As educators, and particularly as Reading
Specialists, we need to ask ourselves:
- What do we need to know to make sure
students are learning what we are teaching them?
- How do we implement effective and meaningful assessments in an effort to improve student achievement?
As can be seen in the news all the time, there is constant
debate over educational assessment: How much is too much? Are the
assessments valid? What are the assessments really showing us
about our educational system? About our students? A lot of pressure
is put on policy makers, educational professionals, and most importantly on
students, because of assessments.
The first thing that needs to be kept in mind when discussing
assessments in education is, what is the true point of education? What
are we trying to teach students? What is the goal here? You need to
have clearly defined goals in order to assess if you are them. As is
mentioned in the webinar by the Wisconsin DPI: Leading a
Balanced Literacy Assessment System: Conducting a Literacy Assessment Review, the
true purpose of literacy education is not "to teach kids how to pass a
test." The purpose is not for your school to get high scores on
standardized testing. Education is supposed to help people gain the
knowledge and skills to become positive contributors to our world, and no one
is changing the world just because they scored highly on the PARCC exam.
The first thing that needs to be kept in mind when discussing
assessments in education is, what is the true point of education? What
are we trying to teach students? What is the goal here? You need to
have clearly defined goals in order to assess if you are them. As is
mentioned in the webinar by the Wisconsin DPI: Leading a
Balanced Literacy Assessment System: Conducting a Literacy Assessment Review, the
true purpose of literacy education is not "to teach kids how to pass a
test." The purpose is not for your school to get high scores on
standardized testing. Education is supposed to help people gain the
knowledge and skills to become positive contributors to our world, and no one
is changing the world just because they scored highly on the PARCC exam.
There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle when talking about literacy assessment in our education system today.
There are policy makers, administrators, curriculum coordinators,
language arts teachers, content area teachers, special education teachers, reading
specialists, parents, students, and the list goes on. An important step
to making sure students are learning what we are intending to teach them is to
get a unified plan with all the people involved. This may take some work,
but the Webinar from the Wisconsin DPI is a great guide for
getting the ball rolling.
Getting all the important people in a room together, with a
plan to discuss assessment is imperative. This will make sure everyone is
on the same page as far as what the literacy education goals are and
how to assess if those goals are being reached. This will get a sense of
cohesiveness in the academic setting and prevent redundancies in assessment
from occurring. Redundancies in assessment may cause student
burnout, and complacency in teachers and students. In the assessment
review process those involved can help each other. For example,
administrators can allow time for a reading specialist, special education
teacher, language arts teacher and content area teachers to work together
to come up with instructional practices and assessments to use across the
curriculum, or with particular students, that meet all the demands put
forth by policy makers, administrators etc.
Once
clearly defined, agreed upon, literacy goals are in place, teamwork is still
needed to achieve these goals and make sure students are learning what we are
trying to teach them. Content area teachers may need some assistance
teaching literacy because students in middle school seem to struggle with
content literacy the most, because of the shift in the type of text they are expected
to read. Students are no longer learning to read, but expected to read to
learn. There is a shift from mostly narrative text to expository text:
"The
structure of middle and high school texts also presents challenges for
struggling readers. Expository text is the most prevalent text structure in
most middle and high school texts. In contrast with narrative text, students
have had less exposure to expository text and, more important, have not been
taught comprehension strategies within the context of expository text" (Jetton
& Alexander, 2001).
Again everyone needs to work together, because of these gaps
in literacy instruction as students move from mostly narrative texts in
elementary school to mostly expository texts in
middle and high school. These gaps need to be addressed so that
students can succeed and meet the goals that have been set for them.
There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle when talking about literacy assessment in our education system today.
There are policy makers, administrators, curriculum coordinators,
language arts teachers, content area teachers, special education teachers, reading
specialists, parents, students, and the list goes on. An important step
to making sure students are learning what we are intending to teach them is to
get a unified plan with all the people involved. This may take some work,
but the Webinar from the Wisconsin DPI is a great guide for
getting the ball rolling.
Getting all the important people in a room together, with a plan to discuss assessment is imperative. This will make sure everyone is on the same page as far as what the literacy education goals are and how to assess if those goals are being reached. This will get a sense of cohesiveness in the academic setting and prevent redundancies in assessment from occurring. Redundancies in assessment may cause student burnout, and complacency in teachers and students. In the assessment review process those involved can help each other. For example, administrators can allow time for a reading specialist, special education teacher, language arts teacher and content area teachers to work together to come up with instructional practices and assessments to use across the curriculum, or with particular students, that meet all the demands put forth by policy makers, administrators etc.
Once
clearly defined, agreed upon, literacy goals are in place, teamwork is still
needed to achieve these goals and make sure students are learning what we are
trying to teach them. Content area teachers may need some assistance
teaching literacy because students in middle school seem to struggle with
content literacy the most, because of the shift in the type of text they are expected
to read. Students are no longer learning to read, but expected to read to
learn. There is a shift from mostly narrative text to expository text: "The structure of middle and high school texts also presents challenges for struggling readers. Expository text is the most prevalent text structure in most middle and high school texts. In contrast with narrative text, students have had less exposure to expository text and, more important, have not been taught comprehension strategies within the context of expository text" (Jetton & Alexander, 2001).
Again everyone needs to work together, because of these gaps
in literacy instruction as students move from mostly narrative texts in
elementary school to mostly expository texts in
middle and high school. These gaps need to be addressed so that
students can succeed and meet the goals that have been set for them.
When literacy instruction is based on agreed upon goals and assessments,
communication of assessment data is also important. Assessment data
is important for everyone in the educational setting (including students
and parents) to understand. If students are not succeeding, people need
to start talking and changes need to be made to make sure students are
learning. Assessment data will help identify gaps as mentioned above.
The problem needs to be identified and adjustments need to be made.
The problem could be in the instructional practices, the
assessments, policies, or an issue with an individual student (just to name a
few culprits). Sharing good assessment data is key to continuing evolve
and improve our education system and to making sure of achieving out overall
goals for students, to make them positive members of our world world community
who are life long learners.
References:
H. (2015). Leading A Balanced Literacy Assessment System: Conducting A Literacy Assessment Review. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uruFu6f-kg0
