Unit 1 Assessment

This week, Ms. Leom's Language Arts students are taking the Unit 1 Assessment. It is a big deal. Students are taking a test to determine what they learned from our Main Idea and Details, Asking Questions, and Biography learning.

American Song Writer, Woody Gutherie

The test begins with a biography about Woody Guthrie. Ms. Leom guides the students through the test taking process for this first half of the test. We DO the test TOGETHER. The test is on the board, and we scan, scroll, and work our way through it together. Ms. Leom walks around the room as she teaches and "encourages" students to remember "capital letters, punctuation marks" and give other suggestions and cues to be successful; not to mention the answers are ON the board!

American Congressman, John Lewis

The following day, today, Tuesday, students need to demonstrate their learning independently. They read the second text, John Lewis. There is an eight paragraph text and eight questions to answer. Students have at least a half hour to complete.

Combined, the test is worth twenty points, including the first ten points that we did TOGETHER in class, if students were participating and engaged. Future tests, students will complete the entire two sections on their own.

The test is more than a score. The skills within the test are broken down. Ms. Leom looks at the students who struggled with different skills and determines how she will reteach and offer support to those students. For students who struggled in "writing questions", she will connect with Mr. Greninger and ask him to join her in modeling how to "ask questions" as we do our read alouds in class and during Math, Science, and Social Studies lessons. She will model how she determines the meaning of a new word within the text using the context of surrounding information, pictures, and other clues. For some skills, when she is working with small groups, these will be the specific skills she works on in mini lessons with students. For other students, she will assign related practice using the on-line learning tool, Odyssey. She will connect with some of the Flex teachers and give specific information of what we need to develop. On the front of each test, she wrote, "Goals" and included notes in the grade book about "goals", specific skills students need to be developing.

The assessments given in class are more than a score or a grade. The information impacts lesson planning and support for students. Your fourth grader may be in a classroom twenty-four students, but every student is an individual and the planning is diverse.

Please take time to look over all the papers your child brings home. Look for patterns. If your child is struggling with writing questions, invite them to write you notes, a question a day on a sticky note or a few times a week, that you can write back a response. As students read for their reading calendar, ask them what they wonder about as they read. I welcome parent support and help. I want students to be successful, and parents are amazing experts in their own children.