Thursday, April 30, 2009

Assessments

I finished our end of the year assessments today.  ( Everyone except  Clara who was absent . We missed you Clara!)    I was really in awe of the improvements the students have made this year.  Some of the three year olds are still struggling with a few of the academic things ( letter sounds) but I dont expect them to know them right now. We have another whole year to focus on that stuff.  ( If you call the way I teach " focusing". )  The kiddos going into kindergarten are "WAY READY" to start school. The really cool thing is...  not only are they ready academically , but for the most part socially and emotionally as well.  I have one that is lagging a little in fine motor, but I bet that improves over the summer.  I have one that is not interested as much in letters as I would like but WOW that changes we have seen her go through this year. She started with us last year and was  quiet and reserved.. very untrusting. Now, she is  Randy's best buddy and is a leader.   Those are the changes that excite me more than anything.

These are the areas the assessment I did focused on:

  • Motor Area: Gross Motor items include catching, jumping, hopping, and skipping. Fine Motor items include building with blocks, cutting, copying shapes and letters, and writing.

  • Language Area: Items include answering simple personal questions (name, age, sex), articulation, naming (expressive) or identifying (receptive) objects and actions, plus phonemic awareness tasks such as rhyming and I Spy.

  • Concepts Area: Items include pointing to named body parts, naming or identifying colors, rote counting, counting blocks, placing a block in named positions relative to a little house, identifying concepts in a triad of pictures, and sorting shapes. The DIAL-3 includes an item that assesses automatic naming of colors. This skill has been shown to be associated with potential learning disabilities.

  • I can't wait for parent teacher conferences to show you how brilliant your children are and talk about ways to enhance their learning this summer!!!!!


    3 comments:

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    2. Isn't is just so amazing how much they grow in a year? I too am sometimes in awe of the growth.

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    3. You said "We missed you Clara" and my heart skipped a beat and I thought we were back at the BEGINNING of the year for some reason. But she will pass the assessment with flying colors I know because she can actually write letters now! :)

      Any sign of the sleeve? Maybe someone else went home with it? Oh, but Tuesday she'll be out b/c we're going back to Tulsa already for new fitting.

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