Ch. 10 Peregoy & Boyle. (2005). Reading Assessment & Instruction

The authors immediately pointed out that classroom assessments be a part of the instructional cycle. Effective direct instruction was described, which leads an isolated skill to a productive literacy strategy. I liked this information because it allowed me to breathe easier and feel less guilt about thinking of doing that, especially with kindergarteners I think that it's just easier on everyone if they are taught immediately a skill that will be a useful strategy in and out of school as a life skill. And what are those? I'm sure someone has a list. So, for now I see that it’s ok to effectively teach something directly that you see a child needing extra help in. And coming from these guys whom I already have a bias for because of their critical pedagogy chapters, I’d say this is sound, valid advice, to just directly teach effectively so that students can apply it as a strategy as soon as possible. School needs to be about learning and using strategies in different contexts to be contributing, critical thinkers of society.
The information in the beginning of the chapter was a welcome refresher on my reading vocabulary knowledge and self-reflection of my practices. I have to say that the section on the Resources that Non-Native English Speakers Bring to English Reading was helpful. Considering that I need to strengthen my philosophy on assessment, the familiar types of reading assessments defined by these authors allowed me to understand them from another perspective.
I know that I will be referring to this chapter for the guided reading section, especially. All in all, I have used some of these assessments described in this chapter before- but not from this perspective- for ELLs…. or even how to use the data gathered for instructional purposesas described through the IRI case study provided. Informal Reading Inventories, (IRI’s) are used to determine reading levels and now I am wondering if it’s like the DRA’s? I have this test box with the label DRA, with leveled books and questions to ask the students after they’ve read the story. The questions are more like a retell with some inferencing required. Anyways, the QRI-II sounds good, like the authors say.
I have not conducted an Echo Reading assessment formally, but I have used something like it as a quick informal spot check for my own pacing monitoring without documenting anything. This way described here sounds doable and may be useful to use for my age group of students.
We were given the chance to take a class on Reading First, and guided reading seemed to be a big part of it if my memory serves me right. We even had video tapes of actual guide reading lessons going on. This was back in the beginning of the millennium and decade.
I have not done ReQuests before- which sounds good and is badly needed
We’ve tried SSR as a whole school before but it is not like that anymore. Read Alouds are still needed in my grade level at least and that’s when I model comprehension strategies, although I want to and need to use it with the LEA.