Hello all! Well we are well into the school year and I am hoping all of you Fairview users have completed your Adapted Dolch, Bridge List, and Reading assessments. I know we as educators are inundated with assessments but it is a necessary evil! But there is nothing I hate worse than an assessment that isn't meaningful.
Meaningful assessment, aren't they all? Well not really. Working in the field of Deaf education we know that a lot of the assessments our students participate in are not always meaningful. Sadly enough, most of the grade level assessments tend to be well above our students' current level of performance and therefore do not give us anything meaningful other than, "performing below grade level."
Performing below grade level is something that is very important for us to know, but exactly where is more meaningful than a general statement! We need to know at exactly what level they are performing so we can target that instructional level and get them moving on the path to grade level performance.
The Adapted Dolch, Bridge List, and Reading assessments that we use with Fairview Learning do just that! They will pinpoint exactly your students' weaknesses and strengths. Then we are able to get moving at the right instructional level for intervention. The assessments that we use with Fairview Learning guide instruction. The assessments are not some random test, they are testing and gathering the same data that we gather on a lesson to lesson basis. There are no questions about level of performance, and there are no questions about where to move on a daily basis.
So "to assess or not to assess" is not a question! We MUST assess. But we must do so in a meaningful manner. So, if you haven't completed your beginning of the year assessments get going! You can't begin implementation if you don't have the data. So get the data and get moving.
If you are not currently using a meaningful assessment tool, like the ones we use here at Fairview Learning, and would like more information on assessment please reach out! If you have completed your Fairview assessments and would like help reviewing the data we are happy to help with that as well.
We are here to help guide you through the implementation process and implementation starts with assessment.