http://www.getreadytoread.org/screening-tools/grtr-screening-tool
Go to this website and explore the resources for teachers and parents. Take the online screening and intentionally answer some of the questions incorrectly so you can view feedback given. Then Blog about your thoughts about the tool and resources provided. Would you use them? Why or why not?
I honestly don't think that I would use the screening tool with parents and families because I don't feel comfortable that it gives a number score at the end. I worry that parents will focus on the score and not on the skills that their child has or the skills that they need more help with. As an educator I may use it to see where the kids are and what they need extra help in. A lot of the questions they ask can be determined other ways without the tool by giving a child a book and asking them questions like about the back cover etc. I did love the Transition to KIndergarten Toolkit and think that would be a nice resource especially in public prek's where prek teachers can partner more easily with kindergarten teachers.
ReplyDeleteI would not use this with the families of my classroom. I don't like the number score at the end. I feel like its something that the parents would hang up on. As a teacher I don't think that I would even use it as an assessment to find out where the child is at, as I feel like there are other assessments that are more beneficial. As a website there were some tools that would be useful to the parents that I would mention. Under skill building activities the cards and other online sites/games would be worth mentioning but as a screening I would not recommend this site to parents.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think I would use this screening with the children in my classroom. I think it is mainly because I like the screenings that are done at our school. They really give us and parents a reference to go by to see where a child is at. We use multiple different screenings, assessments, and tools to see where children are at over the course of there time with us. Then we have sheets to inform parents so they can see where their child is at and its very parent friendly (and if it’s not we make it parent friendly). This site has some great things on it but like it was said before me I think the parents would focus on the number at the end and not the actual areas that where addressed in the screening.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I would use this type of assessment tools once I began teaching. I strongly feel that it's limited, and like others have mentioned, parents will concentrate only on what kind of score their child received instead of concentrating on other aspect of their child's developmental stage. When taking the assessment, I was curious to what kind of score I was going to receive and ignoring everything else. I can totally see other parents feeling the same way as I did. Based on the power point learned from last week's class, I wouldn't use this type of assessment tool, nor would I recommend it to any one who is curious about their children literacy development.
ReplyDeleteI personally would not recommend parents using the assessment tool for the child’s skills. I feel the parents will mainly focus on the score at the end and not on the skills that their child has mastered/needs to work on. I feel that some of the games would be okay to recommend to parents to have their children try out. I may use this but only for the feedback at the end to see where the child is developmentally, but I would not recommend using this as an official assessment tool when observing. It is a good resource of information but I feel I would not use it as an official assessment tool.
ReplyDeleteI think I would consider using this tool in my classroom to help me gauge where any given child is at and see where they may need more specific help, but I would not recommend it to families. Both the score and the wording "your child is making progress" concern me. Every parent has a different style with parenting and/or teaching their children. I am afraid that many parents would get too wrapped up in the child's score and pay less attention to the things the child is doing well or what they could do to help their child improve. I think having parents use this assessment with their children would do more harm than good. It would be more beneficial to do the assessment in the classroom and then send a note home of suggestions of activities for parents to do with their children. That way no one gets wrapped up in the score and parents have some good ideas that will really help their child improve their skills.
ReplyDeleteAfter completing the screening tool provided on Get Ready to Read, I do not think I would use this in my classroom. As others have mentioned, I think that parents would focus on the number score at the end of the screening. I do not think that this test does as adequate of a job depicting children’s skills as some of the other tests do, such as the PPVT. I think that this screening tool is more appropriate for the children and depicts the children’s knowledge more accurately.
ReplyDeleteAfter completing this screening tool I decided I definitely would not use this tool in the classroom. I think everyone has mentioned this in the comments above but I will say it again. I think this tool would make parents focus on the number score at the end and not at the fact that their children worked hard to get some of the questions correct. These 20 questions do not give an adequate depiction of the skills a child may possess. There are better assessment tools out there.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to results, I am a number person. I would consider using this screening tool in my classroom to find out where children are in their literacy skills. I might use this screening tool once at the beginning of school year, and once at the end. To better understand the result, I would stay with the children through the screening and I would take notes to record what children did wrong. I would use my notes in planning activities for children who need more support in literacy skills. I would share the results of two screenings with the parents, compare them, and I would also encourage them to do the screening at home and share the results with me.
ReplyDeleteI am not a fan of the websites screening tools. I felt as if some of the pictures were not clear and could be misunderstood by a child. Also where they give random weird marks and scribbles as possible answers, and some of which i thought resembled one of the right answers. Also, it asks for the parent to read the letter sounds to the child for them to determine which letter corresponds, every parents is going to sound a little different. Even as an early childhood educator, it has taken practice to pronounce just the sound of the letter and not over extend it. Also asking for the children to chose which penmanship they think is written best is totally a biased opinion. I understand that there is better form than others but maybe they will think about what they are capable of doing at their best and chose that one. When asked to choose what story they think is longer, this could mean which one has more words or if they are using their imagination, one of the stories could seem longer to them with the amount of action that is involved even having if it has less words. I felt as if a lot of the requests were confusing and used too many words in order to ask for a simple task.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I did not see a god connection between accuracy in all learners and their literacy knowledge and would not recommend this to parents either.
Although other commentors have said they did not like this, I liked how the screening tool not only gave a score, but it also expanded on the results, giving suggestions about how the adult could further that child’s literacy development. I agree that a score should not be the main focus of the tool; however, I feel like it could still reveal useful information about the child's progress. I would use this tool, because it did not seem tedious and boring. It was not too long, and the questions were presented in a way that was engaging to children. The fun graphics also made the test seem less daunting. The supportive materials were helpful too – I would definitely use the literacy to make sure that my classroom is offering a language-rich environment, and I would also find the webinars quite useful for my professional development.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn’t use this assessment tool with children in a preschool classroom. I felt a lot of the questions were tricky and challenging. I did like how the website explained how to use the tool and what to do after using the tool. I also liked how the website provided information and resources for parents and teachers.
ReplyDeleteI have mixed feelings about this tool. I liked how the website explained how to use this tool and then what you could do after using this tool. It also had some good information and resources for teachers and parents to use as well. But when going through the questions I found that many children could be stumped by them because of how they were worded or how their parents/caregiver/teacher read the question to them. I was going to have my daughter try taking this test but then I changed my mind against it. As a parent myself, I think I would become "obsessed" on the numerical score out of the 20 and that is not a fair gage of a child's literacy skills. It could give you a little bit of an idea on where a child might be struggling but there are more specific tests that could give you better answers than this. I might recommend this website to parents for their own resource if they want to go do some exploring but I would not use the test as a baseline for their child and have them focus just on that.
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