Toward the middle of the year, many of us like to conduct reading assessments to evaluate our students’ progress. But guess what! The way our students perform on midyear assessments can also shed light on our own success as reading teachers. Are you ready to take a look at yourself?
- Donny is having trouble decoding phonetic words. I’ve got to teach phonics more explicitly.
- Sarah is missing a lot of nonphonetic words. Maybe I should pay more attention to teaching sight words.
- Peter’s spelling is poor. I’ve got to teach my students to spell phonetically.
Halfway through the school year is a good time to reflect on the job we are doing in the classroom. We’ve worked with our students long enough to give us a true picture of their progress, yet we have enough time left to make a difference with our instructional adjustments, such as:
- revisiting our reading groups.
- teaching phonics systematically and explicitly.
- trying a different phonics approach.
- adjusting our notetaking abbreviations.
- attending more to phonemic awareness.
- introducing morphemic awareness.
- spending time on comprehension.
- actively teaching fluency.
We can be brave and take a look at ourselves as teachers by examining our students’ performance on midyear reading assessments. As with every aspect of life, the best way to grow is by looking within!
Check out my related post, Midyear Blues.
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