Assess Often...Who Needs That?

Your students need that!!!! You need that!!!! Assessment is key to planning instruction.  If you don't assess throughout your lessons how will you know what your kiddos need?  Assessment and response to instruction are essential for effective instruction and improved student learning.  "The word assess is from the Latin word, assidere, which means to sit beside. This implies that assessment is something we do with and for students, not to them." (Green, 1999) 
 Four essential questions should drive instruction:

1. What should students know and be able to do?

2. How will we know when they have learned it?

(FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS)

3. What will we do when they haven’t learned it?

(INTERVENTION)

4. What will we do when they already know it?

(ENRICHMENT/ACCELERATION)

The 3 Types of Assessments

Where are you on the Assessment Continuum? We really want to move towards the right side of the arrow.  It's never too late to start.

Take a look at how one school uses formative assessments to differentiate instruction.

Here are some of my favorite quick assessments for reading. 

10 Quick Reading Assessments