Help!+Assessment+Report

Hello Class:

As you prepare your final report and letters from the assessment practicum, we want to recognize that this may be the first time you have been asked to document assessment and instruction in this manner. READ 516 is intended as a learning experience for you to learn and practice literacy assessments. Creating this report will help you with the assessments instruction and reporting you will do in READ 581.

It is important to learn ways to report data that reflect the individual reader. It gets easier to do this the more you do. Keep in mind you would not need a detailed report like this for every reader in your class but you would want to develop something to determine the readers who need more assistance or to figure out how to best teach readers what they need to know. It is important to use examples, non-bias language or generalizations. Be sure to explain labels and content specific language or techniques. You want to focus on what the reader can do – specific behavior, text read or writing and language.

As a reading specialist you would use something like this to document your interventions/instruction. Of course the report would also address and include standardized data and document more longitudinal growth but a report like this would be a good starting point.

We have decided that if you submit your report and you only need to do minor revisions that you will not need to do another report draft. We will accept it as a final draft.

At that time we will send you an official letter that you would print and give to practicum students’ parents that explains the nature of this practicum. You will want to write your own letter to thank the family for this opportunity to learn to be a better reading teacher. You will also want to include a description or copy of the chart that shows child’s strengths and a list of recommendations.

Important: Prior to giving these documents to parents you should have them read by either Professor Petersen or myself. We will keep an electronic copy of your assessment report but we have decided not to send it to families. You should still submit the report as if it was going to be read by families and possibly teachers.

You are all doing such a great job – Keep going! You can do it.

Catherine Maderazo & Julie Petersen

Dear Students,

As I read through your assessment report drafts, I see that there are some confusions on some of the terminology--especially in one of the charts. Below is the way I am thinking about them as I review this chart. Perhaps it will be helpful to you.

Professor Petersen


 * ASSESSMENT RECORD AND DATA ANALYSIS CHART**
 * **Name of Assessment & Date Administered** || **Scores or Examples (e.g. percentiles, percentages, rankings OR specific examples from assessment) ** || **Results/Findings (Is the student at benchmark? Was this level instructional?) **

**Note: This should not be subjective. It should be written in the past tense.** || **Interpretation (Think about your results. What do they mean? Why they are significant? What speculations can you make about them? What patterns did you see?) ** ||

***Note: The highlighted information is for your benefit. Remove from your report. Also, stretch out your columns for those that have the most information.**

HELLO CLASS!

Here you can post questions or issues related to the final Assessment Report. I need to provide an overview of each of the sections, a type of protocol, and even examples of final reports but I need your help in knowing where to begin. Please include your name so I can follow up with you later. Read through other questions and responses first. Thanks!

Should we continue to use a pseudo name for our student and keep personal information confidential on the actual Assessment Report? Do all of the charts stay in the report or are they for our own organization purposes? How do we get all of the hard copies to you for mailing? Or do we mail the report and artifacts to parents? - Tiffany Muniz

With regards to the report, if it is going to the student's family, I would use the students' name. If you plan on using the assessment report of assessments for other coursework I would suggest a pseudonym. Professor Petersen and I are the only ones looking at your reports. Right now just email a copy of the report and don't worry about assessments. These should be posted on your wiki any way. Keep these, however, for your own record though. Don't through anything away. You can give copies to the child's family if you think they are relevant.

Hi Tiffany, Please use the student's real name in this report. You will not post it to your wiki, but you will share it with the parents. You will include the chart in your report. You will upload the report to Blackboard using a link in the green, "Assignments" tab. There is a link for the draft and a link for the final. I'm pretty sure your eSupervisor will mail the reports to the student's guardians and we will include a cover letter on CSUF letterhead. -Professor Petersen

Should our report/ cover letter be translated into the parent's language? -Emma Peguero

This is a great question. If you can translate it and the parents need it translated, then yes. You only need to submit the English version to me. It would be good to provide parents with both English and translated version.

When testing my student on the QRI passages, I began at the fifth grade level. I later realized I should have started at the 3rd or 4th grade level. Because of it, I never determined what my student's Independent level is. She scored at the Instructional level in "Total Acceptability" for 5th, 6th, and upper middle school. Or, if I look at errors without self-corrections it is 5th (98% and 88% comp), 6th (95% and 88% comp), and upper middle (98% and 75% comprehension). What should I write in the section that discusses the 3 reading levels? (Perhaps a copy of this assessment report would be helpful for future students to have at the beginning of the practicum, that way they know what the end result should look like.) -Erin Fitzgerald  Erin: You could report both sets of scores for her instructional level. If you do not have an independent or frustration level for her, you could write "not determined due to time limitations" or something like that. Excellent suggest about having a copy of this assessment at the beginning of the practicum. Professor Petersen

