Assessments...

Chapter 8 of Tovani’s book talks about Assessment. Honestly, being this one of the first times that I’ve had to really read and try to understand what an assessment is and what use it has for teachers and students, created some confusion, even though somehow it makes some sense with some of the readings aspects that Tovani talks about. The book seems to be forming a fun circle, as it makes connections to topics that were spoken about in the previous chapters.

The importance of allowing students to progressively achieve their proposed goal for their reading, keeping in mind that assessment can be done in more than just one way in the classroom, giving “…students multiple opportunities to demonstrate their thinking” (103), are basic important aspects that the author describes must be addressed within the teachers lesson plans. Throughout the book, Tovani has given her readers many examples of what has worked for her in her classroom, providing in the appendix section templates of sheets that she has utilized in her class.

Tovani also advices teachers about the importance of getting to know our students a bit more in a setting other than the classroom, because she believes that this would let our students know that we truly do care about them; this will make them feel important to us. But this is also a useful method by which teachers could also find out a bit more about their background, their interests and possible hints for the way they could be taught more easily for a better understanding of topics the read. Assessments that she speaks about in this chapter that serve this purpose are “Conversation Calendars” and “Quick Conferences”, which I feel that both will be a useful tool for me when I become a teacher; I like the idea of communicating with my students both in writing and personally, like these methods work like respectfully.

A connection that both Tovani and I make, regard the Standardized assessments that are given to students at a district and statewide level. I agree with her in the aspect that these types of assessments “…aren’t helpful…because they rarely inform daily instruction” (103), but rather serve simply to compare student to student and school to school. But she advises that “assessment…is about showing kids how to recognize when they are confused and when they are understanding text…” (114) because to her this is a more approachable way that assessments can truly “…test what [students] learned about themselves as readers” (114).

I’ve always been a student that likes to see the progress I’ve made in every class, from year to year, etc. This was one of the points that really interested me from the reading of this chapter. Tovani explains that she creates and keeps a “File folder Collection of Work Samples” of each of her students. These serve great purpose for the teachers and students alike, because besides being a tool for teachers to “…use the folder as a way to demonstrate proficiency or recommend remediation” (113), it also gives students like me something to really feel good about when looking back at the progress I’ve done.