Assessment
Plan: The Alphabet
Katherine
Torres
EDU645
Professor
Kyger
March
26, 2012
Assessment
Plan: The Alphabet
Assessment Title: Recognize, Write
and Identify Placement of Letters of the Alphabet
Subject Area: Language Arts/Reading/Concepts
of Print
Grade Level: Kindergarten
Purpose of Assessment Plan:
The purpose of this assessment plan
is to determine if the student has acquired the knowledge and skills required
to recognize and write upper and lower case letters of the alphabet and identify
placement of upper and lower case letters of the alphabet with accuracy.
Learning Outcomes:
- The student will recognize printed letters of the alphabet with 100% accuracy.
- The student will write the letters of the alphabet, upper and lower case, with 100% accuracy.
- The student will identify placement of upper and lower case letters of the alphabet, i.e. at the beginning of their name with 80% accuracy.
Assessment Context:
In the first section of the
assessment, the student will be asked to recognize and circle the letters. The student will be provided with a worksheet
with the letters of the alphabet. The
teacher will read a letter and ask the student to circle the required letter of
the alphabet on the paper; an example will be provided for the student to
ensure that the student understands the directions.
Example: Circle the letter A:
- A
- B
- C
In the second section of the
assessment, the worksheet will have upper case letters on the left side and
lower case letters on the right side of the page. The students will be asked to draw a line to
match upper and lower case letters.
Example: Match upper case letters
to lower case letters:
A b
C a
B c
The third section of the assessment
will ask the student to properly place upper and lower case letters. The student will be asked to write their
first name and the teacher will check that the student has written their name
with a capital letter at the beginning of their name.
Example: The teacher will give oral
directions to the student. Write your
first name and place an upper case letter at the beginning, every time you
write your first name.
Testing Constraints:
The students will be encouraged to
engage prior knowledge before the assessment, by reviewing the letters of the
alphabet. The letters of the alphabet
and the sounds each letter makes will be reviewed by singing the alphabet song
and then asking the students to identify words starting with each letter of the
alphabet, i.e. have students raise their hands and indicate what letter apple
begins with. Because young children
respond well to oral questions and concrete tasks, the students will require
doing little reading or writing in the assessment; instead, they will be asked
to circle and draw lines to correct responses.
The assessment will be one page long and a maximum of 20 to 30 minutes will
be given to the students to complete the assessment. Students will also be allowed to ask the
teacher for assistance if required.
Holistic Rubric:
|
CATEGORY
|
ADVANCED- 4
|
PROFICIENT- 3
|
ADEQUATE- 2
|
LIMITED- 1
|
|
LETTER RECOGNITION
|
Student
circles the right letter of the alphabet always.
|
Student
circles the right letter of the alphabet most of the time.
|
Student
circles the right letter of the alphabet some of the time.
|
The
student does not circle the right letter of the alphabet.
|
|
UPPER CASE LETTER RECOGNITION
|
Student
is able to identify upper case letters of the alphabet.
|
Student
identifies most upper case letters of the alphabet.
|
Student
identifies some upper case letters of the alphabet.
|
Student
is not able to recognize upper case letters of the alphabet.
|
|
LOWER CASE LETTER RECOGNITION
|
Student
is able to identify lower case letter of the alphabet.
|
Student
identifies most lower case letters of the alphabet.
|
Student
identifies some lower case letters of the alphabet.
|
Student
is not able to recognize lower case letters of the alphabet.
|
|
USES AN UPPER CASE LETTER AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NAME
|
Student
always writes his/her name beginning with an upper case letter.
|
Student
most of the time, writes his/her name beginning with an upper case letter.
|
Student
some of the time, writes his/her name beginning with an upper case letter.
|
Student
never writes an upper case letter at the beginning of his her/name.
|
Kubiszyn and
Borich (2010) state that an instructional objective “should be a clear and
concise statement of the skill or skills that the students will be expected to
perform after a unit of instruction” (p. 110).
Thus, a learning outcome should include an action verb that specifies the
knowledge or skills that will be acquired, conditions that are required for the
learning to take place and a performance level that is considered appropriate
to demonstrate student mastery. The
assessment above includes the necessary learning outcomes that will support the
purpose. These three learning outcomes
will have the student recognize the letters of the alphabet, write upper and
lower case letters of the alphabet and identify when it is necessary to place
an upper case letter, i.e. at the beginning of their name. Therefore, the end result implies that a
learning outcome is the final product.
The Alphabet
assessment plan has observable learning outcomes and the assessment context
clearly identifies tasks or situations in which learners will be able to
demonstrate the knowledge gained. The
context for this assessment has been designed carefully and with
age-appropriate skills in mind.
