Products and Assessment Materials | Home
6-8 Week Skills Assessment
Frequently Asked Questions
Why assess every 6 to 8 weeks?
"Frequent assessment is the key to planning instruction that is appropriate to students' needs and to determining whether students are meeting or exceeding standards.”
“Assessment should help teachers learn what students know and how well they know it. Frequent assessment should be included to help teachers determine whether students are learning and retaining what has been taught. Because assessment measures what students have been taught, the tasks in the assessment should parallel those in the instructional materials."
Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools, p. 256
How do the 6 to 8 Week Skills Assessments support classroom teachers in monitoring student progress?
Monitoring of progress assessments "focuses on the general skills and knowledge students are to acquire according to the standards.”
“The domains and strands of the standards are assessed at the end of each major set of lessons. The tests, which are curriculum-embedded, should be administered [every 6-8 weeks] and scored by the teacher. The results should be analyzed for each student and classroom on the basis of established levels that identify (1) who is at mastery; and (2) what percent of students are at mastery. The results should influence how teachers modify or emphasize parts of the curriculum."
Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools, pp. 216-218
"Because of the large number of skills and strategies students are to acquire in each grade, a critical decision has to be made to determine what knowledge to assess and when. In the early grades, key indicators or predictors can be used to identify students making adequate progress toward literacy standards and those likely to have continued difficulty in learning to read. Those key indicators are derived largely from research on students who learn to read easily in comparison with those who do not.”
“The purpose of the measures is to identify students who need additional instruction and assess the effectiveness of instruction over time."
Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools, p. 217
What is the purpose of the 6 to 8 Week Skills Assessments?
The Skills Assessments, both the English and Spanish versions, are curriculum-embedded and administered to students approximately every 6-8 weeks. They are designed to help classroom teachers and grade-level teams determine how effective their delivery of instruction is meeting expected student-learning goals in relation to concepts and skills taught in the program's theme/unit. They provide teachers with data related to the academic progress of individual students as well as an entire class. This information is then used to guide and plan instruction for the next theme/unit.
