danielle_Journal+1

One of the assessments that I observed this past Friday in my cooperating teacher's first grade classroom was a formal writing/spelling test. Students were spread out throughout the classroom. Some students sat at their desks, while the teacher had other students move and sit at tables; or on the floor in certain areas of the room. After students were situated, the teacher orally gave the exam to students as they filled in the blanks of their assessment with pencils. The assessment was measuring students’ ability to recognize the sounds that letters make, as well as spell words correctly that they were learning about in class. In addition students were assessed based on their ability to mark up words, write letters appropriately, and use the correct punctuation in sentences. The assessment was formatted in a way that was familiar to how students practiced writing words in class. Students had been shown and practiced writing letters/words on a series of lines throughout the year, both bold and dotted. Each line is labeled with a picture that advises students where they should start and stop their letters when writing. For example, there is a sky line, a plane line, a grass line, and a worm line. Students should draw capital letters from the sky line to the grass line; lowercase letters from the plane line to the grass line; and lowercase letters like p and y should be extended from the plane line to the worm line because they have tails.
 * Assessment Journal #1**

To start the teacher orally stated five sounds, one at a time, having students identify each sound as a letter or two letters. The answers to the assessment included “qu”, “th”, “z”, and “a” twice; because there are two different sounds that “a” can make. Then the teacher asked students to identify the words she was stating by having write the words on their assessment sheets. Students were responsible for spelling each word correctly and marking them up. Students would do this by underlining consonant digraphs, putting a star above letters that are repeated in words, but silent; such as the second “l” in “bells”, as well as underlining the base word in plural words, and circling their “s’.” Words that she asked students to identify were the weekly words that students had been learning about. The teacher would use each word in a sentence to help students remember the words in their correct context. Some examples of words that she would ask students to identify were plural words such as, “huffs,” “ships,” “locks,” “bags” “quits,” and “chins,” and trick words like, “what,” and “put.”

After the individual words were given, the teacher asked students to write out two sentences that she said orally. She repeatedly stated each sentence for the children, one at a time so that they could write the entire sentence at their own pace. The first sentence was a question, “Did Ted fill the cups yet?” The second sentence was a statement, “The dog runs with Jill.”

As I walked around the room I observed students answers to see how they were receiving the material taught during their spelling and writing lesson. Students who are the outstanding readers in the class seemed to have all of the answers correct, while students who were poorer readers seemed to guess at the spelling of words. These students would be spelling out words phonetically, spelling it out exactly how it sounds. Other mistakes that I viewed were forgetting to mark up words or parts of words, having a capitalized letter at the beginning of a sentence or for someone’s name, and not putting punctuation or correct punctuation at the end of the sentences. Also, there was only one student that I saw not writing their letters properly within the lines. Overall I feel that all of the students did well on the assessment. Some of the errors the class made during the assessment were minor. For example, students could have been nervous during the exam or rushing to get down the “right” answer causing them to forget their punctuation, a capital letter, or to underline the digraph in a word. Students had many components in the second part of this assessment that could have caused them to forget to do one or two things correctly. The program that Tower Street School has for teaching children how to read and write is amazing because it teaches students thoroughly about all of the components for learning how to listen for, spell, and write letters and words. I believe that this assessment was extremely effective for both the students and the teacher because the results will provide so much feedback as to the progress of the students and how well the educator is teaching her students. I have seen how my cooperating shares with the class easy ways to remember the sounds of letters, she teaches them how to tap out words, how to recognize words that have long and short vowels, as well as digraphs and so much more. This assessment measured so many aspects of writing and spelling, indicating the attention needed to specific parts of writing and spelling. For example, the teacher will need to remind students of the type of letter that begins a sentence or ask them what type of punctuation should come at the end of a sentence. In addition, the teacher may have to review certain ways to remember how trick words are spelled, or the constraints/positions of writing letters on a line.

Students receive so much practice during their writing and reading lessons, and as a result, there have shown remarkable improvement since the beginning of this year. There are so many students that do well in both reading and writing, however there are a few students who continue to struggle. The writing/spelling assessments go hand and hand with the reading assessments because they show similar results in students’ progress towards recognizing how words are spelled and the sounds they make. This assessment was purposeful because it measured valuable information, which the children will use in the real world. I would not have changed the way that my cooperating teacher had given this formal assessment, nor the measures that she was assessing. This assessment will provide this teacher with insight of what her students are struggling with. This will also inform her of how she should approach or alter her teaching to help students understand how to read and write. This assessment will also allow students to realize what they are having difficulty with and therefore may ask the teacher to focus on a particular topic. The students will use the feedback from the teacher to improve their performance in spelling and writing letters, words, and sentences.

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