I THINK IT IS IMPORTANT TO REPORT THE INFORMATION YOU HAVE. THIS IS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE AND IT WOULD'VE HELPED TO HAVE A REPORT TO BEGIN WITH BUT YOU DO HAVE DATA TO REPORT. THE FACE TO FACE GROUP FOUND THAT EVERYONE OF THEIR REPORTS ARE DIFFERENT BECAUSE THEY USED DIFFERENT ASSESSMENTS, FOUND DIFFERENT DATA... BASICALLY THIS IS A REFLECTION THAT EVERY CHILD IS DIFFERENT. NOT ONLY THAT BUT IF YOU WERE TO ASSESS THE SAME CHILD AT A DIFFERENT TIME OF THE YEAR OR DIFFERENT GRADE THE DATA WOULD BE DIFFERENT. SO AS YOU PREPARE THE REPORT - REPORT WHAT YOU HAVE AND HOW IT REFLECTS WHO THE READER IS AND WHAT THE READER CAN DO AT THIS TIME. CM

I agree with Erin. A real sample report would have been nice to have at the beginning of the semester so students can know what their final assignment is for the course. And, so that they can work on it throughout the semester, and not just the last 2 weeks. My question is similar to Erin's: I did not determine a reading level for each reading genre (narrative, expository, etc). Should I just put the reading level I found for that particular genre? Also, how detailed and how long (page length) should this report be? Very detailed? Or, more like a summary? REPORT WHAT YOU HAVE. YOU CAN ADD A LINE THAT IT WOULD BE INTERESTING OR HELPFUL TO KNOW WHAT THE READER COULD DO WITH EXPOSITORY OR NARRATIVE TEXT. THAT WOULD BE NEXT STEPS. CM

Just to clarify, under each heading (phonemic awareness) in the report, do we include all the assessments we used under that category or do we just need to briefly describe what we did? I am confused because under "Phonemic Awareness" and "Word Recognition" there is not much data. It just asks us to "describe results". Under "Phonics", there is detailed data and summary of findings. What is the expected structure for each heading? Thank you! Jennifer Sun

I WOULD INCLUDE THE ASSESSMENTS, THE DATA, AND ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS. I HOPE TO POST ONE OF THE FACE TO FACE GROUP'S REPORT LATER TODAY AS A BETTER EXAMPLE. I AGREE WITH PROFESSOR PETERSEN BELOW. CM

Jennifer:

Yes, I'm sure that would have been helpful. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I would list all three levels (independent, instructional, and frustration) and include results for what you have--also including whether it was narrative or expository. For those that you did not determine, see my comment above to ERin.

The sample report you were given is 8 pages long. Your report will depend on the number of assessments you gave. After each assessment, you should write a short summary of findings for it. The final page (before your appendix and copies of student work or assessment) is for a summary of finding and recommendations based on all assessments and work with the child.

Under each heading, you should include all the assessments you used that you think help explain the child's strengths & weaknesses. It is likely that many students in this course did not assess phonemic awareness or print recognition because the children being assessed should have been in grades 3-8. The wording in this section is helpful for when you did not assess your student in an area.

I noticed a few discrepancies in the structure for each heading. I noticed that "Overall Impression" was included in the phonics sections, but not in any other sections. Because you will do this on the final page, I would think that it //could// be omitted from each section. Therefore, each section would include (a) assessment name and source, (b) description, (c) results), and (d) summary of findings. On the other hand, you could include the "Overall Impression" for each section (not just the phonics section). In other words, be consistent. Either include it in all sections, or do not include it in any of the sections.

Professor Petersen

I WOULD AGREE TO BE CONSISTENT. THIS REFLECTS STYLE - SOME OF US ARE MORE TECHNICAL - SOME OF US ARE MORE DESCRIPTIVE. CM

Do we need to change all of the descriptions for the actual assessments? I'm having a hard time putting it any better! -Erin Fitzgerald

IF YOU COPY A DESCRIPTION YOU SHOULD QUOTE IT AND REFERENCE IT. CM

No, you do not need to change the descriptions for the actual assessments. However, when quoting verbatim, you should enclose those words in quotation marks and cite the page number of the source so you are not plagiarizing.

Professor Petersen

WHAT OTHER QUESTIONS DO YOU HAVE?

I know there is an example of a page where all the assessments are listed. For me I generally used the QRI - 5 for most of my sessions. So should I list the assessment title, type of reading, pre-reading questions, and post reading question analysis? I turned in a partial beginning to this report because I was a little unsure of what exactly we needed to put in it. Now that I have read most of the comments by my classmates, I do not feel alone. Some of the same questions I had were questions that were asked. Once we have the report together, are you going to provide feedback about whether or not we provided enough detail or lack of detail? I am used to having very specific language in a report but I am trying to cover everything in this report without leaving anything out. ~Sally Willsey

As I am continue to put together portions of my final report. When it comes to comprehension, which is what I focused mostly on during our tutoring sessions, how much results discussion should there be? How much observation should there be? The table in the report...can it be modified to fit what we did with our student? Should we do it exactly? I know for several areas, I just stated that the student was proficient. ~Sally Willsey

Sally: I am sure Dr. Maderazo will provide you with feedback. Your report should contain all the components of reading--whether or not you assessed them. If you did not assess them, you need to explain why. This was an assessment practicum, not a tutoring practicum. Therefore, your report should be all about the results of your assessments and what they mean for the student. ~Professor Petersen