This past weekend Ohio finally had some nice weather. At a family gathering, I captured this candid of 3 generations of Allison men (including my husband in the middle) gathered together churning ice cream-yum! I hope you were able to get outside and breathe in some fresh air as well.
I’ve also been busy creating an extension for my Curriculum-Based Language Assessments. I received so much positive feedback from my K-5 pack that I finally made some for older students 6-12.
What are curriculum-based language assessments? . Theterm “curriculum-based assessment” (CBA)simply means measurement that uses”direct observation and recording of a student’s performance in the localcurriculum as a basis for gathering information to make instructionaldecisions” (Deno, 1987, p. 41).These provide a picture of the child’s strengths and weaknesses based onwhat they are expected to do in their grade-level.
For some of our students,the questions may seem difficult. However, these are the types of skills theyare expected to know according to the Common Core Standards (for moreinformation, see http://www.corestandards.org/).
For myself, I know I can forget what “average” looks like. At times, the only students we can compare our students with language difficulties to are our students with articulation delays who perform better in the classroom. This, however, is not an accurate gauge for “average.” The stakes are becoming higher. To see how well we know what’s expected of our students, let’s take a pop quiz. See how many you can answer correctly.
Pop Quiz
1. By the end of the year, kindergartners are expected to:
a. With prompting and support, compare and contrast theadventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.
b. With prompting and support, identify the main topic andretell key details of a text.
c. Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing tonarrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the eventsin the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.
2. By the end of first grade, students are expected to:
a. Write narratives in which they recount two or moreappropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened,use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.
b. Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name atopic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.
c. L 1f. Produce and expand complete simple and compounddeclarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in responseto prompts.
3. By the end of second grade, students are expected to:
a. Useadjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to bemodified.
b. Determinethe meaning of the new word formed when a known prefix is added to a known word(e.g., happy/unhappy, tell/retell).
c. Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of aword or phrase.
4. By the end of third grade, students are expected to:
a. Usea known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the sameroot (e.g., company, companion).
b. Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence and cause/effect.
c. Use text features and search tools to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently.
And the answers are….drum-roll please?….all of them! It’s hard to believe our kindergartners are expected to identify the main idea, our first graders are expected to write narratives and informative texts and, don’t you just love “b” in question number 4? “Using language that pertains to historical events, time, sequence and cause/effect.” Wow! I’d be happy if some of my middle school students could do this!
If the standards are this high for K-5, imagine what our middle school and high school students are expected to do…Well, actually you don’t need to imagine. Now, you have this product, which will give you a good idea of how your students are performing in regard to the Common Core Standards. Each question identifies the targeted standard. Because the actual standards don’t vary much between 6-12 (they just become more complex), I only created one for middle school students and one for high school students. You reap the benefit though because they are only listed for $3!
Ifind these especially helpful during a student’s first week in speech/languagetherapy or prior to writing a student’s IEP. They provide a picture of how mystudents are performing on language standards andwhat areas to target. They are perfect for obtaining that end-of-the-year data we’re all craving right now.
I’m looking to give this product away to 3 lucky commenters! Comment below for a chance to win! (*Hint-I’m looking for people who comment and who have already “liked” my facebook page ;-))
Come as you are. Leave encouraged.
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Everyone deServes to Learn says
April 15, 2013 at 11:41 pmI’m shaking my head at the answers to the pop quiz. My 3rd and 4th graders have a hard time with simple 1 paragraph main idea and detail. Enough said.
-Maria
Everyone deServes to Learn
Carly says
April 15, 2013 at 11:47 pmI am loving you Common Core information right now. My state has not yet adopted it but I find it so useful so more information is always welcome! Hard to look at the pop quiz and imagine some of my students preforming at those levels!
Carol says
April 16, 2013 at 3:07 amI purchased your k-5 Curriculum Based Language Assessments and have been looking forward to these. I see kids from k-12. I have to agree with the other commenters on what our kids have to know in order to make it!
Shannon Giles says
April 16, 2013 at 6:27 pmI’ve already purchased your K-5 Common Core Standards packet. I would love to win your 6-12 packet as well. We’re doing a ton of annual review IEPs right now and have referenced your packet numerous times. I also “like” (love) you on facebook and as well as all of the other materials you make! 🙂
Denise C says
April 16, 2013 at 8:11 pmWoo-hoo! I am so excited that you have created and shared this! I purchased your K-5 assessment packet, and I have already used it so many times. What a time saver! I’m very happy that there is now a 6-12 version to use with my middle school students. I’ll make you laugh ~ I just used the 3rd grade assessment with one of my students today, and for the question asking for a synonym for “error”, here was his response: “glitch or malfunction.” Can you tell this kid is a techie already? LOL! I would love to win a copy of the 6-12 version of the assessment packet. I’ve already “liked” your FB page. Thank you!
dcappelloslp at gmail dot com
Nicole Allison says
April 29, 2013 at 7:57 pmWow! Loved that your 3rd grader knew what a “glitch” and “malfunction” was! You win a copy of my 6-12 assessments! I’ll be emailing them over today!
cbiksacky says
April 17, 2013 at 1:47 amI appreciate the time and effort that you put into creating these wonderful materials. Thanks so much for the opportunity to win a copy.
Kerri says
April 19, 2013 at 1:00 pmWow! These assessments are so wonderful! Thank you for taking the time to put all of these together. I am currently in a position of only working with middle school students, and it can be very difficult to find materials and assessments to use with this population.