Journal+4_Erin

Erin Goulart Assessment Journal #4

Spelling- In my last visit to my classroom within my practicum, it on a Tuesday, where the day previous that had been a snow day. This day, the teacher had a lot to get done because of the school day that was skipped, and he was sitting assessing a lot of students on spelling and vocab from the previous Friday. He called a student over who I have worked with before and started asking her about her spelling test. For my literacy class, I was asked to give a few students a spelling test on particular words, and stop giving it after they got three in a row wrong. This girl was not focusing a lot and cracking jokes in between words with her fellow classmates. I did not know whether she was taking advantage of the fact that I was only a student teacher grading it, but she seemed to me like her focus was really off. When it came time to assess her work in my other class, I noticed that rather than making patterned mistakes in certain phonics, she across the board had little mistakes here and there that just seem different to me. I couldn’t really pinpoint where she was as a speller. On this particular day, the cooperating teacher pulled her aside and asked her why she was doing so poorly on spelling in many other tests. Intimidating her a little bit, when put on the spot, she spelt most of the words correctly. He made her upset during the talk, but not in a bad way. It was constructive criticism he was giving her and it’s actually what she needed to motivate herself to focus better. I’m really glad I was able to overhear the conversation he was having with her, because I was afraid I was just assessing her wrong. Through this assessment, I realized how important it is to not only analyze the piece with what you are assessing, but the student themselves. It highlights how important it is to get to know your students right off the bat.