As the school year winds down and students take their spring assessments, it is important for educators to start preparing for the upcoming fall semester. The first few weeks after summer break can be stressful and confusing for teachers, because they usually have a class full of new faces and very little information about which students were performing at grade level at the end of last year. On top of that, many students can get off track with their literacy skills — while some students read in their free time during the summer, others might not, and may have lost some ground over the break.
Regardless of the subject, students must be able to comprehend their textbooks if they are going to learn the class material. In this way, literacy skills are the root of all classroom learning, and students must have classroom texts that they can understand.
Testing at the beginning of the fall semester can help teachers make the most of their classroom time, because they are able to know right off the bat which students are performing at or above grade level- and which students need some extra help. When teachers wait until the end of the first unit to gauge student reading comprehension, they lose valuable time and it will be much more difficult for the student to catch up with his or her peers. Educators and administrators who have a clear plan of action for beginning-of-the-year testing will optimize classroom instruction by eliminating the guesswork for teachers.
Please join us for a free 20-minute webinar Tuesday, March 31st 2015 at 1 p.m. CT to help you Prepare Now for Success This Fall with Questar’s DRP Product Manager, Evan Melick. Melick will be available via live chat during and after the webinar for questions. Register here: www.questarai.com/MarchBP.