Best Practices in Literacy Instruction

1. Best Practices inLiteracy Instruction Chapter 13 Best Practices in Literacy Assessment Jeanne Sutton RDG690-Research/Dr. Brown Spring ‘14

2. Evidence-Based best practices • current context of reading assessment is marked by imbalance • attention to high-stakes testing • lack of focus on classroom-based reading assessment

3. The most pressing challenges to best practices in classroom assessment of reading relate to a lack of balance in • the assessment of reading processes and reading products • the assessment of reading skills & strategies and the assessment of how students use what they understand from reading • the assessment of single-text reading with reading from multiple sources including Internet/hypertext • the assessment of cognitive and affective reading factors • formative reading assessment and summative reading assessments • the reading assessment that is done to or for students and reading assessment that is done with and by students • the assessment of in-school literacies with out-of-school literacies • the demands for teacher and school accountability and professional development opportunities that help teachers develop expertise in reading assessment

4. if we carefully chart what we will assess, we are then able to produce the assessment materials to demonstrate students’ development (Pellegrino, Chudowsky, and Glaser, 2001) • we must be vigilant in our development and use of assessments, and that assessment is always a sample and approximation of the thing we want to describe (Davis, 1998) • “Thoughtful assessment seeks to use knowledge (the collected wisdom) about the construct to be measured and combine this with our best understanding of effective assessment so that the inferences we make from reading assessment information are accurate and useful.” (Afflerbach, 2007)

5. Best practices in action • We need assessments that describe the characteristics of student readers in diverse classrooms, characteristics that can influence their reading achievement. (use to shape reading instruction) • ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT is the place in which students learn new things in relation to their knowledge and competencies, and in relation to teachers’ instruction and support. (Vygotsky, 1978)

6. Addressing imbalance in reading assessment • process-oriented reading assessmentfocuses on the skills and strategies that students use to construct meaning from text. This allows teachers to assess in the midst of students’ reading…..can be situated in the context of a student actually reading, providing insights into how reading skills and strategies work together. • product-oriented reading assessment provides an after-the-fact account of student reading achievement. We must make backwards inferences about what worked or didn’t work.

7. Balancing the assessment of reading skills & strategies with the assessment of how students use what they understand from reading • Students must comprehend the texts they read, and they must also be able to use the information they gain from reading to perform reading-related tasks. • Performance assessment focuses on student reading and the things we expect students to do with knowledge gained from reading. (authentic assessment) (Baxter & Glaser, 1998)

8. Balancing the assessment of basic skills and strategies with the assessment of higher-order thinking • examples of reading assessment that can provide information about students’ higher-level thinking • generate critical questions about their reading • composing integrative essays when learning from multiple sources

9. Balancing the assessment of single-text reading with reading from multiple sources including electronic texts • accomplished reading in the 21st century may involve more than comprehending a single text • multiple sources of information from different texts, search and decide which sources are more reliable, and coherently integrate information taken from various sources • current reading assessments have limited ability to assess this new aspect of reading • lack sourcing skills to help distinguish multiple source texts (Stahl, Hynd, Britton, McNish, and Bosquet, 1996) • assessing student comprehension of multiple texts • think-alouds to evaluate source text information (Wineburg, 1991) • integrate multiple sources of text information through performance assessments

10. Balancing formative reading assessment and summative reading assessment • summative assessments are after-the-fact • formative assessments are during development • ongoing….throughout the day and year • teacher questions • student progression • ongoing instructional focus Creating balance will result informative assessment describing students’ ongoing reading growth as it occurs, and summative assessment providing summary statements about students’ literacy achievement.

11. Balancing the reading assessment that is done to or for students with reading assessment that is done with and by students • “black box” (Black & Wiliam, 1998) • students monitor their own reading & conduct ongoing assessment of reading progress checklist p331(Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995) If students do not begin learning how to self-assess, how will they ever become truly independent readers?

12. Balancing assessment of in-school and out-of-school literacy practices • assessment of out-of-school literacies can help us better understand students’ daily literacy practices and how we might tap into those literacies in which students are most proficient…..this type of assessment does not judge or rank-order students (Gambrell, et al., 1996; McKenna & Kear, 1990) • surveys about reading practices questions on p333 (blogging vs opinion column) By bringing out-of-school literacies in our classrooms and not focusing solely on traditional school-based texts, we gain the ability to capitalize on our students’ current literacy interests and strengths.

13. Balancing the demands for teacher and school accountability with professional development opportunities to develop expertise in reading assessment • Successful classroom-based reading assessment demands teacher expertise, and professional development is an essential component. • Lack of professional development opportunities prevents many teachers from becoming practicing experts in classroom-based reading assessments. (Black & Wiliam, 1998) • Regular and detailed assessments provide information that helps teachers recognize and utilize the teachable moment. • Classroom-based reading assessments should affect teaching and learning as they operate in zones of proximal development.

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