When it comes to completing reading assessments, there is always so much to do! Teachers have to gather their materials, prepare both students and parents, find testing checklists, and keep track of important data. I know you are already doing so much to serve your students, so I wanted to help make reading assessments easier for you!
I decided to put together The Reading Assessment Teacher Toolkit – a free downloadable pdf that has tons of resources and tools for you! This toolkit is packed with checklists, parent notes, and testing signs to make testing a little lot more efficient! Let’s jump right into what all is included!
Building phonemic awareness is the foundation of reading, and young readers need strong phonemic awareness for success in reading. I included a checklist of the skills students should be working on mastering to help you get a picture of where each child is.
Next in the reading assessments toolkit you’ll find a phonics skills assessment. This list will help you understand and get a solid picture of how your readers decode words. You’ll be able to see if there is a certain skill (digraphs, vowel teams, etc.) that they struggle with.
The dictation assessment will help you see how your students take the knowledge and skills they have and write what they know. Reading is input, and writing is output.
Part of gathering a picture of the whole reader is to ask comprehension questions after reading a text. Some books may include specific questions to ask, but most do not. I compiled a list of comprehension questions to ask for both fiction and nonfiction texts that will work with any book!
Next, to help you keep track of skills and strategies students use for your reading assessments, there is a checklist that you can use throughout the year. This makes data tracking easy. Plus, you can use it to help write effective lesson plans to address areas of need.
Help students get warmed up for assessments and find out how many sight words students know. In the reading assessments toolkit, you’ll see both the Dolch and Fry sight word lists for kindergarten, first, and second grade.
Another big piece of reading assessments is keeping parents informed of what their child can do, what their child is working on now, and where you want them to go next.
For each grade in kinder through second grade, there is a parent conference form you can fill out. This will help guide you through the conference and give parents a great picture of their student as a reader. You can also use these with progress reports, too!
To help minimize distractions during testing, use the table tents to remind students not to interrupt unless it is important. I teach my students about the 3 Bs – blood, barf, bathroom. I recently adding bullying to my list, too! Just set up the tent on your table and assess away!
Remind students (and staff) that you’re doing reading assessments with your students by hanging one of the cute door signs out on your door. If we can minimize distractions, we can provide a great testing environment for students.
The Reading Assessment Teacher Toolkit was carefully designed with kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers in mind. Be sure to download it today for your beginning, middle, or end of year reading assessments.
If you want to dive deeper into reading assessments for guided reading, sign up for the waiting list for Rethinking Guided Reading. This online course is self-paced and has tons of resources for you like printables, teaching videos, and helpful forms.
I’ll coach you through everything you need to know about guided reading – assessments, writing and implementing effective lessons, meeting with groups while distance learning, and how to complete and read running records. The doors will open this summer for a short time. You won’t want to miss out!
Click HERE to see more!
