Assessment Management

I spend a lot of time doing assessments on Fridays.  Each child is assessed for spelling and reading on Fridays.

Spelling Tests:  Through out the week the class focuses on three spelling words from their 'sight words' list. They recite them as a class, they write them out three times every day, they are asked to practice at home and these words are apart of the flash cards they should be studying.  On Friday, they have a spelling test with those three words, and a bonus word.  The bonus word is a phonetic word. After the spelling test all the scores are recorded and we also record the words or words that are missed.

Reading scores: The students have 'Share Sheets" on Fridays.  These sheets include sight words, letter sounds, phonetic words and a small story with questions to answer at the end.  Each child has to read through their sheet. If they don't know a word or sound it gets circled.  The child gets a score out of four for their story.  All these scores are recorded, words and sounds that are missed are also recorded.

All of this is done with the help of the teacher, a classroom aid that comes in for an hour or so, myself and a 'volunteer grandparent'. I help record all the scores.  They still need to be recorded in the school grading system. I was talking with the two Kindergarten teachers and they find this is the hardest task to keep up on.  They don't have time during the day, and it gets put off.  One of their goals is to continue to stay caught up on assessments and more importantly, record all their grades.