Assessment Is an Ongoing Process in My Kindergarten Classroom. I Use Formal and Informal

Introduction

I feel that there is not just one way to teach students. As an educator, it is my job to meet the needs of my students in all subject areas. All children learn differently and teachers need to be able to provide the support they need in order to learn to read. We want children to love reading. In order for them to love reading, we need to give them rich text on their reading level and individualize their instruction to meet their needs. We also need to read to them such as a read aloud or partner reading so that they can hear the text being read fluently. My goal is to use the best practices in my classroom to help all children learn to read and love doing it. In my classroom, I use all of the materials, technology, and media to assist my students in their learning journey. It is my responsibility to select the best practices in my classroom so that I might provide the best possible instruction for my students. I believe that the Appalachian Masters Reading Education program has had a positive impact on how I plan my instruction and teach the students in my classroom. Before entering the Reading program through ASU, I was unsure of my teaching. This program has helped me become a more confident teacher and it has influenced the decisions I have made regarding my students instruction. What I do each day impacts my students’ learning, so therefore I need to make sure that I am planning the best instruction in my classroom. As you read, I want to share with you the best practices that I use in my kindergarten classroom.

A. Assessment

Assessment is an ongoing process in my kindergarten classroom. I use formal and informal types of assessments to determine the progress made by each student. I constantly use teacher observation and classroom discussions to monitor how students are progressing with skills that are being covered. Through assessments, I can determine if I have provided appropriate instruction or if I need to teach concepts in a different manner.

I am required in my county to assess my students three times a year on book and print awareness. This is a formal assessment to test a student’s knowledge on book concepts such:as front/back of book, title/name of the book, and where to begin reading. In addition, the students are asked to identify letters within a word, words, letters at the beginning and ending of a word, words at the beginning and ending of sentences, and punctuation marks. Student’s ability to track print is also a focus of this assessment. I give this assessment to my students in August, January, and May. After the assessment is given, I am able to plan the focus of my shared reading and small group instruction based on the needs of my students.

DIBELS is another required formal assessment given to my students. This assessment is given three times a year: September, February, and May. In the DIBELS assessment, students are assessed in the following areas: phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. My school has been doing the DIBELS assessment for a few years. Until this year, an assessing team did all of the assessments and sent the data to the teachers. I printed the data, looked at it, and filed it away in my filing cabinet. I did not let it change how I taught in my classroom. Even though this assessment is required by my county, I feel that it is not an accurate or appropriate measure of the components it contains. This year we started using Reading 3D which contains the DIBELS assessment. Now that we have Reading 3D, we are asked to give the DIBELS assessments to our own students. Now that the data is computer based, I will have to progress monitor all of the children who did not make a sufficient level on their assessment. The low students are not going to benefit from me testing them every two weeks.

The Reading 3D assessment is an initiative from Governor Perdue. This is a web-based reading assessment that is research-based and provides strategic instruction and interventions for all students. Reading 3D combines running records (text reading and comprehension) and DIBELS. In having these two components combined, the assessment will provide teachers a complete picture of students’ ability to read and comprehend. I feel that in my classroom I do not need this type of assessment to tell me if my student can read or not. I have a problem with the Reading 3D assessment because it also includes a written comprehension component at lower level books. The Reading 3D assessments will be completed multiple times during the school year. Since it is a new reading assessment for our school this year; we will be completing the assessments two times during the remaining part of the school year.

Before getting the Reading 3D program, I administered informal running record reading assessments on each of my students. While they were reading, I would make notes on how many words they read incorrectly and mistakes they made while reading the text. I wanted my students to be comfortable reading so I kept the assessments very informal. I will continue to use informal reading assessments (Morris, 2008) on my students throughout the year to keep track of where they are in reading when we are not completing the formal Reading 3D assessments.

