Diagnostic assessment in literature

Running Head: DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT IN LITERATURE

Differentiation Process Summary

Introduction

Differentiation is a teaching approach that deals with ensuring that all students are able to learn well regardless of their differences. There are three phrases that help in capturing the concept of differentiation, they include. ‘Coping with differences’, ‘Learning for all’ and ‘Success for all’.

There are several misconceptions in relation to differentiation. Some people believe that it is something that is added on to the normal teaching and claims that it only requires several discrete extra activities in lessons. As a matter of fact, differentiation penetrates through everything good done by a teacher and it is extremely difficult to point at a discrete event achieved by it. Because of this differentiation may appear in the scheme of work or on the lesson plan. All the same some teachers have tried to show their intentions of differentiating by setting of objectives in this format. All must…., some may……, a few might…… ( Pany & McCoy,1988 )

This can help the teachers consider the diversity of their students. Differentiation is achieved by strategies but not objectives which should be our main focus on interest.

Process summary

Summary of student’s struggles

Struggling students are those students who do not seem to benefit from the instructions in classrooms. Struggling students have been categorized into three groups by authors which includes; the catch on student, the catch up student and stalled student. Authors have stated that there are common characteristics between these students and for that reason they respond well to similar treatment.

The catch up readers are those students who mostly have difficulties in acquiring the basic sight vocabularies, applying the cueing systems of languages, understanding concepts about prints, comprehension, learning sounds and letters and their connections. Individualized and direct instruction that focuses on authentic writing and reading can work effectively on this group of students. Programs like early success and reading recovery are two main suggestions that have been given by authors on how to meet and deal with the needs of this particular group of students (Neal & Kelly, 2002).

The catch up readers are those students who have difficulties in meeting the grade level work demands. They usually read bellow their peers in the grade level. The main causes of this difficulty could be delayed maturation, limited literacy experiences or environmental and cultural differences. These are a student who mostly requires additional reading time. The instructions that are given to them need to focus mainly on the individual student needs by using materials of high interest.

The stalled readers usually exhibit minimum progress in writing and reading and they are significantly low in comparison to their peers in the grade level. These are mostly students who are in the special education classes. They need direct, intensive and individualized instructions to help them in developing the basic reading skills by use of very easy materials.

Allington, (2001) have reviewed significant research in regard to causes of and the available instructional interventions for the struggling students. He has provided the evidence of common difficulties in each category and further provided their recommendations although the recommendations have not been supported by evidence based on research. The ideas of the authors are based on an interactive, balanced an social constructivist theory of reading which believe to be the most useful theory used for understanding the difficulties in reading and planning on how to teach the struggling students.

Teachers have the responsibility of knowing what exactly causes difficulties in reading and be able to use assessment information in order to effectively teach struggling students. Teachers have the responsibility of observing and analyzing their students and further using book ideas to fit in a best way the needs of the struggling students. In many current school systems, it is vey difficult to see how a teacher is able to implement the ideas. The reading instructions needs to be individualized, intensive, targeted, extensive, supportive and motivational according to Balajthy and Lipa wade (2002).

Assessment used to identify need

Need assessment is the process of determining needs and addressing the systematically. In order to identify a need, measurement of the discrepancy between the wanted condition and current condition is necessary. In this case, the most important issue is identification of student’s strengths and needs where the basic need is to improve the current performance of students by their teachers. We shall discuss bellow the processes of differentiated assessment.

Differentiated assessment is the ongoing process through which teacher’s gathers information/data before, during the process of and after instructions from various sources for the purpose of identifying the needs and strengths of students. Student’s knowledge and skill are differentiated. They differ in speeds and ways of processing new learning and connecting it to prior understanding and knowledge. Below are some of differentiated assessment strategies used by teachers in the process of assessing the needs of their students.

An introduction

It is a strategy that is aimed at helping teachers to understand the sequence and scope of the course, exposing them to key concepts, enable them to review the course lessons, and finally assisting them in completion of an assessment of their current approaches to assessing the needs and strengths of the students.