According to Wortham (2010), it is important to determine the
appropriate amount of test items or tasks that will be included in the
test. Wortham also states that “a
balance is reached between the number of items needed to demonstrate the
child’s responses to determine understanding and a reasonable length that will
not overtax the child’s ability to attend to the task” (p. 195). Education experts suggest that for primary
grades, the length of the assessment should not be longer that the time that is
usually needed to complete classroom activities. The Alphabet assessment should not take the
student more than the required 20 to 30 minutes, because it is only one page
long.
The Alphabet
assessment clearly describes the learning that will take place and the learning
outcomes are simple and straightforward.
The directions are also clear and unambiguous and include an accurate
description of the instructional intent.
According to Naz (2009), a performance assessment should include the
four require components of assessment: performance, product, condition and
criterion. The performance component
specifies the actions observed as a result of instruction. The Alphabet assessment clearly states that
the student will be assessed on their ability to recognize and write upper and
lower case letters of the alphabet with 100% accuracy, as well as identify
placement of upper and lower case letters of the alphabet with 80% accuracy. The product is what the student will produce;
in this case, the student will circle the correct letter, match the upper case
to the correct lower case and write their name with an upper case letter at the
beginning, followed by lower case letters.
The worksheet given to the student is the condition and the holistic
rubric will measures student performance.
Kubiszyn and
Borich state that it is important to keep in mind all of the factors that may
influence testing conditions. Testing
constraints refer to the conditions impose on the learners during test. Some of the constraints which may influence testing
conditions are time, reference material, other people, equipment, prior
knowledge of the task and scoring criteria.
Teachers usually decide which constraints will be imposed on a
performance assessment. The Alphabet
assessment will encourage students to engage prior knowledge, in order to build
new knowledge. This will be accomplished
by reviewing the alphabet with the students before the assessment. Each letter and the sound they make will be
reviewed by the teacher, as well as having students identifying words starting
with each letter of the alphabet. The
students will be given the worksheets and the instructions will be explained;
the teacher will be available for questions and no other equipment will be
required. The student will not be
informed of the scoring criteria.
Wortham tells us
that it is important to keep the test well-balanced; the number of items on the
test should be at a reasonable length.
For children in primary grades, according to Wortham, the test should
not exceed the time that is usually needed to complete regular classroom
assignments; the maximum should be between 20 to 30 minutes and is considered
reasonable in testing students at this grade level. The recommended length to evaluate students
at this stage is commonly one page long.
The Alphabet test is designed to take the recommended time and there
will be only one worksheet for the students to complete. This assessment is designed to allow the
teacher to assess if the students are learning the information. The items on the Alphabet assessment provide
different types of practice for the students and show if the students are
making adequate progress; the teacher will have enough information to monitor
student learning and mastery of objectives.
According to
Kubiszyn and Borich, one of the greatest limitations of performance assessments
is the time that is required to score them.
However, it is important for teachers to dedicate enough time and effort
to score them. Kubiszyn and Borich state
that “your goal when scoring performance tests is to do justice to the time
spent developing them and the effort expended by students taking them. You can accomplish this by developing a
carefully constructed scoring system…rubrics” (p. 195). A holistic scoring estimates the overall
quality of the performance and assigns a numerical value assigning points for a
specific performance. These rubrics will
usually have competency labels that define the level of performance; the
student’s work is assessed using the descriptors under each level of
competence. Holistic rubrics are usually
used when an overall judgment is made about the performance.
Although there are
many advantages to using holistic rubrics, many experts believe that they may
lack validity and reliability. This
could be avoided by designing rubrics that focus on the quality of the work and
the appropriate characteristics of student work. The holistic rubric designed to assess
performance on the Alphabet assessment, focuses on specific performance by the
student. This rubric is divided into
four levels of performance: Advanced, Proficient, Adequate and Limited. Students will be evaluated on letter
recognition, upper case letter recognition, lower case letter recognition and
proper placement of upper case letter at the beginning of their first name. This rubric can also be used to compare student
performance on previous or future attempts.
Thus, the construction of this specific holistic rubric will be
effective in measuring student performance at different levels of performance. The Alphabet assessment has been effectively
designed to promote learning and to assess if students have gained the
knowledge and skills required by this specific performance assessment.
References
Blogger. Retrieved from http://www.blogger.com
Kubiszyn,
T. & Borich, G. (2010). Educational testing & measurement: Classroom
application and practice (9th ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken , NJ
Naz,
B.A. (2009). Presentation
on instructional objectives. Retrieved from ERIC library
database. http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED505999.pdf
Rubistar.
(2000-2008). Create Rubrics for your Project-Based Learning Activities. ALTEC at University of Kansas
