The Importance of Ongoing Assessment

Assessment is a crucial part of education. It not only shows the teacher whether or not, or to what extent, a student has understood a given lesson, but also directs what will be taught next. This is called diagnostic assessment. While some assessment can be formal, a great deal of assessment should happen in informal or “authentic” learning settings. One example of this informal assessment is conferencing. For the educational layperson, conferencing is a one-on-one meeting the teacher has with every student once a week. Each conference lasts about 10 minutes and the student tells the teacher what they have been reading, what strategies they’ve been using, what they are struggling with, etc. These conferences should be recorded by the teacher in an organized fashion, so they can assess progress over time. The format of this organization can take many forms. For example:

The format I typically use is a simple chart that records the date, the book currently being read and whether it is fiction or non-fiction, a few notes on what the student is doing well, and a few notes on what we worked on together or what I think they should work on next. Sounds simple, no?

The answer to that question is an emphatic “no!” There is so much to keep in mind during a conference! In Catching Readers before They Fall, Johnson and Keier recommend the teacher asking him- or herself these questions:

·         Is the child comprehending and to what extent?

·         What strategic actions are being used?

·         How are the strategic actions helping the reader understand what he or she is reading?

·         How does the reading sound? Is it smooth or choppy? Is it well paced and phrased? Does the child attend to punctuation?

·         What does the child do when stuck on a word? What sources of information is the child using or neglecting?

·         Is the child enjoying the book?

·         What is his or her attitude toward reading?

This is a large number of broad, open-ended (for the most part) questions to bear in mind, and this is the short list! After gathering data, Johnson and Keier recommend a longer series of more specific questions For example, Can the child predict at the word level? At the text level? Can the child infer information from the text? Is the child flexible in problem-solving? Is the child self-monitoring for voice/print patch? For meaning? Of course, these are just examples of the kinds of questions a teacher should be seeking answers to, but it illustrates the vast array of skills neccesary to meaningful reading. Once the answers to these questions are determined and the teacher knows exactly what a student can and cannot do, they must then decide what the most important next step is for each student.

Conferencing – meeting weekly with each student to discuss their reading - is a simple idea in theory and, I believe, a very good one. I am fortunate enough to have had opportunities to conference with many students at different reading levels and in different grades. While I have always loved books and this makes it easy for me to talk with children about books, I lack experience in language arts instruction and am not yet comfortable with simultaneous assessment and instruction. I am not yet sure what conversational direction is best, what strategy would most help a student progress, or which is a small detail to work on and which evidence of a wide or essential gap in their reading process system.  Since the vast majority of my knowledge about teaching language arts is new, it has not been sorted into a hierarchy of importance. If a kid is struggling with reading fluently, and predicting, and Text-to-Life/World/Text connections, etc., I am not comfortable assessing which to approach first. I suppose that, as I gain experience, conferencing will feel less like I am treading water and more like I am actually swimming. I look forward to that time because it will make learning to read easier for my students as well as making teaching to read easier for me. Ongoing assessment, such as weekly conferencing is an essential skill for teachers to learn and utilize. Good assessment demonstrates to the teacher exactly what each student can and cannot do, determines what lessons will be taught next, shows ongoing student progress, and can also be a very useful tool for talking to anxious parents.