Introduction
Effective learning and instruction occur when instructors use appropriate strategies to measure student response to intervention. Instructors use summative or formative assessments to evaluate the learning progress of students. Formative assessments help many struggling students to make good progress without arranging for serious intervention, which may involve special education placement (Nitko & Brookhart, 2011).
This essay provides a field assignment that was conducted to assess students’ response to intervention in a literacy lesson. It discusses the assessment tool that was used to assess various learning targets in the classroom. Moreover, it discusses the reasons why some students did not perform well in the areas assessed despite the assessment taking after instruction.
Learning Targets Assessed
During classroom instruction, students were required to achieve the following learning targets/objectives in a literacy lesson.
Reading Targets
Students were expected to comprehend the text and identify the authors’ point of view. They were required to give their contribution or point of view as well. Also, they were required to develop inference skills, and text compression skills.
Writing Targets
Learners were expected to develop logical skills to help them write an informational text to convey a complex idea. Also, they were required to use specific vocabulary to strengthen their text or piece of writing.
Listening and Speaking Targets
Learners were expected to actively participate in a classroom discussion about the theme of the picture book. Also, they were expected to develop fluency and spelling skills, as well as use figures of speech, and demonstrate word knowledge and nuances after the lesson.
Formative Assessment
Assessment Tool
Formative assessment was used to measure students’ learning outcomes during instruction. Questioning, discussion, and observation assessment techniques were used during classroom instruction to collect evidence of student learning (Sadler, 1989). The assessment processes provided important information required by the instructor to make effective decisions about future instruction.
Classroom Activity/Learning Plan
The students were instructed to read Judith Barret picture book, “Animals should not wear clothing.” They were grouped into six groups each having five learners. Each group was asked to discuss the picture book at a glance before reading it.
This action was aimed at assessing their inference skills and ability to verbalize the authors’ inferences in the text (Sadler, 1989). After making inferences and verbalizing them, each student was asked to read a paragraph from the text in a cycle.
This reading activity assessed each student’s reading abilities. They paused after every paragraph to reflect and summarize what they have read or heard. This was meant to test their metacognitive skills (Ontario, 2011). After the reading, the instructor allowed them to collaboratively share their experiences and prior knowledge that helped them make correct inferences.
Each learner was asked to prepare a written summary of the specific parts of the reading to assess their writing skills and vocabulary usage. The instructor asked them to exchange papers and use bookmarks to make a check mark in the book each time they saw the correct answer. The bookmarks were collected for analysis.
How Learners Performed on the Assessment
From the formative assessment, it was noted that some students did not perform well. Their inference skills, spelling skills, and fluency skills were limited, and so they needed improvement. Specifically, five students had difficulties with spelling some words, using specific vocabulary and reading fluently. They scored an average of two tally marks out of ten. This score was too low as compared to their classmates. However, they demonstrated better comprehension and listening skills.
Reasons Why the Learners Performed Poor
It was discovered the learners experienced moderate cognitive learning difficulties (Ontario, 2011). This affected their ability to conceptualize, make constructive reflections, retain some information in the memory for long, concentrate for a longer time, and master sequencing processes.
Also, they suffered poor social skills due to the poor family background. This impaired their language development during the early years of growth (Nitko & Brookhart, 2011). During formative assessment administration, the learners exhibited poor attention skills leading to poor performance.
Further Instructions to Improve Performance
The instructor concluded that the students needed to undertake remedial classes. A mini-lesson strategy using interesting picture books would do better. Mini-lesson plans will ensure the learners with low concentration skills are engaged in a variety of short activities and assessment opportunities.
During remedial mini-lessons, multisensory teaching approach will be incorporated. This instructional approach would enable struggling students to recognize letter patterns, improve their active language thinking, and reduce dependence on repetition and note memorization.
Furthermore, the multisensory approach would help struggling learners master basic sounds and letter patterns. Also, visual and verbal cues and practical and theoretical techniques will be part of the instruction to enhance their conceptualization skills (Nitko & Brookhart, 2011). Finally, including visual aids such as pictures to represent specific concepts during instruction will enhance their memory recall.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Formative Assessment
References
Nitko, A. J. & Brookhart, S. M. (2011). Educational Assessment of Students (6th ed.). New York: Pearson
Ontario (2011). Learning for all: A guide to effective assessment and instruction for all students, kindergarten to grade 12. Web.
Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science, 18, 119-144.