Engaging Students in Assessments
Assessments engage my students in the process of becoming accountable for their work and actions. To excite my young scholars about their growth, I provide them with visuals of their academic growth by sharing their assessments. For example, the kindergarten diagnostic offers students with an idea of where they were before school began (pre-assessment) and how they are progressing with their foundational kindergarten skills each quarter. Some of my scholars benefit from extra support, and through goal setting, we monitor their progress towards individual goals through developmentally appropriate student trackers. Additionally, I try to engage students in their growth by linking what they are doing in kindergarten to their future goals/dreams. By forming these links, my students will better understand the urgency and importance of our everyday work.
Engaging Students in Assessments: Kindergarten Diagnostic
The kindergarten diagnostic provides data on students’ prior knowledge before beginning each quarter. Before students begin kindergarten, they are tested on the diagnostic to see where they are with their foundational reading and math skills. The data collected helps develop lesson plans and small group work before the quarter begins to address students’ diverse needs. The kindergarten diagnostic was created for teacher use. However, I like to share the diagnostic with my students for a few reasons. Reason one, by explaining the diagnostic data, students feel like they are part of the assessment process and that we are genuinely working together toward the same goal. Reason two, by sharing the diagnostic, students are reminded of what they are being tested on and how it relates to our formative assessments and what we practice in class. Reason three, students are excited when they see any growth and love to hear the “high” numbers of their knowledge (e.g., students like hearing that they know 26 upper- and lowercase letters). ​
Example of Kindergarten DIagnostic (For Teacher Use Only):
Example of a Kindergarten DIagnostic (For Student Use):
Pictured in order from left to right: Pre-Test and Quarter 1 scores for the following diagnostic sections F&P Reading Level, Uppercase and Lowercase Letters, Letter Sounds, and lastly Sight Words (High-Frequency)
Engaging Students in Assessments: Student Trackers
Before my students can reach 1.6 years of reading growth, they first have to master their foundational reading skills such as letter and letter-sound identification. As mentioned, many of my scholars enter kindergarten without previous classroom experience and struggle with learning their foundational reading skills. To lessen the overwhelming and frustrated feeling many of them get when they don’t master the content right away, I try my best to excite them about learning.
One way I excite them about learning and engage them in the learning and assessment process is through student trackers. When student trackers have created my students, and I sit down and identify a goal together. After we determine the objective, I create a tracker that is developmentally appropriate. In the case of foundational reading skills, the student tracker is a bar graph with the goal stated at the top. For example, if a student's goal is, “I will know all my lowercase letters,” that goal is written at the top of the tracker, and the x-axis is for the different trial days, and the y-axis will contain letters they can identify. Students receive teacher support as they update the tracker. To gain a better understanding of the process, I point to the lowercase letters on the side of the graph, and if students can identify it, I write in in the box. After the assessment, students color in the bar graph, tracking how much they know. This not only helps students remember what they know and mastered but also empowers them to be responsible for their own learning, focus on their lessons so they have the skills to “beat” their score the next time we practice.
Examples of Student Trackers:
Pictured to the Left: This student was working on identifying their lowercase letters by name. My students who have a strong sense of alphabets can name a, t, and g when it's written as seen in this font. However, my student is still learning to identify the previously mentioned letters. To differentiate the tracker to meet his needs, I rewrote the letters, so it reflects the letter formation he is more accustomed to seeing.
When students correctly identify letters, I write the letters into the boxes so the next time we work together, they are able to see the new letters they mastered.
Pictured to the Left: The student in the photo was so excited he passed his last score that I was going to reward him with a happy face which is a valuable sign to receive in kindergarten. To build his excitement in his progress, I let him borrow my "special" teacher pen so he could give himself his own "teacher" happy face.