Bresciani+Journal+2

This week when visiting my classroom, I helped the teacher correct the student’s daily handwriting papers. Each day, as part of their morning work, the students must practice a particular letter. The teacher writes the letter on the board, and demonstrates to the students how to make the letter. She then has them practice on a sheet provided. At the beginning of the year, the students just focused on the correct formation of each letter, and now they have moved onto cursive. Each day, the teacher collects the student’s papers and reviews them. When instructing me on how to properly grade them, she explained that she looks for correct letter formation, the student’s ability to stay within the lines, and clarity. She marks the student’s mistakes, and then assesses their work by giving them a check, check plus or check minus. Their grades are then recorded on a specific grading sheet that records the student’s handwriting grades throughout each semester.

I consider this type of assessment to be performance based, as it assesses each student’s handwriting ability. The teacher recognizes that some letters may be more difficult than others; however, she looks for consistency within each child’s work. If the majority of the class receives check minus’, she has the class redo the letter the next day, and pays specific attention to children who really struggled to write the letter. If a child did poorly on a particular letter, she also has them redo that letter for homework, and reviews it with them next day.

I believe that this type of performance assessment is successful, as the teacher demonstrates the letter, has the children practice writing the letter, and them gives them feedback to how they performed. I think it is great how she makes sure each child can successfully write the letter, and if they do not perform as well as they should (according to her three assessment goals), she reviews the correct format with them and makes the practice again. This assessment does not necessarily affect a child’s grade; however, it is way for the teacher to keep track of the student’s progress, and for the students to revive feedback on their handwriting performance.