Research on Assessing Early Literacy Development

            Standardized testing is a highly controversial and well-debated topic. However, the practice of standardized testing has yet to be eliminated.  Both sides of the standardized testing debate have very passionate arguments.  There are several pros and cons on this topic. However, I tend to favor with those who believe this form of testing is unjust.  On page 32 in our text, I was very intrigued with the segment on Rosa, a student who could barely understand English, and George, who knew the answer to one of the questions on the standardized test, but his answer was not an option. Neither one of these students had wrong answers; they simply just could not give the same answer as the person who wrote the test because of their different experiences. The idea of standardized testing seems effective, but for many years, it hasn't been. If we are going to keep this form testing around, some changes must be made.

As future early literacy educators, it is important for us to be able to take into account our students’ interests, learning styles, and their different achievement levels. “In order to meet the needs of all children, there must be multiple measures to see how a child performs in different setting”. This is a statement that I could not agree with more. It is imperative, as future educators, to be able to see a child’s strengths and weaknesses in order to fully access instructional strategies for students. I found several authentic assessments that could be very helpful tools in the future, such as audio recordings, student evaluation forms, and teacher-made pencil-and-paper tests. 

After reading the section on portfolio assessments, I am completely on board with this idea. I believe creating a digital copy of each students work could be such a useful tool, not only for the teacher, but also for the parents This form of electronically filing students work can be so much easier for the future teachers of the student, as well. The digital portfolios can contain useful artifacts of the student’s work, such as audio and video recordings of the student reading aloud, and daily work performance samples. As future educators, could you see this being a helpful tool in your classroom?

In this chapter, several other forms of assessing students were further explained. Christina Spiezo, a second-grade teacher, gave an example of one of her Teacher-Designed Informal Assessments.  At the end of each day, Spiezo would set aside 10 minutes each day, for the students to grab an index card, and write for about 2-3 minutes on something they found important that they had learned that day. This gives the teacher insights on what the students have understood and have recalled correctly. Then, at the end of each week, the cards are sent home for the parents to review, as well. I think that is a great tool for each student to do. Not only does this initiate the students in reviewing what they learned that day, it also keeps the students from using the hated word “nothing”, when their parents ask them what they learned at school that day. Growing up, this was my exact response to my parents everyday when I got home from school. Teachers should find it be there responsibility to get students excited about learning, and thrilled to tell their parents about what cool topics they talked about that day in class.