Guide to the Reading Workshop: Primary - Chapter 6 Tracking Kids:Progress and Using Assessment to Support Instruction

A Guide to the Reading Workshop: Primary Grades by Lucy Calkins

Session led by Kindergarten Team Leader, Debbie Harbour

BIG ideas in Chapter 6

Tracking Kids: Progress and Using Assessment to Support Instruction

Which assessments will you use at the beginning of the year?

	Assessment	Who is this assessment for?	What will you find out?
Emergent Readers
	Concepts about print
	Emergent Storybook Reading Stages (Sulzby)
Foundational Skills & Reading Levels
	Letter-Sound Identification
	Spelling Inventory
	High-frequency words
	Running Records
Volume, Stamina & Comprehension
	Tallies or book logs
	Writing about Reading

How will you get to know your readers at the start of the year?

•  a list of reading levels for incoming students
•  last running record from the year before
•  last letter sound identification and/or spelling inventory and high frequency work assessments from the year before
• end-of-the-year writing (on-demand from Units of Study) from the year before

How will you use running records to inform classroom instruction?

• Committing to  TCRWP’s QRI system for running records
•  Making running records an on-going part of Reading Workshop

o   Prepare in bulk ahead of time

o   Create a running record station

o   Have students sit in a line so you can progress quickly

o   Avoid doing more than one running record at a time with the same child

o   Use the old DRA as a back-up text when you are not sure                                      

• Accuracy -Using MSV for analyzing what systems a child is using – work from what a child can do and use this a jumping off point for what to teach
• Fluency - At level J begin checking for first reading fluency (accuracy, automaticity, prosody or expression)
• Comprehension – retelling and answering inferential questions
•  Use this data for guided reading and strategy groups and also to tailor shared reading, read alouds and Skills Block 

How will you keep notes and anecdotal records? Let me count the ways!

How will you assess volume and stamina?

• Running graph of the number of minutes the class reads each day
• Goals with tally book logs for K-1
• Reading logs in 2^nd grade
• Pulling back as the year goes along to get rid of reading too quickly and fibbing and then bringing them back periodically just to check

How will you assess writing about reading?

•  Keep student work in their portfolios or your assessment system
• Begin writing about reading at levels H/I
•  Use read aloud time for writing about reading, e.g., stop and jot, stop and sketch 

How will students self-assess, making reading goals visible?

• Talk explicitly in conferences giving students words for what they are doing
• Use anchor charts
• Leave a reminder , e.g., sticky note                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Literacy through Rhythm, Rhyme, Poetry and Presentation

Literacy Through Rhythm, Rhyme, Poetry, and Presentation

Yesterday I attended a session of Literacy through Rhythm, Rhyme, Poetry, and Presentation. This group of presenters was from Powers Ferry Elementary School in Marietta, Georgia which included Carol Bradley (Primary Literacy Coach), Donna Byrd (Kindergarten Teacher) and Kim Pennington (First Grade Teacher). Their school has 450 – 500 students K-5 and are in their 5th year of being an America’s Choice School.

They believe in the importance of Providing Oral Language Activities. They began by reviewing the Five Areas of Reading – Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. They remind us that a fluent reader is able to:
-read accurately
- read smoothly through the words
- move along at a comfortable rate
- show appropriate expression
- phrase the words
- attend to punctuation and text features
- demonstrate comprehension

In order to build fluency they list 5 types of oral performance:
Shared reading – the teacher and students read together in unison from a shared text so that the readers’ processing of print is highly supported.
- Enlarged text and individual copies help to provide this opportunity
- Use a white board
- Big books
- Shurley English Program Method
Echo reading - an activity where a skilled reader reads a text, a sentence at a time, as the learner tracks. The learner then echoes or imitates the skilled reader.
- They also use chants for this type of fluency building.
Texts for two voices – texts (poetry or prose) that lend themselves to being read aloud by two voices (sometimes alternating, sometimes simultaneous) are ready by two or more readers. - Similar to choral reading
(Example with Expressive Alphabet chart with punctuation marks)
Readers’ theater - involves children in oral presentation through reading or telling parts on scripts. Resources for Readers’ Theatre:
- 25 Just-Right Plays for Emergent Readers (K/1)
- Readers’ Theatre (Grade 1 or 2) by Evan – Moor Educational Publishers
Poetry - expands listening and speaking vocabulary, knowledge of complex syntax of language, internalizes of memorable literary language, recognizes high frequency words, and builds a sense of community through sharing common language experiences. Resources for poetry:
* The Poetry Foundation
* BBC
* Giggles Poetry
* Sing a Song of Poetry


If you get the opportunity here are a couple websites they recommend for building fluency.
* Larry Ferlazzo
* BBC
* Scripts for School