Leslie, I feel your pain. We too have to test each student in the fall, winter and spring and report score on the report card! Although we are asking teachers to look at the last DRA given and determine whether the student should be tested up or not. I get concerned that we are jeopardizing professional judgment of talented teachers when given directives such as yours. I agree that when we are asked to test children then the information should be used to guide instruction but there's a huge waste of teaching time, and we've been told "don't shut down reading instruction during DRA's." Kelly AB
On 9/7/09 10:50 AM, "Stewart, L" <[email protected]> wrote: This year our district has mandated that we test each of our students whether they are on, below, or above grade level at the very start of the school year. We are to test each child one level above where they ended the previous school year. Out of my 20 students, only one student passed at a higher level (and that was a child I had retained). Now I have to retest all 20 of them on the level they came to me. If they don't pass that (my guess is that some of them won't), I have to test them down until I find a test that they do pass. My argument was that we should test where they were last May and then test up or down based on those results. I was told absolutely not. Why would we think that our students would test higher in September than they did at the end of May? Most of them did not read over the summer and even those that did read, showed no growth on the test. I would greatly appreciate your input. I don't have an issue with testing but the test should be helpful to my instruction of the child. In my opinon this is just a phenomenal waste of precious contact time. Thanks. Leslie Leslie R.Stewart Grade 3 Teacher [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]> 203-481-5386, 203-483-0749 FAX To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry. ~ Gaston Bachelard ~ <http://thinkexist.com/birthday/september_24/><http://thinkexist.com/birthday/september_24/> _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
