Grade level auditing 7th
Assessment Audit
The purpose of this assignment is to apply what you know about the
purposes of assessment and decision-making to your grade level reading and
writing assessments. Imagine that your principal or district curriculum
director has asked you to evaluate the reading and writing assessment plan
for your grade level and provide recommendations about what should be
changed or improved. You are going to conduct an assessment audit:
examining what are current practices and how that compares to best practice.
The first step of this project is to complete a chart that identifies all of
the reading & writing assessments given at your grade level in a typical school
year. After you have listed each of the reading assessments you give, describe
how you or your team uses the assessment in a short phrase or sentence.
Then determine which of the four purposes of assessment this assessment fits
by putting an X in the appropriate column (S = screening, D = diagnostic, F/PM
= Formative / Progress Monitoring, O = outcome). One assessment tool may
be used for more than one category if you use it for multiple purposes. Then
list your writing assessments and how they are used and any other “notes”
that should be kept in mind.
Purpose
Reading
Assessment
How It Is Used S D F /
PM
O
FAST Bridge
Assessment
The FAST test is used as a
universal (Tier I) screener for all
students in all grades. The data
collected allows us to determine if
further intervention is needed. It
is given three times a year: fall,
winter, and spring.
X
CBM
The CBM progress monitors Tier
II and III students who were
determined to need more help in
reading classes. A teacher listens
and evaluates a student’s oral
reading fluency, including
accuracy and error types, while
X
they read aloud from a
grade-level passage for 1 minute.
PSI (Phonics
Screener for
Intervention)
The PSI is a Tier III progress
monitoring tool that is used to
further pinpoint deficit skills and
to determine where instruction of
skills should begin. It can also be
used to monitor progress as
instruction is given.
X X
It was an interesting task to look a much closer at assessments that are used to
collect and determine student growth in my current district. When I first began my job for
this district I blindly gave the assessments because that was what was “required.” I still
give them, but mostly because they are still required of me. After spending more time
analyzing what certain assessments do and the purpose for them, I have quickly
learned that my district is not at the forefront of data collecting as they claim to be.
I have always understood the necessity of using a universal screener such as the
FAST aReading test to get a baseline of every student and track growth throughout the
year. However, I am now puzzled why there isn’t also a screener for writing, even if
only to help the Tier II and III students. Reading is essential for all success in all content
areas, but it is a...
