Assessment #5: End of Week Assessment/Word Work Assessment
The end of the week assessment and word work assessments are given each week to test each student's sight-word and content specific vocabulary knowledge. Both assessments are created with the expectation that students' demonstrate an ability to spell and read recently learned vocabulary, in addition to demonstrating their understanding of sentences by completing a sentence on their end of the week assessment and writing or reading sentences on the word work assessments. Both assessments emphasize writing to communicate with students and families the expectation that students should be able to identify, apply and spell sight-words and content specific vocabulary in different contexts to demonstrate mastery.
End of Week Assessment
The end of the week assessment is a weekly teacher created assessment, which aligns to the weekly learning goals of sight-word knowledge growth of five words, and a sentence. The end of the week assessment is connected to the overall classroom goal of learning 100+ sight-words before entering first grade and serves as a weekly digestible benchmark towards this goal. Instruction is consistently adjusted based on students end of the week assessment scores, supplementary instruction is provided for students scoring 70 % or below and more challenging word work is provided for students scoring 80 % or above.
Skill Measured:
Students' ability to use his or her letter sounds and sight-word knowledge to spell all five sight-words and sentence correctly.
Below are student examples of the end of the week assessment. In each image the student has written each spelling word and sentence to the best of his or her ability for a mastery grade.
Word Work Assessment
Word work assessments are derived from a consistent Engage NY: Listening and Learning Strand extension activity. In Engage NY, word work is an oral call and response activity for students to apply content specific vocabulary words in different contexts. But, to meet rigorous learning goalsI chose to edit this extension activity to create a weekly written assessment that follows the call and response portion to gauge each student's progression in his or her ability to apply content specific vocabulary as an independent reader and writer. Word work assessments through targeted repetition of content specific vocabulary inserted into sentences, also build student's understanding of sentence knowledge and structure. The word work assessments are used each week to measure students understanding of content specific vocabulary introduced. A copy of word work assessments are stored in student reading and writing folders and original copies with teacher comments are sent home for parent or family member collaboration to encourage at-home conversation about content specific vocabulary introduced each week.
Students' ability to use recently introduced content specific vocabulary words in different contexts.
Students' ability to write a complete sentence.
Students' ability to spell sight-words and content specific vocabulary.
Below are student examples of word work assessments. In each image the student has written his or her sentence to the best of their ability to demonstrate understanding of the content specific vocabulary word.