Linky #5- Fall Assessments

So 'tis the season for all things ASSESSMENT.  As an intervention teacher, I spend much of the first several few weeks of school assessing students in our building in order to determine who will be on my Fall Caseload.  So as a teacher who loves early literacy, I have to say that one of my favorite assessments is Marie Clay's "Hearing Sounds in Words- Dictation" Assessment which is part of "The Observation Survey".  If you teach emergent readers, this in my opinion is the Mac-Daddy of assessments and I've used it for over 20 years without fail, regardless of whether or not my teaching position was as a classroom teacher or intervention teacher.

Here is how it works.  The teacher dictates a sentence early in the Fall that says, "The bus is coming. It will stop here to let me get on."  There is a scoring sheet that goes along with this dictation and it accounts for thirty-seven sounds which the child can write from this sentence.  If you want to know specifics of the task, simply google "Observation Survey" and you will find specifics.  But this is the key that I want to share with you.  After my firsties have taken this assessment, I grade them, and put them in order from the highest scores (37) down to the lowest score (possible 0).  I record student names as noted below in the picture along with the scores from this assessment.  Simply scan down the scores and look for the largest gap possible between the numbers that is closest to the bottom of the list.  Here is the break point, and the students below that gap are the students that you will want to recommend for intervention services, pull them daily for instruction in your class, begin progress monitoring for all literacy tasks immediately, and keep very close tabs on them in your classroom.

Now that I have shared my favorite assessment, feel free to link up to three of your favorite assessment product below to share with others.  Can't wait to take a peek at your favorites!

Until Next Time,
Taryn

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