I have been studying to be a teacher for 4 years now with a concentration in English. I started my field work at the beginning of the semester in an elementary school and was able to grasp how children learn. I noticed however, that every child is learning at a different pace, especially with their reading skills. In my opinion, reading skills are the most important skills to learn and it is most important to learn them at an early age. The children in my class for field work are placed in different groups based on their reading skills. I wondered to myself when I was looking at the wall of different colored groups, how is this determined and who determines it? And how does putting students into different reading levels, help them progress in the future? To figure this out, I decided to focus on how the students are assessed on their reading levels.
“Taken together, data from a variety of assessments can help advise a teacher about the text difficulty that students can handle. This quote from “Organizing and Evaluating Results from Multiple Reading Assessments” represents my focus of my research because it states that assessments help teachers figure out what groups the students have to be in after they have taken the test. Assessments also help the teachers give the students a chance to improve because they are being placed in a group at their reading level and pace. By placing students in a group that they can handle, it is helping them succeed in the future because they are moving at a speed that is most comfortable for them.
To find out more about this thought, I decided to conduct an interview my cooperating teacher in my junior field work. She was more than happy to help and tell me her experiences with my analysis of student’s reading levels. My subject has been a teacher for 20 years and I figured with her many years experience as teacher, she can enlighten me on how the school assess the students on their reading levels and how the assessments help the students progress in their reading levels. I also decided to use ethnography; myself as the ethnographer. This is to analyze how my teacher feels about her students and their reading levels progressing.
After conducting the interview with my cooperating teacher, I am able to gather more information than expected. I start my asking her questions on why she wanted to be teacher and how she felt about students reading levels. She explains that one of her past teachers inspired her to be a teacher and how she feels that it is an extremely important for students to have strong reading skills.
“As a teacher, I feel that it is extremely important for students to have strong reading skills. If they know word attack skills and previewing skills, they can read any new information they come across…”
This showed me how she is very passionate about being a teacher and having her students succeed. Then I proceed to ask her to tell me about the students are assessed on their reading skills. She explains how the students are tested with the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) testing and STAR reading testing. The students also are assessed with the NJASK.
After learning about the tests that are use to assess the students’ reading, I decided to look up what each test was and how they assess the students to further my analysis on the assessments. The DRA test is given at the beginning of the school year and it consist of a child reading a benchmark book (a book on their reading level) to the teacher and then retell the story to the teacher. The teacher then ranges the child on a set of skills, such as accuracy of reading, comprehension, and fluency. (Scholastic Inc) This test shows that the student is able to grasp a higher level of thinking skills and reading skills. Star Reading assessments are a standardized computerized test that is use to test reading (and also math). The child reads a passage or sentence and answers the multiple choice answer that corresponds with the test. I was actually able to see the test on the computer when I was looking their curriculum and it was really neat to see that how each reading level is accommodated in the test. The NJASk, I believe to be not the greatest test to assess the students with because they test tends to have reading passages that are well beyond any students’ reading level. It might be difficult for students who are a lower reading level to score as high as a student who is on a higher reading level.
I continued to ask her how theses assessments help the students in the classroom and who determines the level of the students. She explains to me that the results from the assessment are determined by teacher expectation. She also explains how the result from the testing really helps her instruct her class to fit her students’ needs. I asked her if she thinks that the assessments really work, she explains.
“Yes, because it helps drive instruction and it helps me decide how to group students in clusters that need a particular skill such as cause and effect, setting, main idea, etc.”
I noticed with my time in the class, that the teacher spends more time with the children who are having trouble with reading than the students who scored well. This means that the assessments can give her a closer look on what student needs the most help and attention with their reading skills.
As our interview continued, I asked her if the students improved in their reading skills throughout the year of schooling. She explained to me that she definitely sees an improvement from the being of the year to the end of the year. Even if it is not a big improvement, there was something there to show that the students learned. I asked her how the students feel very they see an improvement. She explains,
“I can tell that their confidence increases in reading.”
When anyone improves on something they were weak one, it makes them feel happy and want to improve even more. She can tell her students feel goods themselves and their reading skills.
After conducting this analysis, I can see that I really learn a lot about the student reading levels. I learned who places the students in their levels. I found that assessments are varied, but in a way they still help the teacher provide for their students and their reading skills. I learned how the testing helps teacher instruct their reading lessons in their classrooms. I learned about how the reading assessment really helps the students increase their confidence. I was also able to see how much my teacher cares about her students and how much she wants her students to succeed. In the end, I was able to learn the answers to how student reading levels are determined.
Work cited:
· http://www.scholastic.com/resources/ article/leveled-reading
· J. Rubin. “Organizing and Evaluating Results from Multiple Reading Assessments.” The Reading Teacher, 6.4( May 2011) 606-611
· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STAR_(software)
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