I give my students an assessment of their alphabet recognition. This is an informal assessment in which I ask the student to identify upper case and lower case letters in isolation. I also ask the students to produce the sound for each letter. I keep a check sheet for each student and monitor their progress on learning the letters and sounds. By doing this assessment, I am able to adjust and reflect on my instruction to better meet the needs of students (Reilly, 2007).

My county also requires that kindergarten students know thirty high frequency words. I keep a check sheet to monitor how many words each student knows. I flash the words to the students and give them a word recognition assessment. It is very important for the students to know the words automatically (Morris and Slavin, 2003). I use their check sheets to plan my high frequency word instruction. I am also able to monitor which words need more focus.

B. Materials, Technologies and Media

I am lucky to work at a school that has many resources, technologies, and materials available for classroom instruction. Each classroom at my school has a SMART board. Most of my daily instruction incorporates the SMART board. The smart board is an interactive technology that helps to reach the all of the different learning styles: visual-spatial, auditory, and kinesthetic. We are able to do many activities on the SMART board ranging from writing on it, looking on the internet, and watching education clips from National Geographic to United Streaming. The SMART board puts so many resources at our fingertips with just the click of a button. I also set the SMART board up so that the students can play interactive games. The SMART board allows me to engage the students in educational multimedia activities. It is also ideal for introducing lessons and new material to my students. I have a high population of Hispanic students in my classroom and I use the SMART board to show many pictures of items and objects when teaching material.

Recently I had a document camera installed in my classroom that is linked to the SMART board. We use the document camera almost on a daily basis. I use the document camera to make small books into big books so that the students are able to see the text and pictures better. I also use the document camera to model writing. It also allows me to display prepared papers and photographs. The document camera keeps my students more engaged because they are able to see pictures, text, and writing at a much larger scale. It also allows the students in my room to look at information all at the same time instead of waiting for me to scan group time with a small piece of paper or book.

I have four computers in my classroom that students can use throughout the day. When students are on the computers, they are able to use online reading programs such as starfall.com and tarheelreader.org. I also set the computers up so the children can listen to books being read at Tumblebooks.com. At my school, we use the phonics program Letterland. We have three different software/games that go with Letterland that the students can also choose to interact with while they are on the computers. Not only do the students use the computers, but I use the computer for my daily instruction. I use the internet as a tool to help me teach the kindergarten curriculum. With all of my units and word families, I find pictures of objects so that my students can put text with a picture and understand what I am talking about if I say the word rabbit. They have a picture of a rabbit to look at as I am talking about them.

I have many technologies in my classroom but I also have a large classroom library(Mosenthal, Lipson, Sortino, Russ, &Mekkelsen, 2001). My classroom library has evolved over the nine years that I have been teaching. When I first walked into my classroom, you could fit all of the books that belonged in the classroom on one shelf that was not even three foot wide. After many book orders and trips to the book sales, I am happy to say that I have over 1000 books in my classroom. These books include the books that I read with my units, listening center, self selected readers, and take home readers. I am very passionate about having books available for students to look at, listen to, and read. I love picture books and I want to share that love with mystudents. When I read books in my classroom, I give book talks about the books and authors. If I see the students are interested in a book, I will also show the students other books by that author. When I take my students to our school library, I point out books that we have read in the classroom. I love to keep my students engaged in books and encourage a passion for reading.

The listening center is another important part of my classroom that I have worked hard on building it up. I have approximately 75 books on tape or CD for my listening center. Did you know that listening to stories being read is a great model for fluency? I feel that the listening center is a great way to get my students started off in their reading journey. I read aloud to my students everyday but I am limited to the number of times that I can read aloud. The listening center in my classroom is used during our center time, which consists of two twenty minute sessions. During the forty minutes, four to six students get to listen to favorite stories they enjoy. When they are listening to a story, I have gathered books so that they each have their own copy to follow along. The listening center cannot replace teacher read alouds but it does assist in modeling fluent reading.

