Kindergarten is TOUGH, in all capital letters. If you're a new Kindergarten Teacher, brace yourself. If you're a returning Kindergarten Teacher, give yourself a hug and buy yourself something nice, you deserve it for re-entering the jungle by choice. I LOVE Kindergarten, and have dedicated the last four years of my life to mastering the art of Teaching the Little People. <3
With that being said, I've decided to let go of my deep passion for solely teaching Kindergarten and leave it for an even deeper love... teaching READING. An opportunity came open in my building to switch to 2nd Grade READING teacher. I am now readying a new room and new curriculum, but will never lose my love for creating resources for my first love, Kindergarten.
So, I'm here to share something with you all that made my life in Kindergarten MUCH easier. It never gets EASY, teaching Kindergarten, but things can always be easier. :) Assessing student knowledge of Letter & Sound Identification is time-consuming and stressful at times, so I created this resource to ease some of the trouble. This FREE Letter & Sound Assessment Binder resource will help you assess students, track their growth and compare their overall performance in a neat and organized fashion.
To get started, you'll need:
- My printed resource. Find it here on TpT. Please follow my store and leave feedback so I can continue to provide this as a FREE resource.
- A big BINDER
- Enough tab dividers for your class.
Assemble Your Binder
1.) Place your cover in the front. If you're like me, this helps your O.C.D. problem of needing everything to be beautifully labeled. If you're a normal person, you can save yourself some ink and skip this step.
2. Place your whole-group monitoring sheet in the front of the binder. Fill in your student names. I have created space to accommodate 30 students. If you have more than that, Lord bless your soul. :D I like to keep mine sheet-protected because I use it quite often. This saves unnecessary wear and tear.
3.) Place Student-Progress Monitoring sheet at the beginning of each tab divider. You will date and record student performance each time you give the assessment. This gives you a quick over-view of each individual student and the specific number of capital letter/sound and lower-case letter/sound they have mastered. I like to have this view (rather than only a percentage) so I can discuss this info quickly with parents during conferences. This also gives me an insight as to whether the student has a better understanding of letter names or sounds. During my experience, many students catch on to the sounds of letters more quickly than the name.
4.) Make plenty of copies of the Student Assessment and Student Assessment Results sheets and store in the binder pockets. Now, you're READ Y to assess!
4.) Make plenty of copies of the Student Assessment and Student Assessment Results sheets and store in the binder pockets. Now, you're READ Y to assess!
Assessment Procedure
When assessment time comes, grab your binder from the shelf and start tracking student performance. I would pull the Student Assessment Sheet from the front pocket and a results sheet from the back.
In the beginning of the year, students will need your assistance in tracking the letters. Use a pen, pointer, colored-chip or any other tool to help them visit each letter. As they identify their letters/sounds, record the information on the results page. I like to use an X to signify that they do not recognize the letter/sound. This seems like a lot in the beginning of the school year, but as time passes, they will learn more and the X's will become fewer. At that time, you'll want to focus more on the letters missed and will be able to spot them more quickly.
Store your dated assessment results behind the Student Progress-Monitoring page in your binder. This way, if you want to see specific letters/sounds missed, you can turn to the correct assessment and see quickly which were missed. As you can see here, on August 27th, little Jessica missed every Capital Letter name except for 3 (Q, J and V). She missed ALL Capital Letter Sounds. She went on to recognize 2 Lower-Case Letter names (j and x) and identified 1 lower-case sound (letter j).
After assessing that individual student, record their performance on the student progress-monitoring sheet. After calculating the percentage correct, record this info on the Whole-group monitoring sheet. This sounds like a lot of work, but in the end, you'll be glad you did. You'll have a perfectly documented story of how that child performed throughout the school year. As you can see, little Jessica had 100% mastery by January. If you didn't have this information, you might forget how little she knew in the beginning. Don't you love seeing student growth?!?!
I also use a highlighter to mark students who have reached 100% mastery. This motivates me to work hard until each student has had their name highlighted. I would have demonstrated that here, but I'm on SUMMER BREAK (wooohoooo!!) and apparently don't own a highlighter outside of school grounds. Yikes!
I love free stuff, but I especially love USEFUL free stuff. If you find this to be useful, let me know! If you see need for improving this product, let me know that too.
If you need ideas of how to get these little people to be successful during this particular assessment, visit my most popular blog post, How to Increase Letter & Sound Fluency in Kindergarten. I've had oodles of positive feedback from really GREAT teachers. Be sure to check it out! :)
Happy Kindergarten Assessment to you! I'll be in 2nd Grade this year, but I'll still keep all of you crazy Kindergarten people in my prayers as you take on a new group of angels.
God bless you and yours!
God bless you and yours!
