How Do Teacher's Assess Student's learning?

It is a difficult task to assess students learning in language arts. There are many different ways to assess students learning. One way is through observations. The observations may be informal or formal. Informal observations happen when the teacher spontaneously watches the student and is attentive to the behavior and comments that the student makes. A formal observation happens when the teacher plans a specific time to focus on particular students and makes anecdotal notes about their involvement in literacy events and other language arts activities. The main focus is on what the student's do as they use oral and written language. Another way to assess student's learning is through anecdotal notes. This means that teacher's write brief notes as they observe the students. The notes that are most wanted are notes that describe specific events, rather than notes that evaluate. Another option for teachers are conferences. This is where students talk to their teachers so that they teachers can monitor their progress in language art activities. There are also checklists that can be used. The teacher will have a checklist in front of them as they observes students, and check off what the students know. Portfolios are another option for teachers. They keep documentation of the students work. Lastly for assigning grades teachers may use assignment checklists and/or rubrics.

During Tuesday Experience, I saw the teacher interacting with the students and observing them. She would take mental notes and then later in the day write down certain information about the specific child. She also had to do reading testing. She took each student and had them read a story independently to her. While I was there I also took students aside and had them read the story Alvin's Home to me. The teacher asked me how each student did and asked if the children were chunking words or still sounding out each syllable. She was always very positive with the children. They also filled out workbook pages as a form of assessment to see what they had learned. I did not see a lot of different forms of assessment but as I am there for a longer period of time i hope to see her incorporate different kinds of assessment into her lessons.