My school has a leveled text library that is available for all teachers to use. The books range from levels A to Z. The books have been leveled for readability using the Fountas & Pinnell Text Level Gradient. These books are to be used with small group instruction. There is a large variety of text in the leveled library. We also have two sections in the leveled text library that are devoted to science and social studies titles. I use these leveled readers along with books from my classroom library in my small reading groups. After I read the leveled books with the children, I put them in a basket so that they can read them during their free time if desired.

I like to keep transitions from activities in my classroom as smooth as possible. I have a large collection of cds ranging from Dr. Jean to Greg and Steve. I enjoy using songs and chants during transition times and when we have five minutes to spare. The students enjoy singing and moving around the classroom. One of our favorite songs is “Lettercize”(Feldman, 2007). In this song, the students are boxing as they say letters and the sounds they make. The song takes a few breaks and the students get to pretend to jump rope, run in place, and do jumping jacks. This is an opportunity for students to learn while moving into another activity. Some of my student’s favorite songs have reinforced letter sounds, days of the week, and months of the year.

In my classroom, I have different styles and levels of games and learning activities for the children to use. I have taken notepads, cards, paper, post it notes, and patterns to make educational games for my students. The games range from putting letters in order, matching letters to pictures that begin with the same sound, and matching pictures to sentences. The games are on the students’ shelves and they choose which games they want to play during our free time. I do not tell students which games they can play but I do suggest games that I feel the students will be successful at completing. I change the games out for each of my units so that the students will not get bored playing the same games. I have also made games out of store bought games such as Jenga. I wrote letters and words on each of the blocks and when the student pulls out a block, they have to read the word or tell the letter depending on where the student is developmentally. These materials keep my students actively engaged and interested in reading and reading activities as they begin their reading journey.

C. Reading Instruction

One of my favorite parts of the school day is when I read aloud to my students. Reading aloud to my students is both enjoyable and an excellent way to enhance their language and literacy development. Literacy growth is promoted when students hear stories read aloud to them. I pick literature that is high quality and age-appropriate for my students. When I am reading aloud to my students, I am modeling fluent reading. When I read aloud to my students I like to make the text come alive and drawn them into the book. I choose stories that I feel my students will have interest in so that when I finish reading we can discuss about the book as a class. Also according to Beck, McKeown, and Kucan read alouds enhance vocabulary acquisition (2002). I ask my students questions before and after reading a book. I also have my students make predictions before and during my read alouds. The ability for my students to discuss the book is enhancing their comprehension. When I use expository text during my read alouds, I have my students look at the cover and we talk about what we know or what we would like to find out before reading the book and I focus on content area questions. Looking at the front cover, discussing what we see, and predicting what the book will be about is an activity that I do with all of my read aloud books. I want my students to start making predictions about what they see. Reading aloud to my students also helps them develop a sense of story. Many of my children come to school without having been read to, so they are lacking in vocabulary and book and print knowledge. I can also tell the children in my class that have been read to at home, because they come to school ready to read (Adams, 1990).

Part of my reading instruction is focused on self-selected reading and individual student conferences. When we have self-selected reading, I have baskets of leveled readers and my students pick books they want to read. “Providing students with the opportunity to choose their own books to read empowers and encourages them. It strengthens their self-confidence, rewards their interests, and promotes a positive attitude toward reading by valuing the reader and giving him or her a level of control” (Miller, 2009). The book baskets contain fiction and non-fiction text. I make sure that the students are choosing books that are “just right”. They move to a spot in the room where they want to read and get comfortable and start reading. As the students are reading their books, my assistant and I call them over for book conferences. They read the book to us and then we discuss the book. I encourage my students to read their book more than once. When students re-read material several times their reading fluency increases. When a student reads fluently; smoothly, with expression and at a good rate, they will also be better able to understand what they are reading. Reading fluency opens up the door for great comprehension of what they are reading. Also, when rereading text, their site word vocabulary is increased. When my students are reading during our self-selected reading time, they are reading books on their independent level. Self-selected reading time lasts for twenty minutes (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1996), and I feel that it helps students make gains in reading achievement and become stronger fluent readers.