Session 9: Getting to Know Your Students—
Assessments
Goals and Outcomes
Overarching Objectives of the July 2014 Network Team Institute
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Participants will be able to name the two strands of CKLA and connect these strands to the Three Pillar Model.
Participants will be able to connect aspects of the Skills lessons to various design principles.
Participants will be able to identify ways the Listening and Learning strand supports children’s comprehension and
background knowledge.
Participants will be able to identify and describe the parts of the Listening and Learning lesson.
Participants will be able to identify the instructional and support materials (e.g., cards, posters) required for Skills strand
implementation.
Participants will be able to articulate the assessment procedures and tools available in the CKLA Skills strand and will apply
this knowledge to case studies, demonstrating initial placements consistent with the guidance given in CKLA and use of
CKLA ongoing-assessments to support a flexible grouping approach.
Participants will be able to demonstrate how CKLA Skills strand materials can be used to support a differentiated approach to
tier -1 instruction and will be able to describe how CKLA Skills materials could be incorporated into a multi-tiered approach to
K-2 ELA instruction.
Participants will be able to identify the student learning goals that will be covered grade-by-grade (K-2) in the first 60 days of
instruction and the lesson types that will support this learning.
High-Level Purpose of this Session
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Participants will become familiar with the key placement assessments for their grade-level and will work in grade-level pairs to
practice administering and scoring the most commonly used of these assessments. Participants will examine and interpret casestudy scores on initial placement tests for multiple case studies to create a recommended initial unit of instruction.
Related Learning Experiences
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This two day training is designed as a curricular kick-off to support teachers who plan on implementing Core Knowledge
Language Arts (CKLA) in the coming school year. While this training module is a new launch, individuals who have participated in
previous CKLA sessions can use this as a regrounding opportunity. This module will not extend beyond the content of previous
trainings.
Session Outcomes
What do we want participants to be able to do as a result of
this session?
In this session participants will:
 gain familiarity with the key placement assessments
available for their grade-level and the procedures for
administration.
 gain experience in scoring and interpreting the most relevant
of these assessments.
 gain skill in using CKLA tools provided for interpreting and
determining recommended instructional unit for individual
students.
Session Overview
How will we know that they are able to do this?
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Participants will demonstrate understandings through
discussion around case studies.
Section
Time
Overview
Prepared Resources
Section 1: Review
the Assessments
for initial planning
and Grouping
25 min
Instructors will provide
an orientation to the
assessments and how
they are similar and/or
different across the
grades.
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Section 2: Case
Study
35 min
Instructors will provide Handouts:
participants grade-level
1. July2014_Teachers_Session9__Placem
case studies.
entAssessments_CaseStudyKindergarte
n
2. July2014_Teachers_Session9__Placem
entAssessments_CaseStudyGrade1
3. July2014_Teachers_Session9__Placem
entAssessments_CaseStudyGrade2
Facilitator’s
Preparation
July2014_Teachers_Session9__PlacementAs
sessments_Overview
For Facilitators Only: Answer Keys for the Case
Studies:
4. July2014_Teachers_Session9__Placem
entAssessments_CaseStudyKindergarte
n_AnswerKey
5. July2014_Teachers_Session9__Placem
entAssessments_CaseStudyGrade1_An
swerKey
6. July2014_Teachers_Session9__Placem
entAssessments_CaseStudyGrade2_An
swerKey
Facilitators should
work through the case
studies prior to
presenting in order to
know how to support
participants in
problem-solving.
Session Roadmap
Section 1: Review the Assessments
Time
Slide #/Pic of Slide
Slide 2
Time: 25 minutes
Script/Activity directions
Grouping
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Slide 3
Key Points:
Review objectives
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Slide 4
Key Points:
Overview of skills taught in K-2
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Slide 5
Slide 6
Key Points:
 ORIENT participants to the summary
table
 The same ‘types’ of assessments are
used across the grades.
 However, they are used differently and
at different points.
 The focus is to always assess children
as little as possible, so use of these
assessments are guided by ‘decisiontrees’ that allow you to approach
assessments with a problem-solving
mentality.
WG
Key Points:
In first and second grade, the pathway
by which you use and interpret initial
assessments is highly defined.
 In kindergarten, the pathway is a little
WG
looser and more qualitative. This fits,
developmentally, with what is
necessary at the varied grades. This is
because in K, rather than a formal
placement test, assessment is a more
protracted process where you take the
time to allow children to orient to the
school, classroom, and allow you to
gather small bits of data along the
way, so you can understand their initial
trend in response to instruction.
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Slide 7
Key Point:
Two key assessments in K that are
optional: Letter name and letter sound.
Only given at the discretion of teachers.
Slide 8
Key Points:
 Start with letter sound because that is
the focus of CKLA.
 Typically a child coming into K would
have little of this knowledge.
 It may be an initial probe for stronger
students.
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Slide 9
Key Points:
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 The letter name test is also optional.
 Typically, the specific letters known
are not important.
 But it can provide a good sense of how
much print exposure the child has
coming into K, which is a good ‘school
readiness’ indicator.
Slide 10
WG
Key Points:
Examine the sample writing strokes.
Slide 11
Key Points:
 Unit 2 in K has a writing strokes
assessment.
