DIAGNOSTIC
Assessment
Diagnostic assessments are pre-assessments, meaning that they are given before the content has been taught, in order to inform what a teacher needs to include in their lessons. These assessments are incredibly beneficial in cutting out unnecessary instruction, as they allow teachers to identify what students already know about a topic or skill and adjust their lesson planning according to gaps in understanding. In my classroom, I utilize diagnostic assessments at the beginning of the year and at the beginning of most units in order to identify what my students already know so that I do not waste instructional time teaching content and skills that students have already mastered. Scroll down to see how I utilize diagnostic assessments within my classroom to inform instruction and future planning.
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Parent Surveys
During Back to School Night, I send home a parent survey in which I ask the parents of my future students to tell me where their child academically excels and what they believe their child struggles with. Before they even walk into my classroom on the first day of school, I have anecdotal evidence of what each student might need supports with. I use this data in conjunction with each student's standardized test scores to inform initial placements in small groups for the first few weeks of school. This survey also asks parents to identify what motivates their children, information I then use when planning for making connections between student interests and English Language Arts content.
Aimsweb Plus Assessments
Aimsweb Plus is the assessment program that we utilize at Winter Park to analyze where students are in Reading and Math. The Reading assessment is broken into four components: Vocabulary, Silent Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, and Oral Reading Fluency. The full assessment for aimsweb is taken at the beginning of year, middle of the year, and end of the year. However, I utilize progress monitoring using this site as well. For students who fall below the 25th percentile on the reading diagnostic, I progress monitor them on a weekly basis so that I know what instruction is helping them, and what I still need to address in the ELA block and during interventions. Students between the 25th and 50th percentile are progress monitored bi-weekly, and those who are above the 50th percentile are progress monitored on a monthly basis. Please see the chart below for additional aimsweb information. Hover over the image below to take a deep dive into how I utilize data in regards to instructional practices and interventions.
These students are in the 11-25th percentile in the ELA assessment. They will be pulled for small group instruction three times a week during my ELA block, each day focusing on a different strategy: vocabulary on one day, comprehension the next, and oral fluency on the third day of small group pull.
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These students are in the 26-74th percentile on the ELA assessment. Their assessment data will be utilized in the intervention block of the day as opposed to in the English block. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I will pull them during this time to focus on vocabulary, comprehension, and oral fluency using leveled readers.
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These students are in the 75-89th percentile on the ELA assessment. They will mainly receive core instruction, with one day of small group pull for extension activities. These extension activities will focus on vocabulary acquisition, something that the group as a whole need additional supports with. This will include utilizing word attack strategies and context clues to identify meaning of unknown words.
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These students are in the 90-99th percentile in the ELA assessment. They will receive core instruction, as well as extension activities in the ELA block. During the intervention block of the day, they are pulled for AIG (Academically and Intellectually Gifted). I meet on a biweekly basis with the AIG teacher to ensure that students are being exposed to content with enough rigor. I also meet with her to discuss cross curricular connections between what students are doing with her and the extension activities I have in place.
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These students are in the 0-10th percentile in the ELA assessment. They represent students who are either ESL or EC (Special Education), and receive replacement ELA for the entire 75 minute block. I meet with the EC teachers on a bi-weekly basis to ensure they are being exposed to 5th grade skills.
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Using the diagnostic information above, I put students into small groups for comprehension pull during our intervention block. These students are in my tier 2 group, which means that they need additional supports in order to be successful in the classroom. Specific areas of focus for these four are reading fluency and comprehension. Twice a week, I pull these students to practice the aforementioned skills and to discuss their progress on goals. Doing so on a regular basis engages students in their own academic growth. On the first day, we read together to practice fluency, and on the second, we answer the questions associated with the text. Hover over the pictures for more detail on how I utilize this data to inform instruction.
