Forsythe+1

Students in the third grade class I observe are divided into four reading groups. The groups are determined by the students’ reading ability. On Tuesday the 10th, I sat in on a reading group with my cooperating teacher. This group happened to be the group with the highest reading ability. The group of four children took turns reading a chapter of a book. My teacher took notes assessing the students’ fluency. After the students’ finished the chapter, my cooperating teacher asked them questions pertaining to the text. She then worked with each student individually. She had them each read a few pages of text and asked questions to evaluate their comprehension of the text. My teacher keeps an organized list of all her students’ ability to read fluently. There is a process she uses that involves counting words and the number of words each student can read without error. On Tuesday she counted the words that each student was able to read without stalling or making a mistake and compared to their performance in September. Then, each student was asked to read a few paragraphs aloud to their teacher. My cooperating teacher then asked each student a question based on his/her specific section of reading. My teacher informed me that the questions have become more in depth and thought provoking than the ones asked in September. My teacher also informed me that she bases each session on the reading abilities of the different groups. Since this group has the highest reading ability, the questions asked had more to do with making inferences as opposed to simple comprehension questions. I think this is a great way to individually assess students. I think reading is a difficult thing to assess in school. The only way I can really think of getting an accurate assessment is to take the time out to work with each student to work on individual needs. Having the students read one-on-one with the teacher is a great way for teacher’s to be able to truly get a sense of how the student’s are progressing as readers. This performance-based assessment takes time but I definitely think it is the most effective.
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