing Assessment Ideas". 2013
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/informal-reading-and-writing-assessment-ideas
Christina,
ReplyDeleteI love that you discussed all the different assessment ideas we learned in Reading Education 430. Those were such great ideas and I definitely hope to use a lot of them in my classroom!
All of your assessments are great! Sometimes what I would do for informally assessing comprehension were graphic organizers that let me determine if they understood cause and effect, main ideas, etc. One thing I'd do to make sure they understood sequencing was have them draw comics. There's so much that you can do. I'm really glad that you mentioned cloze passages - what a great way to teach context clues.
ReplyDeleteI am so with you in that I LOVED my Reading 430 class. I learned so much. I too learned so many new types of assessments for reading that I never knew of before, life the whole idea of running records, which is super hard but we will get the hang of it.
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