This student struggles with decoding and phonics, but not to the extent that it negatively impacts his ability to retell information. Instead, his work needs to be on making connections between events from the text and their implications for the story overall. When we begin our cause and effect unit in a few weeks, he will need additional supports and pre requisite practice of lower level cause/effect texts in order to be successful in demonstrating comprehension of what he reads.
This student was able to answer the comprehension questions correctly, but did not use full sentences or restate the question in her answer. Both skills are big focuses in fifth grade, so she will have plenty of time to practice mastering them throughout the year. To provide supplemental practice, I will have her partner up with another student who demonstrates comprehension and just needs to work on the structure of sentences and grammatical errors.
This student lacks phonics and decoding awareness to write fifth grade sentences, so he is pulled for additional supports on days he is not with me. His answers here demonstrate a basic level of comprehension, but his inability to directly answer the question means that he needs more practice with reading and retelling in order to identify what the important parts of a story are. Going forward, I will make it a point to have him participate more actively in the discussion of the questions before setting him free to work. I will also provide him with a word bank to build his writing confidence and stamina.
This student demonstrated comprehension not only of the text and questions, but also of how to structure a sentence. When pulling her for small group, I will have her partner with another student and go even deeper into comprehension skills by analyzing their answers for grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. This will ensure that she still receives the comprehension practice, but adds a layer of complexity to what she is being expected to do.
Standards - based Tracking
In order to monitor student progress and guide my instruction throughout the year, I also administer a pre assessment in my own classroom. This assessment includes questions connected to all standards that my students will need to be successful in by the end of their fifth grade year. I use this document to keep track of who demonstrates mastery of what standard, as well as when. I also identify if their mastery was demonstrated on a test or a retest to analyze my own instructional practices. As you can see, many students were already able to master the skill of comparing and contrasting (marked C&C on my chart), so I will not need to spend as much time on that standard as I will with figurative language, which only two students out of 54 met with success on the pre-assessment.
Below are three completed pre assessments from the beginning of the year. I populate the above spreadsheet with information based off of the results of this test in order to inform future planning. In analyzing the overall strengths and weaknesses of each student as well as identifying any patterns regarding the whole class, I am able to save instructional time by not diving too deeply into what students are already able to demonstrate mastery of. Instead, I can focus on skills and strategies that the majority of students have not mastered, shown through the results of their pre assessments. See below for how I use specific student results for future planning.
This student demonstrated strengths in the following skills: compare and contrast, cause and effect, informational text structure, and context clues. From the results of this assessment, she'll need additional supports to master author's purpose, story elements, figurative language, point of view, and theme. In planning for this, I know that I'll need to provide many opportunities for her to practice the aforementioned skills before she feels confident and successful in them.
This student demonstrated strengths in the following skills: main idea and detail, story elements, compare and contrast, and cause and effect. Anecdotal assessment tells me that he takes a long time to read and form ideas on paper, so he was not able to complete his assessment, which negatively impacted his overall score and my understanding of where he is academically. I was able to identify that he will need additional supports in analyzing author's purpose, figurative language, informational text structures, and point of view.
This student demonstrated strengths in the following skills: main idea and detail, compare and contrast, cause and effect, and informational text structure. He showed weaknesses in author's purpose, figurative language, point of view, and context clues. I will need to keep him in mind when we go into units focusing on these skills in order to ensure that he receives the supports and time that he needs to demonstrate mastery.
IN
Summation
In analyzing data from administering this pre assessment, I see a few patterns that I will utilize in planning for instruction. Firstly, the vast majority of students were able to demonstrate mastery in the skill of identifying main idea and details, as well as comparing and contrasting through a Venn Diagram. In my planning, this means that I do not need to plan extensive units focusing on these standards, because students are able to demonstrate mastery early in their fifth grade year. However, many students struggled with author's purpose, story elements, figurative language, cause and effect, point of view, informational text structure, and theme. In these units, I will need to allow sufficient practice time for my students to define and interpret the expectations of each of these standards.