Principal 11
Early Assessment and Instructional Intervention
Accomplishing this Principal in the Classroom
Formative assessments allow teachers to gage their students prior understanding of a subject in order to plan their instruction accordingly. Early assessment is a form of formative assessment because these are the benchmark grades in which teachers will be planning their instruction upon. Instructional intervention is so important in my school that the sixth grade’s reading class is designed to be a tier III intervention class. This allows the teacher to provide supports to a smaller percentage of students compared to other tiers. It focuses on the specific needs of the small group or single student and attends to them with precision to solve the existing problems and prevent future ones.
Specific Anchor & Grade Level Standards from CCSS
For this principle, I was not able to find a specific anchor or grade level standard that aligned.
Instructional Practices
RUNNING RECORDS
Running records are used in schools in the interest of assessing students reading performance. By systematically tracking a student’s oral reading through Running Records, teachers can gauge a student’s fluency, self correction rate and comprehension. Through conducting multiple trials throughout a school year, a teacher can track and interpret reading progression. Furthermore, teachers should observe a students reading behaviors and strategies used during reading, which helps teachers pinpoint strengths and weaknesses. This year, I was able to conduct a mock Running Record. I observed that the student made few mistakes overall and scored a smaller error rate. The student was able to use decoding and phonemic awareness however; the student was not a fluent reader. Furthermore, by asking reader-based, text-based, and mixed questions at the end of the story, I was able to make the conclusion that he was don’t comprehending his material because of his lack of fluency. Running records will help me see specific areas of improvement that I want to focus on for my students. As intended, I will conduct a Running Record at the beginning of the grade year, in the middle, and at the end during reading class. This will be kept in their literacy portfolios to track their growth. One issue in using Running Records is these assessments are extremely dependent on the teacher’s beliefs. A Running Record’s data is invalid unless it is successfully compared to other Running Records done by the same teacher. Data collection is based upon the individual teacher’s beliefs about reading and writing. For instance, one teacher may not count an error when a student self-corrects a word, while others will count this as an error. They are meant to help individual teachers shape their instruction for their own students.
DIBLES
This is a standardized assessment that provides a benchmark criterion for each grade level. This is not meant for differentiating or planning instruction. Rather, it is mean to simply score a reader’s proficiency and place them blow, at or above grade level. Those who score below grade level are students who may need specific Tier II or Tier III instructional intervention. This however is simply suggested; to give these students those supports other forms of assessment such as Running Records are needed to pinpoint specific areas of weakness. I will assess my students with DIBLES in the beginning of the year, or as frequently as my district requires me to. I see no problem in using this if it is used only as it’s intended.
INTERVENTION CLASSES
The reading classes during the second half of the day divide students into groups based upon their achievement. The first class is a tier III intervention class, mentioned prior, that focuses on students below grade level and the specific supports needed to help them achieve grade level. This includes reading specialists who pull students out, a special education teacher in the classroom, and the use of the program Lexia Core 5. This allows the teacher to provide specific one-on-one instructional intervention to the students struggling the most. The second class is called the “golden band” because they are on grade level and considered easily influenced, the focus is on providing challenges to increase their achievement. The third class is for students above grade level who need an enriched course of instruction to be adequately challenged, these students focus on PBIS in their class.
Running records are used in schools in the interest of assessing students reading performance. By systematically tracking a student’s oral reading through Running Records, teachers can gauge a student’s fluency, self correction rate and comprehension. Through conducting multiple trials throughout a school year, a teacher can track and interpret reading progression. Furthermore, teachers should observe a students reading behaviors and strategies used during reading, which helps teachers pinpoint strengths and weaknesses. This year, I was able to conduct a mock Running Record. I observed that the student made few mistakes overall and scored a smaller error rate. The student was able to use decoding and phonemic awareness however; the student was not a fluent reader. Furthermore, by asking reader-based, text-based, and mixed questions at the end of the story, I was able to make the conclusion that he was don’t comprehending his material because of his lack of fluency. Running records will help me see specific areas of improvement that I want to focus on for my students. As intended, I will conduct a Running Record at the beginning of the grade year, in the middle, and at the end during reading class. This will be kept in their literacy portfolios to track their growth. One issue in using Running Records is these assessments are extremely dependent on the teacher’s beliefs. A Running Record’s data is invalid unless it is successfully compared to other Running Records done by the same teacher. Data collection is based upon the individual teacher’s beliefs about reading and writing. For instance, one teacher may not count an error when a student self-corrects a word, while others will count this as an error. They are meant to help individual teachers shape their instruction for their own students.
DIBLES
This is a standardized assessment that provides a benchmark criterion for each grade level. This is not meant for differentiating or planning instruction. Rather, it is mean to simply score a reader’s proficiency and place them blow, at or above grade level. Those who score below grade level are students who may need specific Tier II or Tier III instructional intervention. This however is simply suggested; to give these students those supports other forms of assessment such as Running Records are needed to pinpoint specific areas of weakness. I will assess my students with DIBLES in the beginning of the year, or as frequently as my district requires me to. I see no problem in using this if it is used only as it’s intended.
INTERVENTION CLASSES
The reading classes during the second half of the day divide students into groups based upon their achievement. The first class is a tier III intervention class, mentioned prior, that focuses on students below grade level and the specific supports needed to help them achieve grade level. This includes reading specialists who pull students out, a special education teacher in the classroom, and the use of the program Lexia Core 5. This allows the teacher to provide specific one-on-one instructional intervention to the students struggling the most. The second class is called the “golden band” because they are on grade level and considered easily influenced, the focus is on providing challenges to increase their achievement. The third class is for students above grade level who need an enriched course of instruction to be adequately challenged, these students focus on PBIS in their class.