Assessment Tools
Making sense of the enormous amount of student data in any classroom or school is probably the biggest challenge we face individually and in our school communities. Here you'll find everything from one-page templates created by teachers for use in their classrooms to videos of staff teams poring over large data sets. We don't have all the answers, but we do provide tools to help you ask better questions as you evaluate students and talk about assessments with your colleagues.
Latest Content
Independent Reading By the Numbers Is NOT Text Complexity
How do you guide students to select books for independent summer reading? Aimee Buckner challenges teachers who are requiring middle students to pick books based solely on Lexile scores.
Three Ways to Build Purpose in a Preschool Reading Workshop
Melissa Kolb finds her three- and four-year-old students are ready for more focus during reading time.
Assessing Learning During Student-Led Book Clubs
When middle school students have choice and independence in book clubs they lead themselves, how do you assess their learning and thinking? Katie Doherty provides a variety of question prompts she uses with groups to spark reflection on learning.
Eyes on the Fries: Just-Right Books and Reading Peer Pressure in Middle School
Gretchen Taylor addresses the issue of "peer-pressured reading" in middle school reading workshops, with a practical example of how she helped her students move beyond the fad book of the moment to more thoughtful previewing and independent reading choices.
New Year Goals (Part 2)
Choice Literacy contributors share their New Year goals. This is the second installment in a two-part series.
Rethinking Mrs. T Letters
Karen Terlecky reconsiders one of her favorite writing assignments.
Value-Added: Moving Assessments from “Inflicted” to “Student-Owned”
Gretchen Taylor looks closely at the superficial reading responses of one student, and then uses a mid-year assessment to challenge all of her middle school readers to think, talk, and write more deeply about their reading.
Evaluating the Literacy Classroom
Jennifer Schwanke remembers the awkward and stressful experience of being evaluated as a young teacher. In her work now as a principal, she’s developed her own criteria for evaluating teachers.
Revising My Recording Form for Writing Conferences
Mandy Robek shares how she has revised the records she keeps during writing conferences.
On Perfection and Goals
Ruth Ayres explains how she sets realistic goals for her own learning during the year.
Helping Middle School Readers Set Goals
In the final installment of a two-part series, Gretchen Taylor explains how to help middle school readers set goals.
Running and Middle School Reading Goals
Gretchen Taylor helps her middle school students analyze their needs as readers and set benchmarks for growth.
Introducing the Common Core Standards in Writing (Part 2)
Heather Rader shares more guidelines for a professional development day on the Common Core with a writing focus.
Tried and True Trumps Shiny and New
Amanda Adrian explains why running records are still an essential tool in any teacher’s assessment arsenal. She also includes links to web resources for honing your running record skills if they are a bit rusty.
Capturing Student Learning with Evernote
It can be difficult to move from print to electronic records in the classroom. After using a spiral notebook for 10 years, Cathy Mere did just that.
How Do We Know Small-Group Instruction is Effective?
Heather Rader considers how to assess the effectiveness of groups.
Assessing Gifted Readers
Michelle Kelly has an unique problem: what to do with readers who already exceed the standard. With grace and good instruction in mind, she considers alternative assessments.
Coaching for the Test
Two teachers are disappointed in student assessment results, but they have very different approaches to tackling the problem. Heather Rader shares her role as a mentor in assisting her colleagues.
Spring Reading Interviews (TEMPLATE)
Kindergartners may be too young for reading interviews early in the fall, but Mandy Robek finds spring reading interviews are an excellent bridge to families and summer reading suggestions.
Coaching Monkey
Heather Rader has advice for literacy coaches looking for honest appraisals of their work from colleagues.
Transitioning to Guide on the Side: Facilitating Collaborative Scoring
Heather Rader wants to transition to more of a guide-on-the-side role as she coaches colleagues. Here are some simple strategies she uses to move offstage during collaborative scoring workshops.
The Power of Checklists in Primary Literacy Workshops
Knowing our most sophisticated professions use checklists to get it right, Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan share and explain checklists that work well for students.
More Thoughtful Test Preparation: A Conversation with Patrick Allen (PODCAST)
How can teachers connect thoughtful literacy workshops with test preparation? Patrick Allen has suggestions in this podcast.
Sense of Little Engines
Heather Rader writes about "agency" – the challenge of letting students and teachers take charge of their learning. In concrete examples from a third-grade classroom and a professional development scoring session with teachers, Heather shares the subtleties of learning to trust, wait, and celebrate when learners of any age are responsible and independent.
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan on Assessments, Data, and Balance (PODCAST)
As the data pours in throughout the year, it’s hard to keep a sense of balance and purpose. Tammy Mulligan and Clare Landrigan chat with Franki Sibberson in this podcast about data and balance.
Language in the Classroom: Using a Recorder as a Teaching Resource
Ruth Shagoury provides tips and strategies for analyzing language in the classroom.
Spring Slump
Audrey Alexander takes a close look at a couple of the students in her self-contained resource room, and finds the observations renew her flagging energy.
Balancing Assessments Through Better Classroom Notes
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan explain how literacy coaches can validate and support teachers by helping them refine their classroom notetaking skills.
Seven Minutes of Listening
What can we learn by listening closely to children? Plenty — Andie Cunningham shares insights from seven minutes with a young English language learner.
Assessment Conferences: Listening to and Learning from Our Students
Research, decide, and teach – Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan use Lucy Calkins’ wise advice in assessment conferences with children.
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