 This assessment is available so you
do not have to ‘assume’ any
knowledge, but can test necessary
skills directly (i.e., whether children
have sufficient fine motor for
handwriting/writing).
Slide 12
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Key Points:
 Word recognition and word reading are
important assessments across the
grades.
 Used in K initially to see if children can
read the words taught in the units of
instruction
 Used as a core test in the first grade
placement test
 Used as a diagnostic probe in second
for those children who are having
difficulty with connected text
Slide 13
Key Points:
 The Teacher Guides provide very
detailed administration and scoring
instructions.
 Teachers will say a word and children
will look at a line of word choices and
circle the one that matches.
 The lines of words are precisely
ordered to correspond to units of
instruction in the first and second grade
placement tests.
 In K, the assessments you are seeing
are not comprehensive but focus on the
content covered within a single unit.
(Animation).
 NOTE that the circles come up through
animation (K first, then G1) using a
click.
 In first and second grade (Animation),
the words systematically assess what
code has been taught to date. The
ordering of items across lines is
intentional, to help you qualitatively
understand how the score corresponds
to an instructional place.
WG
Slide 14
Slide 15
Key Points:
 The interpretation on the left for K
highlights how this assessment is used
differently in the beginning of K.
 In K, if children perform poorly on the
word recognition test, there is a
process to probe their individual word
reading/blending. The focus is really to
understand what they did and did not
get out of the unit (i.e., response to
instruction).
 On the right, for first grade, you see the
focus is on understanding patterns of
errors.
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Key Points:
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 In second grade, the word reading
assessment that is part of the
placement test is even more detailed in
its interpretation.
 This is because the word reading
assessment is only given in second
grade if there is a ‘difficulty’ or problem,
as a result of a low score on the
passage reading/story comprehension
test.
 The level of intensity of analysis
required by the tests corresponds to
where in the ‘problem-solving’
approach it is (and thus differs grade by
grade).
Slide 16
Key Point:
The Story Comprehension test is another
type of assessment that is critical in first
and second grade placement, though it is
used differently in the two grades.
Slide 17
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Key Points:
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 This assessment is not timed and does
not test fluency.
 Rather it asks children to read a
passage, or a number of passages, that
are decodable text and answer text
based, literal questions, on the text.
 The focus is whether the text could be
decoded and understood at a
rudimentary level.
 In first grade, the Story Comprehension
Assessment is given only to those
children demonstrating strong word
reading skills.
Slide 18
Key Points:
WG
 In second grade, the Story
Comprehension Assessment is the
place you begin the Placement test.
 Children will then continue to get harder
passages, or, will get the Word
Reading assessments to probe areas
of strength and weakness with the code
if they struggle with a passage.
Slide 19
Key point:
Consider the sample scoring for this
second grade story comprehension
assessment.
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Slide 20
Key Points:
 The last assessment to cover is the
Pseudoword test.
 This test provides a stringent test of
children’s code knowledge.
Slide 21
Key Points:
 The Pseudoword assessment is only
given in first and second grade if there
seems to be difficulty with connected
text and word recognition/word reading.
 This assessment provides a stringent
look at children’s code knowledge, as it
presents the code in predictable
spelling patterns, but through nonwords.
 The design of the test allows for
detailed problem solving about which
spelling-sound patterns lack
automaticity.
WG
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Children who struggle on this test have
often not internalized the code
sufficiently for application in connected
text or in making ‘fine’ distinctions
among words (as is necessary for the
word recognition /word reading tests).
This test is not given in K, typically.
However, if you believe you have a
very advanced child- potentially one
who comes in almost at a first grade
level- this is a good test to give. You
can give the Pseudoword test from the
end of K (or beginning of first grade).
This allows you to distinguish children
who truly have automatic knowledge of
the spelling-sound patterns that will be
taught in K, versus those children who
come in with strong contextual skills
(i.e., can read books but are using
varied cues and lack explicit code
knowledge).
Section 2: Case Study
Time
Slide #/Pic of Slide
Slide 22
Time: 35 minutes
Script/Activity directions
Key Points:
1. Each grade-level’s case study has a set
of guiding questions as the first page
(Animation brings up the first arrow).
2. These questions will focus you through
the packet. The answer to each
question is written in the material in the
packet and so these questions should
be used to work through the material,
such as the administration/scoring
directions and raw score sheets.
3. The second page of each case study is
a summary of scores (Animation brings
up the arrow). This is a place you may
want to orient yourself to first, as the
order of supporting materials follows the
order of this summary sheet.
4. Finally, the case study packet has
numerous score sheets and
administrative protocols. (Animation
brings up the last arrow).
5. These are to be used as support
information when answering the case
study questions.
For Facilitators: The questions generally ask
Grouping
I, S
participants to understand why the tests that
were given are appropriate (for first and
second grade, they should use the
assessment flowchart or, for all grades, the
administration guidelines provide information);
to understand how to interpret a score
(scoring sheet directions should be used), to
analyze the data (use raw score sheets plus
scoring guidelines), or to recommend a
placement (for first and second grade, they
should use the last few pages of the
assessment case study documents).
Turnkey Materials Provided
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July2014_Teachers_Session9_PlacementAssessments_PPT