Reply to No More Reading Levels in Grades 3

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "No More Reading Levels in Grades 3 - 5"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If this is really a move to use MAP testing as the measure of reading progress and drop burdensome and subjective teacher assessments, this is a good thing.  [/quote] Since reading level can be inferred by MAP-R score which is updated 3 times a year already that’s my take. Perhaps the kids will also be less focused on level too. [/quote]

But does this mean that teachers will be even further distanced from their students? They learn more about their students’ abilities when doing individual assements with them than they do by just looking over classroom MAP scores, don’t they? [/quote]

You seem to believe that teachers don't have any other way to interact with children other than individual assessment and MAP testing. [/quote]

No, not what I am saying at all, but I have seen with my own eyes how little a teacher with a large class can understand about the nuances of a child’s ability when they rely heavily on computer testing instead of sitting down one-on-one. I saw this while volunteering in a very large second grade that used a lot of math apps and testing. The admin was very data-driven and the teacher spent a lot of time reviewing app and testing scores. The teacher asked me to do math facts with the kids and there were a few surprises in kids who were doing pretty badly on the Fast Math computer stuff but clearly knew their math facts well and showed that when they worked on paper with me. It was definitely an additional level of information for the teacher. There was one child who was getting very stressed by all the testing and showing a truly alarming amount of anxiety about it when I sat down with her. By computer testing standards, she was in the bottom third of the class. One-on-one, with a little reassurance and calm, she showed higher mastery than most of the class. [b]This was a highly experienced and generally excellent teacher.[/b] Class discussions and group work do show a lot, but also obscure the abilities and needs of some children. A little individual time can go a long way to reveal whether a child is really struggling, or almost has it, or is flying on a subject. 
So I am not at all advocating for this particular kind of assessment, but I am concerned that some kind of individual assessment is once again getting replaced by computer testing.[/quote]

Was the teacher surprised by your observation? Or she already knew from her own experience with her class that some students were more proficient than their test results showed? [/quote]

I’m not sure, since her job wasn’t to tell me about her thoughts on the kids in the class. But I would guess that she asked me to do it because she suspected there was a discrepancy and didn’t have the time to do individual analysis (huge class). So if I had to say, I would guess that she suspected but didn’t know.[/quote]

Computer testing designed by experts who are actually qualified is so much better than a teacher who lacks the necessary time to fully assess each student. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics