Hi Jacki. I've used the F&P assessment kit as both a classroom teacher and now as a curriculum specialist in two different districts. I would definitely recommend purchasing one kit for each teacher. The kit contains two texts at each level (one fiction and one non-fiction), but only one copy of each. In order to complete the assessments in a timely manner, unless your teachers have different reading times or will be administering the assessment at different times of day, they won't be able to share materials. The other thing to consider is that there are two kits- one K-2 kit that goes to level N and one 3-8 kit that includes levels L-Z. Depending on your population, you may need teachers to have access to both kits. We have grade levels of 9 teachers and each of them has the kit that pertains to their grade (e.g. each second grade teacher has a K-2 kit) but we also have 2 of the "off-level" kits that the teachers share for students who are reading above or below grade level.
The assessment system is very easy to use and the assessment guide included with the kit is easy to read and very clear. There is also a professional development dvd that is terrific. It provides videos of the assessment in use, as well as many practice videos that teachers can use to train themselves and become familiar with the routines, etc. of the assessment. We don't use the data management cd as we have an in-house data collection system. It's basically a way to set up a spreadsheet to collect information about how students performed on the tests and includes their accuracy, fluency, and the different strands of comprehension questions. It does make it easy for teachers to see all students in a class at once and I think there's a way to make graphs to show growth over time. In my experience it takes about 20 minutes per student (sometimes longer with slower readers). The comprehension piece depends on how much the student talks about the text. The writing piece is considered optional and the assessment manual gives a time limit based on the level of the text. It's usually about 10-15 minutes. We give the writing here but have students do it on their own so teachers can be working with other students. -- Jennifer Galik Curriculum Specialist (203) 740-3243 Huckleberry Hill Elementary School 100 Candlewood Lake Rd. Brookfield, CT 06804 [email protected] _________________________________________________________________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This email message, including any attachments, is solely for use by the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is confidential and privileged or otherwise protected by law. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, distribution or forwarding of this message or its attachments is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender via reply e-mail and destroy the original and copies of this message and its attachments. _______________________________________________ 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