Informal pre learning assessment

It is a strategy that is mostly applicable in the lower elementally classes which helps teachers in understanding how to use observations as well as other informal assessment methods to register their students learning preferences and skills. It also helps teachers to create, implement and evaluate unit based or a lesson either in the demonstrated techniques or strategies in a suggested reading.

Pre learning assessment based on questionnaires.

It is mostly applicable in secondary school. It helps teachers to understand how to use surveys and questionnaires to monitor the preferences and learning skills of their students. Through it, teachers are able to create, implement and evaluate lessons on the basis of demonstrated techniques.

Project based assessment

Effectively applicable in middle school, this strategy helps teacher to learn the process of using projects for assessing the students ability to understand the subject content through their applications of new knowledge in the class projects as well as helping teachers to create, implement and evaluate on that basis of techniques and strategies provided in the course readings and texts.

Using portfolios

It is effectively applicable in kindergarten classes and helps teachers in understanding how portfolios can effectively be used in successfully tracking the student’s progress of varying abilities. It helps teachers in creation, implementation and evaluation of lessons on the basis of techniques demonstrated in the course readings and texts (Mehan & Lintz, 1995).

Pre-intervention findings based on assessment

The response to intervention in education is the process academic intervention used to provide early and systematic assistance to those students who are having problems and difficulties in learning. Pre intervention assessment seeks to prevent academic failures through frequent progress measurement, early intervention, and increased intensive research based instructional intervention for those students having learning difficulties. It has been believed that the students who are unable to respond to effective pre intervention findings that are based on assessment are most likely to have biological learning disabilities and needs to be given special education.

In terms of .learning disabilities identification, response intervention methods are usually developed as an alternative to ability achievement which in moist cases requires students to exhibit discrepancy between their academic achievements and their abilities. It has been proven that pre intervention findings that are based on assessment bring more clarity to individual and specific learning disabilities of students (Pendleton, et al, 1984).

The ultimate goal of intervention process is to enable all the students to read and comprehend in their specific grade levels. Teachers who are interested in creating high quality literacy experiences for their students must be able to provide sufficient opportunities for their struggling students. Strategy instructions should be integrated to daily instructions on content as it encourages critical thinking and reading about texts with a common goal of all students’ success.

There are 8 steps of building effective pre intervention programs.

Development of an explicit school wide intervention plan

To develop an effective intervention plan, the teachers should begin by working as departmental teams and grade levels for determination of the plan of action. The following are points of intervention for guiding the plan. (1) Explicit instruction in phonics. (2) Assessment based monitoring and selection of struggling student, (3) integrated and direct instruction in text comprehension and reading, (4) teachers directed instruction, (5) intensive instructions in all the sessions.

Assignment of highly experienced and effective teachers to work with the students who are struggling

Creation of balanced literacy intervention programs

Recruiting volunteers in order to assist in the intervention program

Developing stronger relationships with feeder schools

Keeping the intervention classes smaller

Provision of intensive and continuous professional development for assisting teachers to become strategic in teaching as well as making students strategic readers

Using the formative assessment data in guiding all aspects of the intervention program

Lesson implementation based on best practices is described

This section gives a description of instructional interventions that are based on evidence for students who have difficulties in identification of words as well as comprehension reading. Whether word comprehension and identifications are implemented, the general psychological components of learning and teaching which applies to how students acquire learning should be integrated in lessons. This includes; shaping, scaffolding, constructing meaning, providing opportunities, connecting to prior knowledge and motivating students.

Scaffolding

This means that students should be given the necessary support and gradually faded when the student once the student while complementing tasks approximates independent functioning. A good example is when a teacher feedback and facilitate and at the same time appropriates the instructional materials that acts as supporting structures for solving tasks.

Shaping

Shaping means eliciting reinforces for successive approximation towards complimenting objective. It is very important for parents and teachers to shape the reading behaviors through rewards and praise contingent upon the efforts that are made to achieve skills of reading.

Connecting to previous knowledge

Assessment of student’s prior experience and understanding will help teachers in facilitating the links between what the students know and what they are intended to know. The individual ability of a student to grasp information which is presented in a text quickly depends on the content’s prior knowledge (Gambrell et. Al., 1999). Teachers should provide opportunities to enable the students to gain the back ground knowledge through activities and discussions before they are presented with foreign texts.

