As I sit here today and read this article, I reflect on the past few classes that we have attended for R2S. And here are my unedited thoughts:
Prior to the beginning of this class, I was so excited to learn more about how to teach reading. I can honestly say I don't remember learning to read. I just remember reading. And writing. I loved it. Yet, I grew up to become someone who teaches children who don't love reading and they most certainly don't excel in it. So teaching reading has always been a struggle for me. Reading is fun (for me), but it's not concrete. Not the way math is. I hated math as a student. But I love to teach it. Yet, I'm honestly very frustrated. It turns out my expectations have not been met. Month 4 and we are still discussing miscue analysis. It seems that we should have covered much more material and ideas in class than learning how to analyze students' reading. But there is a great deal of wasted time where we could be moving on and learning new things. I am able to analyze my students' reading now. I'm ready to learn how to tackle the problems. We are professionals and this is a "graduate course". I'm not sure that independent reading time, independent writing time, or guided reading is sending a message to us that we are considered professionals or the best use of our time in this class.
I digress. I realize this is probably not an easily digestible blog for the teachers of this class. However, it is candid. I value my time but I am ready to learn!
And now - my response to the article:
When I first read "CBM", my thoughts immediately went to Easy CBM, the website that allows us to assess our students, and I began to feel a little bit anxious. But then I remembered that our district uses STAR and it provides a great deal of information about students' abilities and needs. I am already making graphs, not the antiquated ones shown in this article, but graphs made using Microsoft Excel. Much easier! I can see how we as teachers could give a mini-CBM on a monthly basis...maybe. They are pretty time consuming. But, if a teacher can squeeze in the time for both a CBM and a miscue analysis to use for driving instruction, the data could be worth obtaining. Yet, even in a special education class where the population of students is "smaller" and there is typically an assistant, individualized weekly progress monitoring is not feasible. I am curious to know how many students the author had in her classroom or what requirements/duties/subject load she had as a teacher.
The article discussed progress monitoring, collecting data and how to organize the data. There was no specific information on how to use the data to drive instruction.
Mindy, I will come by your classroom on Thursday and we can talk about the first part of your blog.
ReplyDeleteGreat questions! Every time I read a professional development book, I wonder about the author's classroom and the how their structure is the same or different than my own. I felt that way when I was reading the Cafe Book several years ago. I am glad to hear that you are already using data to help you progress monitor, etc. I don't think the idea of reading this chapter is to encourage you to do every type of assessment . . . just to remember that the purpose of any type of assessments is to drive instruction.