We are wrapping our ELA assessments this coming week and we wanted to share a few things that we did this year to prepare! We have almost completed our Running Records!
Here is what we worked on ALL YEAR to prepare:
Our reading groups took on a new look. We tried to balance reading books and passages each week. We knew kiddos needed practice with both.
All of our students, including our emergent readers needed practice with written response and providing proof / evidence. The passages below allowed us to reach all of our students. These passages are written in a way that most students can read and feel successful. There is a mix of fiction and nonfiction passages within the pack. Each passage contains three tasks; all of which require the students to go back to the text to highlight the evidence prior to recording their answer.
We found these very useful in our classroom, but needed more passages, so we created a seasonal version as well. The passages below are also for emergent readers! They contain stories about topics specific to each month of the year (holidays, special events, themes, etc). All of the passages contain three questions that require evidence to be highlighted prior to recording answers; just like the pack above.
Since we have a mix of reading abilities in our classroom, we also used:
The questions that are asked within this pack are scaffolded so kiddos have lots of support to provide written response, then some support is taken away, and finally students are responding to text and providing evidence on their own.
Our practice with reading and written response didn't stop at school; the homework we send home each week includes a reading passage (differentiated), comprehension questions (both multiple choice and written response), nonsense words, and language questions. We think having exposure to reading passages and responding to text at home and school was beneficial for sure!
One story...3 levels of difficulty; with a fluency table to track improvement through the week:
Comprehension Questions and Language practice:
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One last tidbit...handing out "tickets" to a popsicle party after completing assessments has been a big hit! We are proud of our kiddos and we want them to know it...hard work being first graders these days!
