baseline

The dreaded baseline assessment

Last year I did not know any better. This year I do, but wish that I did not. I spent a bulk of my day today administering baseline assessments for language arts. Having 15 kindergarten students sit through a 40 question test is not exactly fun. You get to read the same question over and over again and hope that someone circles an answer. You have students shouting out answers because they do not understand the concept of keeping their thoughts to themselves. You have to figure out how to navigate a group of different abilities so that those who need it have the extra time to process questions, and those that are quick as whips do not get bored by waiting for their peers to answer something that took them less than a second to do. It's a task, and it is exhausting.

But, this dreaded task comes with some perks. I missed out on these last year. By taking the time to assess my students' abilities during this first week of school I am prepared to begin interventions early on and I know which students I need to make sure I challenge so that they do not spend their time causing trouble. A lot of this information is evident through simple observation, but this way I know what exactly I need to work on with the students. This should help them to all learn at a rate that is applicable to them and that addresses their individual needs. Will this take a lot of time? Sure, but I teach so that the students can succeed; therefore, I'll take the time to help them in whatever way possible.

As I mentioned, I spent most of the day doing the language arts assessment. That means I still have one more to go. Tomorrow I'll address math (which is thankfully 25 questions shorter so I should be able to do some teaching that is actually engaging during the day) and then there are a myriad of other assessments that will come up over the next couple of weeks: DIBELS, PPVT, Discovery Ed. If those terms are making your head spin, consider it a good thing. Even though I know what the acronyms stand for, the tests that they represent are time consuming, tedious, and in a lot of ways annoying. However, they all have the same perks as those listed above. My head will be spinning for the next couple of weeks, but my students will benefit, so I'll deal with it.