Constructing meaning

According to (Gambrell et. Al., 1999) following instructions, capturing the plot of a story, learning about the current events and putting things together are among the most useful purpose of reading. Some authors have stated that students acquire grammar, decoding, spelling and comprehension skills easily when the context from which they are derived has a meaning personally.

Motivating students

According to ( Nicholls, 1990) student motivation is one of the most difficult challenges tha teacher encounter especially in the secondary schools. He states that first graders and kindergarten have higher chances of expanding efforts towards reading even after failing in the exams. Activities of literacy should be authentic, interesting, integrated with other areas of content and occur within the social context to make the students more motivated and participate in them.

Strategy identified based on student need(s)

It is possible to meet some of the diverse learning needs in a classroom by keeping in mind two guidelines by a teacher: (A) the performance of students is as a result of interactions between the instructional environment and the students (B) it is possible for teachers to accommodate most needs of the students after the initialization of their learning demands and needs of the instructional environment. As a matter of fact, adaptations made for the specific needs of students learning can be beneficial to several other students in the same class. Adaptations have proven to be good teaching and learning strategies.

The teaching strategies for the students with diverse learning needs can be categorized into many different groups like elaborated below.

The strategy of visual organizers, pictorial time lines of how a class room looks like, this

Strategy helps the learner/student to take ownership of the environment that surrounds them and at the same time identify how their individual and practices affects the environment.

Option assessment. It is a strategy involving options for evolution whereby the student compares

and contrasts the needs and wants of their culture to the needs and wants of the p0ilgrims. It helps the students to demonstrate understanding of various differences between the culture of the pilgrims and his/her own.

Modeling strategy. It is a strategy that helps individuals to be contributive to their communities. It helps the learner to understand and demonstrate the different roles of people in association with the courtroom through anticipations in a mock trial. The students are able to demonstrate their understanding of the different roles in the trials through writing or drawing.

Description of re assessment after lesson

The main goal of assessment is improving students learning. It provides students and teachers with information that is valid in relation to the progress of a student and their ability to attain the expected curriculum goals. Assessment should at all time be viewed information that is used in improvement of a student’s performance. Assessments are based on the achievement levels as well as the standards that have been developed for the goals of the curricular that are appropriate for a particular grade. Both assessment and evaluation are used to measure whether or not the learning objective has been met by students or their teachers. We can look at evaluation and assessment as snapshot verses the journey. Assessment involves collection of information and evidence of the performance of the students over a given period of time in order to ascertain understanding and learning. The evidences of learning could take the forms of journals tests written work, dialogue or portfolios which include several learning tasks.

On the other hand, evaluation occurs after a mark has been assigned on completion of a test, task or a given learning activity. For example a mark on the spelling test is used to determine whether or not a child can be able to spell the given words which are usually seen as evaluation. Assessment would be considered a journal review, written work, presentation and usually demonstrates a sense of learning that is permanent and a clear picture of the abilities of the students. For a teacher to gain efficiency, he should use both evaluation and assessment techniques con regular basis in order to improve student’s guides to instructions and learning.

The standardized can be used as a baseline of determining the students that are leading below the grade level. All the same, multiple types of assessment should be properly implemented and used to fully understand teacher and student weakness and strengths. Informal and formal assessments, class grades and teacher anecdotal provides valuable information if properly used for identification of literacy deficiencies. Every teacher should understand and know what bout literacy is revealed by the data regarding the abilities of each reader in the class room. After determination of abilities, the teachers should work closely with the special education teacher for development of an action plan for addressing the specific student’s needs (Newell, 1996).

It is necessary to remember that tests that are standardized are used for identifying where the students levels of achievement are related. Since it is almost to help students until their deficiencies have been identified assessment of students using tests that are used for identification of information regarding the literacy levels, strengths and weaknesses of students are necessary.

