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STUDENT ASSESSMENT/PROGRESS MONITORING <br /> Educational organizations, including the National Association for the Education of Young <br /> Children,place great emphasis on assessment of child progress. Educators must know how <br /> children are progressing and also what challenges they are encountering. Teachers have <br /> always observed children,talked with them about what they are doing, noted interesting <br /> things they said and did, recorded accomplishments and shared information with families. <br /> However, the new approach today is organizing and systematizing the information to <br /> improve services for individual children and to improve programs overall. Assessment <br /> helps with monitoring children's development and learning. It guides planning and decision <br /> making. It identifies children who might benefit from special services. Assessment aids in <br /> reporting to and communicating with others. Also, it helps educators know what areas of <br /> the program need improvement. <br /> Assessment is part of instruction. All students are progress monitored regularly. In <br /> preschool through grade two some common assessments are used at the Coombs School. <br /> For literacy, the Reading Street Assessments are used which include the baseline assessment <br /> at the beginning of the school year,unit benchmark assessments throughout the year and an <br /> end-of-the-book literacy assessment. <br /> Along with that, DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills—University of <br /> Oregon) is used in the fall, winter and spring. DIBELS assesses literacy fluency in areas <br /> such as letter naming, initial sounds,phoneme segmentation,nonsense words and oral <br /> reading. Teachers may also use observation checklists and anecdotal notes. DRAB <br /> (Developmental Reading Assessments) are also done with kindergarten children at the end <br /> of the year and with all children twice yearly in grades one and two. DRAs are used for <br /> comprehension evaluation. Running Records (a part of DRA, or done independently) are <br /> also used which pinpoint precisely a child's reading skill and miscues in reading. These <br /> assessment tools allow staff to specifically design instruction to meet each child's needs. <br /> Student portfolios are also maintained for all children preschool through grade two. This is <br /> an assessment portfolio which contains information of student progress. Work sampling <br /> online (in preschool), math samples,writing samples, literacy assessments, are collected <br /> which profile or give a snapshot of student progress, growth and development. Grade two <br /> portfolios are then sent to the Quashnet School for children transitioning to grade three. <br /> These portfolios are maintained right through to grade six. <br /> There will be a parent meeting scheduled at the beginning of each year to discuss <br /> assessment that goes along with our instruction. Parents/guardians will be updated <br /> regarding student progress at parent/teacher conferences in November and at other <br /> reasonable times requested by a parent/guardian. <br /> 18 <br />