11/26/10

How Do You Spell Assessment?

We are using a "Words Their Way" type of spelling program. It is more of a "Words Their Way" lite. My question is how do we grade? Do we grade the pretest because it tells us what they know? Do we grade them on the Friday test after they have gone over the words and practiced them all week? Does the Friday test show students know the words and can use them in their writing, or does is show they can study words for a week and spell them on Friday and nothing changes in their writing?

"Words Their Way" is a great program that concentrates on patterns in the words. We are told to grade the last few tests, yet each test concentrates on a whole different set of patterns. Students may get an easy pattern on the last few weeks and hard ones throughout the weeks. This is not a true picture of how they are doing with spelling. So do we even grade the weekly tests? Our team is always trying to show what the students truly know on the reports we send to parents. I am not sure if we are there yet with spelling.

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