Assessing Readers

Qualitative Assessment and Student-Centered Instruction

Rona F. Flippo, Kristin Gehsmann, Juliet Halladay

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781351689441
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The third edition of Assessing Readers continues to bridge the gap between authentic, informal, and formative assessments and more traditional quantitative and summative assessment approaches. Designed to assist educators and reading specialists in making informed decisions about not only what to assess, but also how, it provides teachers with a menu of qualitative assessment options, encouraging them to consider their own values and beliefs in light of the goals they have for the students they teach. Building on nearly four decades of theory, research, and practice, it is up to date with current research and offers specific assessment, instruction, and organizational ideas and strategies.

With an emphasis on comprehension, motivation and engagement, and developing strategic knowledge, Assessing Readers offers a road map for teachers trying to meet the demands of increasingly rigorous standards. Features include examples of student-centered assessment, ideas for organizing and managing differentiated instruction, sample lesson plans, and authentic case studies.

Accessible and practical, the third edition empowers pre-service and in-service teachers alike, encouraging them to think about the importance of their assessment and instructional choices and supporting them with the tools they need to achieve their goals and meet the needs of all students.

Changes in the Third Edition:

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• A new focus on literacy development and developmentally responsive instruction

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• Expanded coverage of emergent literacy and the assessment of foundational skills, including concepts about print, storybook reading, phonological and phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge, and concept of word in text

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• A new section on assessing vocabulary and morphological knowledge

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• Expanded coverage of response to instruction/intervention (RTI)

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• New information on assessment and instruction of culturally and linguistically diverse students

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• Increased attention to issues of social justice, educational equity, and anti-bias practices

PART I
Student-Centered Assessment

CHAPTER 1
The Classroom Teacher’s Role

Objectives

1. Define assessment and evaluation
2. Identify what should be included in your comprehensive assessment plan
3. Describe the characteristics of the five stages of development
4. Differentiate between different types of assessment data
5. Explain some of the factors that influence teachers’ assessment decisions

Introduction

Classroom teachers must make many decisions as they plan their instructional programs. These decisions will be based on a number of factors, including their training, the curriculum, and their school’s policies and practices. Teachers’ understandings of their students and the developmental stages associated with learning to read, as well as research-based “best” practices, are also important considerations. This book is dedicated to the idea that teachers are skilled professionals who make informed decisions about assessment and instruction, including what to assess, when, and how.

This chapter presents the importance of the teacher’s role in reading assessment and the broader literacy assessment process. We aim to help you better understand the assessments you may be required to administer, as well as how you can use the results of these assessments to help inform your teaching. We’ll also help you identify when additional assessments are necessary.

Given the range of learners in your classroom, the continuum of literacy development, and the various elements of literacy instruction, it is likely you will want to supplement your school’s assessment plan at least some of the time. This chapter will provide you with an initial framework to help aid you in your decision-making process.

What Is Assessment?

The term assessment, when used as a noun, includes all the observations, work samples, and other formal and informal tasks and tests administered and collected by teachers to gather information about children’s abilities, interests, motivations, skills, and strategies. When used as a verb, the word assessment refers to the ongoing process of gathering and analyzing these multiple sources of information or data.

In relation to children’s literacy development, teachers collect and analyze data about students’ reading, writing, listening, and speaking. A comprehensive literacy assessment plan also includes teachers’ observations and experiences with students, as well as the observations and reflections of other educators and family members. Finally, assessment goes hand in hand with instruction and learning. As teachers teach, they monitor and adjust their instruction based on their students’ responses to it. They also assess and consider their students’ stages of literacy development when planning instruction. Over time, your students will become increasingly able to self-assess and reflect on their own work, eventually setting learning goals and improvement plans for themselves.

