Still Learning to Read: Organizing Assessments

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

"Try the Starbucks App. It's life-changing," my brother told me a few months ago. He was right. I can order my morning tea from my house right before I leave and it is ready for me when I arrive.  No more long lines. No more trying to predict how long my morning drive with tea stop will take. My mornings are calmer and more predictable now.  A small change, but life-changing nonetheless!

A similar thing happened a few years ago as I was trying (still...in my 28th year of teaching) to figure out how to manage all the assessments and things I wanted to save through the school year on each child.  I used to have file folders that worked fine but assessments have become a bit more complex.  And for assessments to be useful, I want to have access to them and full file folders are not always that easy to access! Even though much of what I keep, I can keep online,  I like to keep a lot of paper things. I've always believed that every piece of work can tell you something about a child and I know having lots allows me to see change over time.  When I moved to 3rd grade and tried to make sense of our 3rd Grade Guarantee Law, I had to figure out a plan for all the paperwork that went along with that, This new mandated paperwork, along with the daily classroom assessments I have always kept became a bit overwhelming (well, maybe more than a bit...).  I needed a new plan.  Our Literacy Coach, Gretchen Taylor, shared with me the system she had used the year before as a middle school teacher--she had a mailbox/file type slot for each child in her 5 middle school Language Arts classes. That way, when she wanted to add a new note, assessment, piece of student work, etc. she just dropped it in.  Easy and quick and very accessible at all times.

So, I set up the same thing and have kept it going ever since.  I have cabinets in my room for storage. They are above the student cubbies. I have taken over the front portion of 3 of those and house 8 student files in each one.

So each student has a file that I can toss things in when needed. I can also easily access anything I want. This helps me in a variety of ways:

• First of all, I don't have to spend a lot of deciding what to keep. I do that a lot--try to decide if something is worth keeping.   With this system, there is plenty of room to drop things in and there is no reason to keep them forever--I can keep them as long as I need to.  So any student samples that may be worth keeping, any quick checks I do, even a sticky note with an observation about a child can go right in these files.
• This is the perfect system for sharing information with others.  When I get ready for parent conferences, I can pull the pile of information out. I have lots to look at when finishing up comments for report cards. And when the Reading Support teacher or the ELL teacher comes in to look at some of the assessments or wants to add something new, they don't have wait for me or sort through my piles for what they are looking for. They have access to these anytime they need them.
• I rely a great deal on digital tools for collecting and reflecting on work but there are mandated assessments, test reports, reading plans and work samples that are better saved as paper copies--better for me because I can spread them out and look at them when needed. This system lets me look at individual work more easily. It also invites reflection across time.

Because I am a person who make piles and who likes to look again and again at student work, this is the perfect organization tool for me.  It is a simple idea that really changed my teaching life as it made all of the paperwork more manageable and more useful for me.

(You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released last week!  You can order it online at Stenhouse!

Poetry Friday -- Truth

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by tubb

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
by Emily Dickinson

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

It's data analysis season in our schools. We've been looking hard at the various "truths" that different pieces of data tell us about students. Each one has its own slant, and to get at the core truth of each child as a learner -- the TRUE true, as it were -- there are so many things to consider that we're all feeling a bit dazzled.

But the more we know, the better we teach: "Success in Circuit lies."

Catherine has the Poetry Friday roundup at Reading to the Core.

Still Learning to Read: So Much More than a Single Test Score

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016.


I love getting to know my students early in the school year.  There is so much to learn and so many things to get to know about each child. The first six weeks of school is definitely not easy, but taking the time to get to know each student as a person and as a learner is so important.

In Ohio, we have a 3rd Grade Guarantee Law. No matter where you live, you are most likely living with some mandates that require an emphasis on standardized tests. When you are dealing with mandates and laws like these, it is easy to forget all of the things we know and understand about literacy and learning and to go through the motions of the paperwork required and to rely on standardized test scores alone.  The test scores tell us something about a child, but they do not tell us everything we need to know to plan good instruction.  I decided a few years ago that I had a choice as a classroom teacher. I try to do the best I can to meet the requirements of the law while working in ways that make sense for young children. It takes a bit of extra time and intentional planning but I know that meeting a child's needs requires more than a single test score.

In Ohio we give a state reading test in the fall and the spring.  Districts also have the option to give alternate tests for kids to show what they know. Our district provides each teacher with the Developmental Reading Assessment and I always sit down with every child to chat about their reading in an informal Reading Interview. I also spend the first weeks of school taking anecdotal notes about things I notice during independent reading time, mini lesson time, and read aloud time.

Each time I assess a child (with a standardized or more informal assessment), I try to pull out the most important things from the assessment-the things that seems to be the most important thing to know about that child right now. Then I look across all of the assessments to notice patterns and ask myself questions like:

• Are there any outliers in the assessments? Something that doesn't fit the rest of the information?
• Does the child do better with long text or shorter text? Can he/she hold onto a story/idea of time?
• Are there patterns across strengths and weaknesses across assessments?
• How does this child define reading?
• Is this child an engaged reader?
• What strengths does this child have that can be built on?
• What is the one thing that seems to be most critical for this child to move forward as a reader?

To do this I use what I call an Assessment Web.  I want to look across several pieces of information about my students in order to plan for instruction that matters for them. I can't look at a level or a test score or an area of weakness and know what to do or how best to support a young reader. Instead I need to look hard at all types of data and information to determine what is the most important next step for a child. In our book Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop, I shared the way that I create an Assessment Web for each child.  The Assessment Web lets me think about all the pieces of information I gather about a child as a learner during the first few weeks of school and for me, the web allows me to see how they all work together, without one being more important than the other. I often use this web to share with parents at conference time. My categories change a bit based on the assessments we are required to give or the patterns I see but overall my web usually looks something like this:

Some years, instead of an assessment web, I compile the data on a form that is on page 83 in the second edition of Still Learning to Read.  This one is a bit easier and allows me to more easily look across grouping of students and patterns across the class.  But it doesn't give me a single page on each student that I can use as the year progresses and add changes, updates, etc.

Of course, the form doesn't matter--it just helps me make it easier for me to look across multiple pieces of information on a child.  In order 'to move forward with targeted instructional planning after these first few weeks of school, this step has always been critical for me. Since I started using a form like this over a decade ago, we've had new standards, new tests and new mandates. But the idea of the form continues to work for me as I try to look at all the data and information I have on a child in order to make the best instructional decisions possible for a child.

(You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLficuciaryTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released last week!  

You can order it online at Stenhouse!