Learning and Growing

It seems like a lifetime since I handed out the student interview. But, I have finally finished all of my assessments. I gave the Reading Comprehension assessment yesterday and need a little more time to analyze it. If time permits, I may give my student another writing sample. His writing sample was quite different from the story he retold back to me. I just want to make sure that he understood the task that was being asked of him. I have seen other writing samples from his classroom teacher and they are remarkably different than the one that I collected. I have a strong hunch that he might have been feeling a tad bit lazy that day. It is interesting to note all of the different patterns across the different assessments. During the course of the semester, I have learned a great deal about my student. TJ has a great love of learning but he loves learning what he wants to know about. I have really learned a lot about his strengths and weaknesses as a reader. Right now, I have noticed that one of his strongest points is blending beginning and end sounds while he struggles with short vowel sounds.

I have learned a lot about myself as a teacher and an assessor. As I started going through the assessments, I realized that I need to be patient with myself. There are so many different vocabulary words and literacy concepts; I am worried about not using the proper terminology in my paper. There is not one precise way to interpret an assessment. This was an important learning experience for me. I have gathered an entire semester worth of material and feel comfortable interpreting all of the information from phonological awareness right down to the running record. I have also learned a great deal about literary assessments. They truly offer a great insight into the thinking of an individual child. It is a valuable and much more personal tool for a teacher to use. Literary assessments are a great stepping stone to planning reading and writing lessons. As I was going through my assessments, I kept thinking about what I would do to correct his errors and how I would develop an effective lesson plan to build his skills.

Overall, my experience with giving out assessments has been very positive. I feel that I have received accurate test results because my student was very cooperative. Some of my biggest challenges have been taking notes during the whole process. He works a lot faster than I could copy. I was improving over the course of the semester with taking notes without disrupting the flow of the assessment. Over the course of the semester, I learned that it was best to write down as much as possible while everything was still fresh in my mind.

Working and consulting with your colleagues is a great way to fully dissect and interpret all of your assessments. It is always refreshing to have other people realize the same trends as you. It also gives you a fresh perspective on assessments that you administered months ago. This is a great way for future teachers to learn about working together. It is important for teachers to develop a good working relationship with each other. This is a great system of support for both the teachers and the students!