Standard 3

Standard 3 Assessment and Evaluation

• Administer and interpret appropriate assessments for students, especially those who struggle with reading and writing.
• Analyze and use assessment data to examine the effectiveness of specific intervention practices and students responses to instruction.

Since I have never had my own class and have only ever subbed, I haven’t had a chance to use any type of formal assessment.  I have to admit that this is an area that is intimidating since I have no experience.   I don’t feel that it is something that you can learn from class, it is something you learn in the field.  I have been informally assessing Liv during our sessions and have noticed a tremendous amount of improvement since we began.  One observation that I have made is that her comprehension skills greatly outweigh her fluency.  She is able to answer any question with ease yet still struggles to get through most books without assistance.  Liv is also able to answer questions beyond the text, such as what the characters might be feeling, what could happen next, and how it makes her feel.  She excels at tapping into emotions, whether they belong to her or to a character in the story.  Something else that I have noticed with Liv is that she struggles the most with the simple words and some of the more complex words come easier to her.  She explained to me that some of the more complex words have been on her spelling tests or that she has used context clues to figure them out.  I have also noticed that she reads contractions as two separate words, for example I’m is I am to Liv.  To help her learn to read them correctly I have been doing a timed reading activity which is simply a sheet of contractions in which she has one minute to read.  When she began she could only get through 28 words and she is now almost able to get through the entire sheet!  I am very proud of the progress she is making and we will continue to work diligently.

running record

Results for timed reading exercise for contractions:
21/28

25/31

30/37

33/38

36/44

40/46

45/51

51/59

56/64