Overcoming Shame With Assessment, Part I

With assessment and shame in mind, how do we create resiliency and confidence within the institution? Let’s face it, assessments are going away because students feel bad about themselves or their results. Assessment in every facet of our lives.? If anything, preparing students for assessment throughout school prepares them for career-related assessments be they standardized or authentic applications.

Feedback is an essential tool that carries one of the highest effect sizes. Yet there are times when feedback is eliminated from the assessment process. Take standardized, state testing.? Unless we know the questions and student responses, there is no way to understand the score, especially on assessments like the Measures of Academic Progress.??

Back in the day, when itemized results were distributed, months after the assessment, we could at least determine strengths and weaknesses within global concepts like inferring, vocabulary, etc. still nothing specific.? Even in cases where I tried to offer students feedback on their assessments, intending to guide them throughout the year, the readers were often aloof to what I was talking about.? They would often comment “I know what an inference is.”? True, they did. By definition, not necessarily application.

Since oral reading assessments are a staple of elementary classrooms, we are ripe with the opportunity to provide feedback and explicit instruction about what reading is and engagement through a reading process. Secondly, knowing maturing readers exhibit anxiety with frequent assessing, reducing the number of oral reading measures, from a biweekly or monthly application to a more interim format (once a trimester, 3-4 times a year), students are less likely to be overwhelmed and to realize the assessment is a checkpoint, like a gas station. Occasionally we need to have our oil changed so to speak. Doing so allows us to reset, and figure out where we are and where we are going.

For example, with intermediate students, I administer oral reading checks four times a year. At the start and end of the year, I administer the DRA2. I prefer this assessment because reading rate expectations are slightly more forgiving and the stories are more engaging (who doesn’t like Surtsey?!)? More importantly, the comprehension aspect is focused on strategic reading, which is the primary instructional focus in my classrooms. By administering the DRA2 at the bookend of the school year, I can discuss the first assessment with students by conspiring where they are at, and their strengths and opportunities. I can provide them with an idea of what they should expect in reading this year and we construct plans that are revisited several times throughout the school year. At the end of the year, we can assess growth and progress. We have a collaborative discussion that compares the two assessments and evaluates growth and maturing. Namely, students see how better they are at applying strategies using text evidence and explaining their thinking. Though I weigh less on the fluency portion, students still have a mirror that reflects a positive image via reading level increase and writing about reading improvements. Based on self-monitoring, reflection, and frequent conferring, end-of-year assessment only confirms what they know; a final test to show they climbed the summit.?

However, during the middle of the year, I switched to the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Reading Assessment System. I believe this assessment is more conducive to oral reading than comprehension because the single comprehension question can be performed in writing or orally. It’s a check to ensure that students are comprehended on a surface level.

Before I go further it’s important to note that I run the potential of offending students with these assessments. The instructional manual and Blackline masters indicate that the reading rate is optional. This creates a massive discrepancy between administrations across classrooms, grade levels, and IEP students. More often than not reading rates are omitted until readers enter my class. I strongly believe reading rate, accuracy, and prosody provide triangulated evidence of their oral reading ability. To omit one creates a linear image. Eliminating both provides an outlook. So, students known as level 50 readers coming into my class often find by mid-year they’ve made no progress in improving their reading levels.? However, it’s what’s beneath the reading level that matters.

Working with students we can chart reading rates, and accuracy.? From there, we have guided self-reflection conversations. This is a big change from the factory-line style of assessing that occurs bi-weekly or monthly in some cases to collect data for intervention meetings. The time of the conference extends from five minutes to ten. But we have to keep in mind, that if students are going to take an assessment, they deserve the attention to show they are noticed and have a voice in the administration process. I always ask students to say how they did. At the start of the year until the second trimester, “good” is the common response. Using this conferring time is the time I take to teach them the academic vocabulary associated with oral reading so they can communicate more specifically how they are reading and improving. For instance, we talk about multimorphemic or multi-syllabic words, how to break them apart, and how to find meaning. We talk about clarifying, that it’s one thing to know how to read a word, it’s another thing to know what it means.? Actions like this provide readers with sentence stems such as, “I clarified the word ____ by…”??

Additionally, we talk about expression and intonation. By introducing academic terms students can explain how and why they used their ice to show their reading ability.? The bottom line is, that conferring gives space for students to reflect and talk about themselves rather than being told how they did, what they did, and what they need to do to improve, which are seeds of shame. Believe me, I’ve done it.

Circling back, before the third trimester begins, I administer the Benchmark Reading Assessment to gain the oral reading measure. Where shame is present is that it becomes clear that students aren’t reading.? Reading rate drops and prosody reveals complications. However, the administration and subsequent conferring opens the door to conversation, where it’s not so much about oral reading (which can be recovered) but what the reader needs for support. Is the student not reading enough or they’ve stepped through more complex reading that changes what it means to read orally or navigate the factors behind language comprehension? I don’t bother to assess comprehension because there is one generalized question. Again, we discuss how to make adjustments and assure the student that instruction will be forthcoming to overcome new challenges.?

In any instance, regardless of the assessment, conversation is crucial. We gauge the reader’s insight and monitor academic language they use to describe themselves as readers. Next, we need to identify what instruction will be offered, giving readers the chance to share their voice regarding reading acquisition and us a place to provide feedback. The reader gains confidence and self-perception improves meaning assessment is used to defeat shame, not invite it.