chapter 4

Chapter 4 was intresting to me as well as confusing. I finished the chapter and in our last class we dicussed it. I tell you the discussion made far more sense than the chapter. I know that assessments are needed and necessary but it can be so confusing! As was stated in chapter 3 and again in chapter 4, that the appropriate interpretation is based on the teacher's experiences, training, and dedication. This goes back to what Dr. Wilson was saying about glorified babysitters! There are the new teachers in the class who will be determined to find different ways to assess and be excited. Then you will have the teachers who are just going through the motions, may use just one strategie and the student will be lost in the shuffle.
This chapter also discusses the use of BRIGANCE, AIMsweb, and DIBELS. They have alot of the same purpose and as we discussed can be adjusted to the need of the student. The one that I have never heard of is the computer based assessment. I think that if used right and with the right student it could be very effective. Especially for those students who don't care to read a book just are not interested in reading, it would be perfect. A prime example is my brother. He is 24 years old, dyslexic and was diagnosed as ADHD when he was in grade school. He was shuffled through the years and was never held back. So he slide through all the way to high school and graduated. He is still a struggling reader and speller. The one thing that he does like a pro is surf the net. If there is something that is is interested in he will make it a point to figure out how to find out the information he wants to learn about. He loves history and before he goes to the library to check out a book, he is on the computer surfing. Guess what he has to spell and read! If it holds his interest, no problem but if it doesn't he could care less
Hopefully with the use of computer assessments those who fear or dislike opening up a book will still be able to show their abilities. I think it is great. Remember not all students learn alike so we shouldn't expect students to be assessed the same and expect the same results.

Chapter 3

Well I started reading chapter 3 at the beginning of the week and I am still working on it and as we all know this chapter is long.... so far it has been an experience.

Informal Assessment: these would be the startegies used by a teacher to see if the student is "getting" what they are suppossed to in reading. There are several different strategies that are used and they include basal reading series, IRIs, miscue analysis, CBMs and portfolio assessment. So what I have learned is that there are some that are across the board used in all classrooms and then there are some that are not. Since I am not a teacher yet I can't say with certainty which ones are better than others or even if they are effective. I can see how using the basal series would be useful because I would think that it at least gives you something to go by, like a reference, but at the same time it can not tell you everything you might need to know. By using the observation method, I think that it would actually tell you more. As a teacher you will see facial expresions and body gestures that can say a lot...that says a lot about the student. I think that a combination of the strategies might need to be done to really know. Like I said I am not in the classroom so I could be wrong. Maybe several techniques are used, I just don't know it.
I have been in a 1st grade class where the teacher was assessing him on word recognition. She had a worksheet with the sight words on them and a timer and she gave him the paper and prompted him to read the words on the sheet one at a time and he couldn't. They were very simple words but you could tell that he had no idea.. An example word was something like, step and he didn't sound out s-t-e-p, he would sound out totally different letter sounds and it was shocking. At that, the letters he was sounding out didn't even go together to form another word. They were just random letter sounds! I don't know what happened to him because I didn't observe long enough but this teacher was a good teacher so I am sure she continued to help him or recommended more help for him maybe even a reading specialist. The odd thing is that he didn't think he was wrong either....