The start of the school year is both exciting and chaotic…when it comes to the back to school season, there is never a shortage of skills to teach. SEL (social-emotional learning), character traits, literacy skills, and the science of reading…the list goes on and on.
One task that must not be forgotten during these first two or three weeks of school is assessment. Those of you that know me know that differentiated instruction is kind of my thing. I am a huge advocate for not only teaching in small groups but also targeting specifically planning instruction that meets each group’s needs. In order to do that, you must first learn what each individual student needs the most.
When it comes to students reading below grade level, the following areas must be taught in the following order: phonics, fluency, and comprehension. (I would not assess them in that order, but more on that later.)
I know what you are thinking…yes, there are two other components in the Science of Reading: phonemic awareness and vocabulary. Those two are very important but may not necessarily need to be assessed. They can be addressed with the others.
In this post, we are going to get the most “bang for our buck” and only assess the skills that are most necessary. After all, the beginning of the school year is a busy time! Depending on your grade level, you can either assess all of your students or just assess the students who are reading below grade level.
How do you know WHO to assess?
Great question! First, definitely review your district’s guidelines. I have found that each district goes about assessing their students in a slightly different manner. What I have found that primary grade teachers should assess all of their students since the majority of their students are still learning how to read. Upper grade teachers may benefit from only assessing the students who are reading below grade level. (The purpose of this is to learn why they are reading below grade level.)
PLEASE NOTE: This is assuming that you are assessing all of your upper grade students’ reading levels separately. There should be some way of identifying which students are below grade level. The purpose of this post is to then further assess the students who have already been identified as reading below grade level.
How do you know WHEN to assess?
The first round of assessments should definitely be at the start of the school year! This will act as a baseline for the school year and will help you assign small groups for both your instruction and your intervention. (You should be doing both all year!)
After that, I would recommend giving the same assessments again after each round of intervention. Intervention typically lasts between 6-8 weeks, but again, check in with your school/district to make sure this fits in with their expectations. The point of all these assessments is to monitor growth, regroup students, and adjust instruction.
First, these assessment are used to track student progress. Without them, how do we know if students have met standards or not? Once a student reaches grade level, that student’s goals and instruction should be changed accordingly. These assessments can also be used as evidence (if needed) during parent-teacher conferences and/or future SST meetings should the student continue to not make progress.
Second, these assessments can be used to rearrange your small groups. Your groups should be flexible groups, meaning they change regularly throughout the school year. They should at least change after each round of intervention, which is again about every 6-8 weeks.
Last, these assessments should be informing us if our instruction is effective. This is not personal! As teachers, we have a whole plethora of instructional tools in the toolbelt. We need help selecting which ones to use. These assessments will inform us whether a student is making progress towards their goals. If not, we know it’s time to try a different teaching strategy.
How do you know WHAT to assess?
Here is the bread-and-butter of this blog post: what should we assess when it comes to literacy? First of all, these assessments should be administered one-on-one by the classroom teacher. It is imperative that the person responsible for delivering instruction actually sees the students read.
In terms of types of assessments, each student should be assessed in this order: comprehension, fluency, and then phonics. (Primary grade teachers, especially grades K-1, you may want to assess in the opposite order if you are assessing your entire class.) This doesn’t mean each student needs to be given three assessments though. If a student is struggling to answer questions about a reading passage, for example, stop the assessment and assess their fluency. They may be struggling to comprehend the text because they are not reading fluidly. If a student has to stop every other word when reading, it is nearly impossible to understand the overall message of the text. The same goes for phonics. If a student is then struggling to read fluently, stop the test and assess their phonics skills instead. If a student is not reading fluently, it may be because they do not have their phonics skills committed to memory. Automaticity may not be there yet.
The good news…all of these issues are fixable! This is true no matter the grade level. Let’s take a closer look at each type of assessment and which skills to look for when planning your small group instruction.
Comprehension Assessment
In terms of comprehension, there are several ways to assess this. Even a simple conversation with a student would suffice. What I would recommend is asking a variety of questions, including those that assess explicit information (identifying the main character or setting), those that assess the main idea or theme, and those that assess higher-order thinking skills, such as inferencing.
The exciting news is that I have just created a brand new product line of nonfiction passages. The first product in this line is themed for back to school. Coming soon!
Fluency Assessment
Fluency can be assessed with any running record. It is not just about how fast a student can read. Rather, pay close attention to the type of mistakes they make when reading.
Do they read phrases together or are they reading one word at a time?
Are they dropping endings of words?
Are they consistently missing certain phonics skills, such as the magic e or r-controlled vowels?
Use a tracker like the one on the left to keep track of the mistakes they are making.
Looking for fluency passages for the entire year? These passages are themed according to the season and even include four levels for each text! Each text also targets a specific phonics skill, so the resource can be used for small group instruction.
Follow me on Instagram for more tips like the one below.
Phonics Assessment
This assessment starts with short vowel words and goes all the way up to diphthongs. The best part?! The lists are arranged in the order they should be taught. There is even a scoring guide!
Similar to the fluency assessment, it is important to note the type of mistakes students are making. Make sure to jot down the mistakes on your teacher copy. (Both a student copy and a teacher copy is included in the download.)
TIP: Teach students to read multi-syllable words at the same time as single-syllable words. If students have mastered reading short vowels, for instance, they will master reading words like picnic fairly quickly. The exception is of course in Kindergarten. That may be a bit overwhelming for them (unless they are gifted)!
There you have it…assessments to jump start your differentiated instruction. You may be asking yourself, “Now what?” Well, you’re in luck because next month, we are going to focus on planning your small group instruction around phonics and phonemic awareness. We will take these assessment results and plan lessons and activities that target your students’ goals.
The next blog post will go live on September 7, and the podcast episode will air on September 8. Until then, read up on ways to differentiate your Science of Reading centers. (Spoiler alert: You do not only have to group your students around their reading levels.) I can’t wait to chat with you again, and as always, feel free to email me should you have any questions or simply want to brainstorm some ideas. Happy back to school!
