The 2014-2015 school year is coming to an end, and while students eagerly wait for summer break, many educators are already preparing for next year. Spring test scores will be delivered soon, if they haven’t already arrived, and educators will have the data they need to see who is performing at grade level, and who needs a bit more help.
I’ve spent my entire career working in the education field, with a focus on literacy and assessment. By training, background and experience, I am a true believer in the power of literacy as the foundation of all learning. The converse is also true: students who cannot comprehend written materials will struggle to learn content — regardless of the subject.
That makes a teacher’s understanding of the unique literacy skills represented in her classroom critical to her students’ success. Beyond providing an overall picture of students’ reading abilities, the real value of data is in how it can be used to make crucial improvements to literacy at the individual student level.
I will be sharing ideas about this topic, and how Questar Assessment’s Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) can be used to assess and improve literacy, during a 20-minute webinar next week. Here’s a sample of what we’ll be covering:
- How DRP can help you understand exactly where — and how — your students’ reading comprehension levels may be causing confusion.
- How to use BookLink, a proprietary DRP tool, to find texts for your students that align with their individual DRP comprehension scores.
- How to use the DRP Text Analyzer to evaluate any text passage and give it a DRP value, so you always know if the texts you are choosing are appropriately challenging for your students.
- How to use DRP reports to improve your classroom instruction long after testing is over.
As your students await summer break, make sure they have the literacy resources to continue practicing their comprehension skills while away from school!
Please join me for this free 20-minute webinar — “Effectively Use Assessments to Improve Teaching” — on Wednesday, April 29th 2015 at 1 p.m. CT. I will be available via live chat during and after the webinar for questions. Register here.