Evaluation, on the other hand, involves using assessment data to make judgments about the quality of students’ work, often comparing it to a predetermined standard or norm. Evaluation is a natural consequence of assessment. When we assess over time, we analyze the information gathered and begin to draw conclusions and make instructional decisions based on that information. Like assessment, evaluation needs to be ongoing, so we are always collecting data about student learning and formulating new judgments and opinions as students learn and grow. The term analysis refers to the ongoing, reflective, and diagnostic process of interpreting assessment and evaluation data.

Assessment and analysis can be done in many ways, both formally and informally. Take, for example, LaKeisha, a third-grade student who is reading below grade level and is frequently observed rubbing her eyes while reading, often moving her books closer to and farther from her face. Her teacher makes note of these behaviors and wonders if LaKeisha’s vision is contributing to her reading difficulties. Another student, Todd, frequently gazes out the window, yawning and looking disinterested whenever reading from his science textbook. From these observations, Todd’s teacher may infer that he is not very interested in reading about science, or maybe the textbook is too difficult for him to read independently.

It would be natural to wonder if a more formal assessment might have told you more about these students, and it’s possible it would provide you with some useful information, though no single assessment can provide everything you need to know to be an effective teacher. Consider, for example, the results of Todd’s end-of-chapter test. Realistically, if the test was based solely on the readings, he probably would not have done very well, which could lead you to believe Todd is “below standard” in science. Because you’ve noticed Todd’s engagement with hands-on learning opportunities in science class, you wonder if it’s possible he did not (or could not) read his textbook. In this way, the science test became more of a reading test than a measure of his science knowledge.

Teachers make assessment decisions all the time. Some are well planned and formal in nature; others are less formal, even spontaneous. As a teacher, you’ll need to rely on a combination of formal and informal sources of data to identify students’ strengths, strategy use, skills, interests, and instructional needs. You will also want to be open and reflective; new data can inform the decisions you make and the instructional priorities you have for your students.

No assessment is likely to give you all the information you need. There is not one “best” assessment. Identifying what you want your students to know, understand, and be able to do informs how you will measure their learning, both formally and informally. This is the important first step in planning learner-centered instruction.

What Should Be Assessed?

At the beginning of this chapter, we emphasized that teachers will make many decisions about assessment, instruction, and intervention. Once you’re clear about your learning outcomes—in other words, what you want students to know, understand, or do—you can develop a plan for how you’ll assess your students’ achievement of these outcomes.

As you begin to conceptualize your comprehensive plan for reading assessment, consider how you will assess the following areas that impact children’s reading: linguistic experiences and strategies, cognitive experiences and strategies, affective influences, and cultural and sociocultural factors. In this book we advocate for a qualitative emphasis, this involves the process of observing multiple samples of students’ work over time, aiming for a descriptive and holistic summary of students’ strengths and needs as literacy learners. A clear emphasis is placed on qualitative and descriptive details and illustrative examples (Flippo, 2014).

Teachers will also identify each student’s stage of development as this will likely give you additional information regarding your students’ characteristics as readers, writers, and spellers. This information will help inform your instructional priorities (Gehsmann & Templeton, 2022).

Linguistic Experiences and Strategies

Linguistic experiences, or a child’s experience with language, includes all aspects of language development and acquisition including the awareness of sounds in language, listening, speaking, writing, and reading. Children begin to develop their linguistic experiences before they are even born. In utero, babies respond to their mothers’ voices, and they can recognize the prosody of their native language. Later, as infants, children begin to develop sensitivity to the phonemes (the smallest units of sound) of their home language. An infant’s cry is also an early form of communication; caregivers respond by comforting the infant. Before long, babies start to notice that certain phases such as “Would you like a bottle?” carry meaning. Later, when the baby begins to imitate common speech sounds such as “ma-ma,” the child is rewarded with ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Detailed Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Meet the Authors
• Part I Student-Centered Assessment
• Part II Organization and Instruction in the Classroom
• Appendix A: Portfolio Assessment Templates
• Appendix B: Sample Teacher-Developed Assessments
• Appendix C: Sample Teacher-Developed Lesson Plans
• Glossary
• References
• Index