Writing assessment tools for kindergarten

Background Information and National Standards for Assessment There are many reasons why children undergo assessments; among these is the desire to know how well children are learning, if they are making progress and meeting proficiency benchmarks, and if they are being taught effectively. Data from assessments provide valuable information for planning whole-group and individualized instruction, for determining program quality, and for communicating with others. Assessment practices encompass a range of instruments and techniques including structured one-on-one child assessments, standardized assessments, portfolios, rating scales, and observation.

This release brings the assessment system that undergirds standards-based writing workshop instruction to teachers everywhere. You are also invited to create your own homemade version of this assessment system, as there are extraordinary lessons to be learned from fashioning such a tool together in the company of your colleagues and whatever set of standards you adopt.

Essentially, this is the gist of our tool. Write this in a way that shows what you know how to do. Then, with involvement from the kids themselves, teachers score those pieces of writing against some tools we give them.

The checklists are written in kid-friendly language and often include examples. The checklists are embodied in grade specific pieces that have been written by kids under similar on-demand conditions and that capture what work matching standards for that grade level should look like.

For each grade, there are two exemplar pieces that represent very different but equivalent ways for a piece to be at-level. There are also rubrics available and detailed ways to arrive at specific numbers that represent what the writer can do.

This allows the tool to be used for Measures of Students Learning in high-stakes contexts. Meanwhile, kids are taught to self-assess, to set goals for themselves, to work with deliberateness to improve their writing in ways that are crystal clear for them.

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Kids and teachers have a variety of tools that make this assessment-based learning possible, including up-the-ladder pieces; for each kind of writing, a single piece of writing has been written to represent each of the ten K-9 levels, aligned to the checklists and the progression.

Let me see what is expected for fifth grade," and then revise that lead to make it match those higher expectations.

Of course, we are aware that no one tool captures all the lines-of-development that constitute growth in writing, and this tool is certainly no exception.

We therefore encourage you to use this tool alongside other tools. Still, if you were to ask teachers who have taught writing workshop for years what the most exciting new developments have been over the past few years, there is no question but that they would say, "The checklists!Anne McGill-Franzen is Professor of Education and Director of the Reading Center At the University of Tennessee.

Before becoming a preofessor, Anne was a classroom teacher, a reading specialist, and a consultant in special education. vii A Guide to Effective Instruction in Writing, Kindergarten to Grade 3, is designed to provide classroom teachers of Kindergarten to Grade 3 with practical approaches and resources for delivering an effective writing program.

Good written expression draws upon a wide array of underlying component abilities. Developing these abilities is a lengthy and challenging process for many children, not only those with learning disabilities.

Assessment in Early Childhood

PWA rubrics and anchor papers are essential tools for calibrating and scoring the Process Writing Assessment and fostering common expectations for grade level writing .

3 What Is Teaching Strategies GOLD®? What Is Teaching Strategies GOLD®? Teaching Strategies GOLD® is an authentic, ongoing observational system for assessing children from birth through kindergarten, proven to be valid and reliable by extensive field testing.

English Language Arts Standards Download the standards Print this page The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (“the standards”) represent the next generation of K–12 standards designed to prepare all students for success in college, career, and life by the time they graduate from high school.