Reflection eight- assesment drives instructions

http://www.pdesas.org/module/assessment/Search.aspx#assessmentsearch

For this post I looked on the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s website at their Standard Aligned System (SAS) section for third grade Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening (RWLS) assessments.  I’ve used this site before in my classroom as a way to help prepare my students for the state tests. Last year I had a lot of luck using the site as a tool to gage what and how the state will evaluate my students. I also tried to mirror my own test questions based on the formatting of their questions. I think students who are familiar with the language and format of a test will do better than those who are unfamiliar. If students have seen similar style questions they won’t panic, and will think it is easy.

For this assignment I chose to focus on the story “A Truth Speaker” it is described as a story about a king who likes poetry.  I especially liked it because I felt that the assessment was starting to set the groundwork for the types of questions my students see on their middle school tests. I think it is always good to know where students are starting from. To know what they are familiar with can save so much time in the classroom. 

To understand this passage students would need a multitude of literacy skills but in my opinion three would be essential: comprehension, decoding vocabulary words, and understand point of view.  I selected these three because of the sample questions that followed. The first skill (comprehension) is important to the story because if we as readers cannot understand a text we have no hope in moving onto higher order thinking skills. Comprehension helps us decode meaning, and understand the point of view, and helps us learn the deeper meaning of the text.  The second skill (decoding vocabulary words) is a skill that is really important for students to master, especially as they get older.  On question asked students to re-read a line and determine what disdain means. Well, if they have never heard it, how would they determine its meaning? We need to teach the skills of context, and prefixes, etc.  this allows students to learn words on their own. Finally the third skill I selected was point of view. Again, I selected this based on a question. But I think it is an important skill to master. The point of view determines so much of the story.

I would use the following questions as guides for my students to help them succeed on the test.  The questions would relate to each of the three literary techniques I mentioned above:

1.       Why do we stop and check for understand when we read?

a.       For this lesson I would model for students how when we read something confusing it is okay to re-read it, and to stop and think about what we are reading. Reading is not a race.  I would then have them practice these skills

2.       How can I use context clues to learn a words meaning?

a.       For this lesson we would work with context clues. I would probably design a detective lesson and read a short mystery and play up that we are reading detectives and we can’t leave any stone unturned. A simple word may be the clue to solving the case!

3.       How do you write from a different perspective?

a.       This one is slightly different. I think a great way to teach perspective is to make kids work on writing from a different perspective. Then when we read something from another perspective they seem to get it easier. For example this year,  I had students write about a day in the life of a 7^th grader (one of the grades I teach) but from the perspective of the opposite gender.  As a preview for this unit we read “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” and I had them re-write classic tales from the bad guys’ perspective.  It seems juvenile to use story books at a secondary level but as a preview activity, it works fantastically.

I think the SAS site can be overwhelming at times, because when you look at the big picture we need to cover so much material in so few days. However, I think it is helpful to use it as a map, this is where I need my students to be in the spring, and this is how I get there. Once we realize how much we need to cover, each minute of class becomes important and when we realize this, students realize this. They will meet you expectations.