Assessment: A Guide for Instruction by Robyn McAulay
Staff PD Day:
Staff from St. Jean School were in attendance, too: Rita Hennessey, Debbie Murphy and Anne Ives.
Robyn McAulay is the Elementary Language Arts Specialist with the Department of Education.
Presented on Reading Practices.
Assessment and Evaluation
* Helps to inform teaching.
* Must be ongoing.
* Consistent with curriculum
* Involve multiple forms of information.
* Recognize learners as active partners in their own learning.
3 WAYS for learning (decides on focus), of learning( checks learning), as learning (involves student self assessment)
Assessment: Gather Data Evaluation is process of Analyzing, Reporting involves communicating the interpretation of info to various audiences.
3 Basic Understandings: What reading is? What readers do as readers? Understand assessment and evaluation and texts that are being read by student.
Table Talk: What does it mean to be a reader? 1st activity.
We want students to get something from their reading that helps with writing, too.
Understanding Reading: Systems of Strategic Actions
Within Text: Solving words, monitoring and correcting, making connections, searching for and using info, summarizing, maintaining fluency, adjusting
Beyond Text: predicting, making connections, inferring, synthesizing.
Table Talk: 2nd Activity – Jigsaw - Looking at Strategic Actions for thinking within, beyond and about text.
Group Discussion.
Table Talk: 3rd Activity CAMET Standards: How it can help you? Correlation between CAMET and Strategic Actions.
Table Talk: 4th Activity: How do we assess our readers?
Assessment of Reading Developement:
* Observation – Anecdotal Records, Checklist, Rubrics
* Conferences/Conversation Kinds of Text, Personal Responses, Strategies used, Future Book Choices, Questions that Emerge, Connections, Inferences
* Work Samples – Reading Logs, Response to text, Graphic Organizers, Portfolios, ACRAR.
* Self Assessment/Peer Assessment - Students take Responsibility, Interest Inventories and Goal setting.
* Reading/Running Records – Observe Oral Read, Assess Fluency, Demonstrates Degree/Comprehension ” beyond and about the text”.
Understanding Text:
Literature within class, Information Texts,
Genres; Traditional literature, Fantasy, Realistic Fiction, Mystery, Informational, Biography, Autobiography
Text Structure: Setting, plot, character, Compare & Contrast, Sequence, Cause & Affect, Question/Answer|
Text Features: Print features Italics,Visuals, Organization, Vocabulary
Table Talk: 5th Activity View text and decide what students need to be aware of when reading.
Planning for Instruction:
* Skills and strategies students need
* Kinds of experience required.
* How and for whom instruction will occur.
Reading Workshop:
* Read Aloud, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, Independent Reading Literature Discussions, Mini Lessons.
Focus:
* Prepare oneself to bring info to students based on observations and assessments.
Reporting:
* Assessment Data, Frequent Evaluation, Clear Descriptors of students’ progress and learning needs.
* Relaying info to parents and how?
* Goal setting for student.
ERES Staff appreciate Robyn’s contribution to our School Development Plan.
