Tools, Measures and Approaches To Gain A Detailed and Accurate Profile Of My Student's Learning

In this blog post, I will outline the tools, measures, and approaches I will use to gain an accurate and detailed profile of my students' learning in relation to their 'school-readiness as I begin and move through my inquiry.

There are such a vast array of skills needed to acquire to be school-ready and students will have varying strengths and skill development needs. Therefore, adopting a vast range of methods will hopefully allow me to measure progress and give me a more detailed profile of my learners across all the foundation skill domains. The skills children needed to acquire in the early years in order to build formal learning upon are; reflexes, senses, motor development, language skills, auditory skills, and visual skills.

I have chosen the following tools/measures and approaches to gain a detailed and accurate profile of my students' learning in relation to the challenge of the acquisition of developmental skills needed for school readiness.

Data will be analyzed from the assessments that we already do within our school:

Running Records- Providing a score for word reading accuracy, analysis of readers' errors and self-corrections, and reading strategies used. This assessment is a requirement of all junior students and is used to formative inform teacher practice. This assessment measures the progress of students once they start reading.

Concepts About Print- This assessment is used to assess students' acquisition of the knowledge of the conventions of print. This assessment is conducted on entry to school and again at age six.

E-asTTle- Writing assessment used in Term 1 and Term 4, moderated within the school and across Manaiakalani schools.

Engage/Leap Assessment; SDQR Self Regulation Assessment Form- Our school is taking part in the ENGAGE/Leap initiative to help students develop self-regulation skills through 30-minute game playing daily. This assessment is used for those students whose whānau have agreed to take part in the program.

In addition to these assessments, I will be using

Dr Jannie van Hees CombiList (Dr Jannie van Hees © 2013)- This is an oral language acquisition assessment tool. This tool measures the learner's willingness to communicate, communication with adults, participation in discourse, contribution to discussion, and benefits from feedback. From my previous inquiry in oral language acquisition, this tool gave a clear picture of areas of challenge, and the progress of learners is broken down into specific areas.

A Foundation Skills Assessment- Measuring reflexes, senses, motor development, language skills, auditory skills, and visual skills. This will be a tick sheet to record students' progress in acquiring these skills within the daily program.

Phonological Awareness Assessment- Yolanda Soryl phonological awareness assessment. As teaching phonics is a part of my program I will be continuing to do daily I think it is important to track its effectiveness as part of a wider foundation skill program.

Student Voice and Whanau Voice- Gathering student voice through creating student profiles will give me an understanding of student's preferred ways of learning, it will give students an opportunity to express who they are, have a say about what goes on for them at school, and in their learning. Talking with whānau gives whānau the important opportunity to partner with whānau to build on strategies at home, value the knowledge of the whānau and utilize parents expertise.

I will assess my whole class and from here take a focus group of students with the greatest need for developing foundation skills. These students I will track throughout the inquiry process to measure progress. This information will allow me to formative adapt my program to meet my student's needs.