Two articles in ONE blog!

Butler & Stevens AND
O'Malley & Pierce on the topic of
Content Area Assessment

These readings presented issues that I deal with on a daily basis. How do we fairly test our LEP students (over 80% of the district) on content when they can't proficiently understand the language it is presented in? In the Butler article they talked about how in the past they would just exclude LEP students from national assessments---if we did that in our district we'd only have about 20 students doing the content area tests. Now, of course, that idea has been thrown out, and there are some other "solutions" such as:

-translating tests to the native language (although this can be quite difficult, to accurately translate the meaning of the test)
-offering test accomodations--like reading testing items, clarifying test questions
-modifications of the test

Although these things may help with testing, it still doesn't necessarily allow LEP students to demonstrate the actual content knowledge they possess. In topics that are not reading, such as math, and science students may have a very difficult time with the language used because often teachers of content areas probably don't spend enough time developing students language skills in that content area. LEP students need to have language objectives integrated with their content area objectives in order for them to be able to better learn and communicate about the content. Math for example has a whole vocabulary of it's own. No matter how good a student's computation skills are, if they can't understand math vocabulary and language they will probably not do well on a standardized math test. Standardized tests do not allow a student to fully show or demonstrate what they can do. The O'Malley chapter suggests that teachers should allow students to do authentic assessments to demonstrate content area knowledge. Students need scaffolding to build their content area knowledge...such as pre-teaching vocab and language that go along with a topic. This is true for any content that a student is learning.

The chapters point out that students that do not have language objectives integrated with their content objectives do not perform well on the tests. Basically, if teachers are not meeting these needs they are setting the students up to fail. It is important that ALL teacher in the school understand the language learning needs of LEP students, not just the Language teachers! I think these chapters would be particularly enlightening for some of the math, science and social studies teachers in my district.

Peregoy & Boyle Chapter 10 Reading Assessment

Peregoy & Boyle Reading and Assessment Chapter 10

I enjoyed reading this chapter. It seemed especially relevant to me at this time since I’ve been spending a lot of time going over reading assessments with my colleagues at the district office. Currently, our students are inundated with a lot of formal assessments. To progress a reading level they must pass an “end of level” assessment that includes a skills test, and a reading inventory. 4 times a year our students take the STAR reading assessment on the computer which determines a grade equivalent reading level. Certain grades of students have to take the Terranova standardized test for reading, which is a timed assessment that includes reading comprehension skills. All 3-10 grade students also have to take the Standards-Based Assessment in Reading. High School Students have to take another standardized test--the HSGQE--in reading, to determine whether they will graduate or not. That’s a lot of reading assessments! Especially when you consider these are all formal assessments that come from outside the classroom. Unfortunately, these tests don’t always accurately represent what a student can do, especially LEP students who may have trouble with a standardized test. Once a year the students are given the IPT test, which determines English Language proficiency, and tests students on reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Interestingly enough, our students do relatively well on the listening portion of the test compared to all the others. 3 times as many students are proficient or make progress in Listening as compared to the other skills. Which was a big aha to me---seems like we should be tapping into these students auditory skills!

This chapter was a good reminder that a lot of the informal reading assessments teachers do in classrooms are very valuable. It is also important for teachers to have a system set up to keep track of their classroom assessments so they understand their learners and their individual needs. The chapter also talks about good reading instruction practices---I was happy to hear that a lot of the mentioned practices are ones that I use or have used in the classroom. I have always felt strongly about giving students some time to do independent reading with books of their choice. I know that independent reading can and should be done at home, but as a teacher I don’t have any way of ensuring that happens, and especially where I live it often doesn’t happen in the home. Giving students the opportunity to read and choose books can foster a love of reading which can be motivation enough for students to improve their skills. No matter how many times I read about reading instruction and assessment it seems that I pick up something new, or at least am reminded of something I had forgotten.
I also enjoyed reading more about guided reading instruction, and “mini-lessons,” both are methods that I utilize in class.