Chapter 3 introduces teachers to several formal and informal assessment measures appropriate for young children. The chapter offers guidance on monitoring progress and assigning grades.
Effective teachers assess students' literacy development in the following ways:
- Teachers use assessment as an essential part of teaching.
- Teachers use a variety of assessment tools to assess children's literacy development.
- Teachers assess young children's understanding of written language with the Concepts About Print test.
- Teachers monitor children's ability to read high-frequency words and their reading fluency.
- Teachers take running records to assess children's reading accuracy and comprehension.
- Teachers use leveled books to determine children's instructional reading level.
- Teachers use rubrics to assess the ideas, organization, vocabulary, style, and mechanics in children's compositions.
- Teachers analyze children's spellings to determine their stage of development and to plan for instruction.
- Teachers monitor children's learning using observation and anecdotal notes, conferences, checklists, and collections of children's work samples.
- Teachers distribute assignment sheets during units so that children understand how they will be assessed and graded.
Readers should consider the following questions while reading Chapter 3:
- Which tools do teachers use to monitor children's learning in the classroom?
- How do teachers determine children's reading levels?
- How do teachers assign grades?