Individual student data should be kept in secure locations and should be readily and easily accessible to enable groups or individual teachers to use it as they formulate an instructional .program for the students. Determination of methods of using the data is critical to making pronounced differences to students. Incase the assessment data is not used for learning improvement, it becomes another assessment to put in the shelves. Teachers should fully understand the data as well as how to use it for developing a school development or improvement plan (Gipps, 1994.)

Post-intervention findings: Identified percentage of growth

A learning disability is a neurological disorder that affects the ability of the brain to obtain process, amass, and take action to information. They include a group of disorders which can have an impact on various areas of learning including writing, reading, math, oral expression and listening.

In learning disabilities identification process, the rate of interventions from the former standards ‘ability achievement discrepancy’ approaches in that the decisions are made on the basis of the outcomes targeted interventions instead of the mathematical discrepancies that occurs in the scores achieved on all the standardized assessments.

In this process, delivery of service is divided into three levels of support, where the intensity of the intervention increases on every level (Tier). Tier 1 is focused mostly within the core curriculum, with inventions and instruction targeting on all the students. It is approximated that 80% to 85% of all the students should be capable of meeting the grade level norms without getting additional assistance outside their first tier.

Students who are unable to perform consistently within the performance levels through Tier 1 instructions are usually provided with added supplementary interventions at the 2nd Tier, which basically involves instructions in small groups. It is also approximated that 3%to 6% of students will most likely continue to experience difficulties after 2nd Tier intervention. These students are most likely to receive the services of 3rd Tier intervention which is the most extreme intervention level that is provided in regular academic environments. As rate of intervention is an initiative in education, all the 3 Tiers of services are designed to provide as the supplements to, instead of replacement for the standard education curriculum. However, some people view Tier 3 as special educations.

Brief summary of candidate’s learning

Affective reading intervention starts with language arts assessments as well as structured reading. In normal circumstances at the end of the school year, the students should be assessed by using a standard based assessment or the states accountability assessment. Naturally, the date collected should be used to inform programmatic decisions and general instructional at the schools. All the same, that data sometimes is not sufficient to understand the needs of struggling students.

In addition to end of year (summative) standards based assessments, all the students provided it a begging of year (formative) language arts assessments and standards based readings in order to assess the overall competence in language skills, writing and reading. An assessment that is comparable should be issued at the mid year assessment for assessing the progress in development as well as informing revised instructional decision.

For the students who mostly found to be significantly deficient in language arts skills and reading, additional information of assessment is needed for making informed and continuing instructional decisions. This group of students should be given a battery of diagnostic reading assessment like for example Roswell and chall (diagnostic assessment of reading). This group of students should have a reading intervention plan that is intensive and incudes specific short term learning goals. These goals should be track able through bimonthly assessments of progress monitoring.All the data that is collected should be reviewed and synthesized in the bimonthly meetings of staff. The staff has the responsibility of monitoring all the students progress as well as collaborating to develop programmatic modifications and instructional for those students who seem not to be making sufficient progress language arts and reading (Burke &Jessup . 1990).

References

Allington, R, 2001. What really matters for struggling readers: Designing research-based programs. Boston, MA:

Allington, R,2002. Research on reading/learning disability interventions.. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Neal, J & Kelly P, 2002 . Delivering the promise of academic success through later intervention. Reading and Writing Quarterly,

Burke J. &Jessup G. 1990. Assessment in NVQs. In Horton ed. Assessment Debates Open University, Hodder & Stoughton.

Gipps C,1994. Beyond testing: Towards a Theory of Educational Assessment London:Falmer.

essup G, 1991. Outcomes: NVQs and the emerging models of Education & Training. The Falmer Press, London..

Pendleton D. et al, 1984. The consultation-An approach to teaching and learning. Oxford. University Press

Mehan, H & Lintz, A. 1995,  Constructing school success in literacy: The pathway to college entrance for minority students.  New York: Cambridge University Press.Newell E, 1996.  Writing and learning about a short story in middle-track classrooms.Journal of Literacy Research,28.147-172.Pany, D. & McCoy K.1988.  Effects of corrective feedback on word accuracy and reading comprehension of readers with learning disabilities.  Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21, 546-550.