Assessment in the Word Study Workshop

Update: Unit One: Launching the Word Study Workshop is available on TpT! Click Here!

Greetings!
I’m soooo close to posting the first word-study unit! I’ve got a couple of people proofing it, and then it’ll be up. In the meantime, I wanted to share about assessment in the word study workshop.

As I mentioned in my last post, the word pattern cycles last 10 days. After the mini-lesson, the students engage in practice activities. But what does the teacher do? A LOT! That work time is your “game time!” This is the time that I am extremely intentional about pushing my spellers to the next level through small group, partner, and individual conferring.

Below, is the conferring sheet I used to push my spellers along. My goal is to meet with each speller (individually) at least once during their 10-day word cycle. I meet with them a lot more throughout the week via small groups.

Here is an example of a conferring sheet filled out with anecdotal notes. It’s a great way for me to collect data and provide feed back to students, parents, and administration. Also, if I want to assess their progress during writing workshop, I’ll often pull this sheet out and remind myself of the progress the students have made. It helps me to know what they have improved upon! There are step-by-step instructions at the top of the sheet for what I actually do when I confer. Forgive my awful handwriting. I am not one of those teachers with font-worthy handwriting at ALL!

This tracker is what I use at the end of a cycle when I give the assessments with alternate pattern words. It is just a quick pass/fail at-a-glance so I can watch progress over time. I also can easily see the students that are falling behind quiz after quiz and address that. If over half of my students fail (marked with an “X” then I might reteach that or plan to reteach it during a spelling small group session.

An example of a tracking sheet filled out for one spelling club.

This is what I mentioned above when referring to the alternate pattern words. For each spelling pattern, I’ve provided a list of words that follow the pattern. I use these words for quizzes and examples when I work with a small group.

So, that’s how I assess my spellers in a nutshell! My goal is to always have a pulse on their progress.

Thanks for reading along!