Leading With Assessment
Do you dive in and continue forward with your whole group reading and phonics curriculum without any particular phonics assessments? If so, you’re not leading with assessment.
Leading with assessment means utilizing assessment for instruction (Walpole, McKenna 2017). When we assess for instruction, we gather information in order to make decisions about instructional next steps.
Your assessment calendar likely includes screening assessments and others. A screener is a (hopefully— quick) assessment that allows you to determine students who may need extra support in an area. You might think about this as a temperature check. A temperature check may allow you to know when someone’s not feeling well. But, it won’t tell you what to do next. You need to diagnose using additional information. That’s the next type of assessment: diagnostic. A diagnostic assessment allows you to pinpoint a child’s next step.
For phonics instruction, you need straightforward diagnostic assessments to help you understand what students already know and what they are ready for next. You can use this data to inform your whole class phonics instruction and small group reading (and sometimes writing) instruction. Check out our free phonics assessment tools here for word decoding assessments that can help you understand a students' phonics knowledge.
You aren’t leading with assessment in phonics if you:
Neglect to conduct phonics assessments at the beginning of the year.
Rely on running records to make assumptions about students’ phonics knowledge.
Conduct phonics assessments at the beginning of the year, but do not use them to make instructional plans.
You are leading with assessment in phonics if you:
Conduct phonics assessments early on and use these assessments to decide on the best course of action for whole group and small group instruction. (This likely means that you begin the year with the recommended phonics review from your curriculum and then make informed decisions about where to go next.)
Following Up With Assessment
Leading with assessment gives a starting line, but you also need checkpoints or a finish line.
Here’s a metaphor. You need some physical therapy for an injured back. The physical therapist likely decides a course of treatment, and then assesses progress periodically. If some progress is made, the treatment may continue until more is made. If all progress is made and the goal for treatment is met, the treatment can be terminated. If no progress is made, the therapist might reflect and reconsider both the need and the approach.
Phonics assessment and instruction is like this. Once you have determined what to teach a child (or group) and you’ve worked to teach that thing, you’ve got to follow up to see if it’s been mastered in response to your teaching. You can use the same list of words or an alternate one to reassess. If the goal has been met--onward! And if it hasn’t been, you can continue working toward that goal (and reflect more when necessary).
You aren’t following up with assessment if…
You move on to the next thing because of a schedule, a calendar, or a certain number of weeks spent on a topic.
You don’t conduct assessments along the way based on your teaching.
You do assessments along the way, but continue to move on no matter what.
You keep instructional groupings the same, despite the performance of students on check-in assessments.
You are following up with assessment if…
You use assessment to see students’ progress toward the goal you are working on
You make decisions based on students’ progress toward goals—who is ready for a new concept? Who needs more practice? Is there something I should be doing differently or better?
Again, check out our free phonics assessment tools here here in order to find word decoding assessments that will allow you to both lead with and follow up with assessment.
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