Lori Lonon- Blog Post #3 R. Routman, Reading Essentials, Ch. 7

R. Routman, Reading Essentials, Ch. 7:  Make Assessment Instruction’s Working Partner

I love the opening quote for this chapter…”Assessments should bring about benefits for children, or data should not be collected at all.” –Lorrie A. Shepard 

However, it also makes me cringe to think of all the basal reading comprehension tests I have given and the lack of feedback they provide to students.  Because teachers are under pressure to provide grades to parents and administrators, we often get caught up in the act of assessing just for the sake of getting a grade rather than collecting data to inform our instruction or to help the student become more competent.  When I first heard about reading conferences (ten years ago), I thought “What a waste of valuable instructional time.”  But when I actually started conducting them I was amazed.  Not only did I learn more about my students as readers, I started to use what they were showing me to plan for small group and whole group lessons. 

 Routman provides a framework for informal reading conferencing (pg. 104) that is easy to follow.  I have begun using Padlet to record my conferencing notes which has made data collection much easier. I can quickly see the last date I met with a student, then open their individual padlet to review prior conferences.  I can even take a quick snapshot of the book or page that we used during the conference making it easy to reference when I need to remind a student about a skill or strategy we discussed at a prior conference.  Students love it too, because they are excited to sit by me and get some individual teacher time.  The reading rubric on page 113 has given me a great idea for creating something similar for second graders to evaluate themselves as readers, thus providing a grade for my grade book that is meaningful for students and encourages them to set high expectations and goals for their own reading.