Informal Testing

     Informal assessment is important in the classroom to measure the growth or any necessary areas that a student needs to work on. Formal assessments are necessary for the whole class data and school wide results. Nonetheless, to determine how successful a teacher class is progressing a teacher must know the strengths and weaknesses of their students. Some students may be strong in one content area and struggling in a different subject area. Furthermore, a scholar may have advance in a content area then decrease in another content area. Another example is student’s literacy levels tend to drop a reading level if they did not work on their reading skills over the summer.  As a result, informal assessment will help teachers identify these triggers and help set up a plan for each student if needed. Examples of informal assessments are F/P testing,  STEP testing, sight word testing, and speech. There is a ton of programs that can be implemented to get a student on the right track. 


      In the video, a teacher stated if a student  is slow at the beginning, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to "catch up. I disagree with this statement. If a student is tested early in the school year and the problem is discovered with the help of independent programs and teacher pull outs ( small group programs), the student can catch up to the grade level. I have seen first handed students who have transferred into my school that were reading level 4 levels below the grade level that

t has become proficient by the end of the school year. To help students struggling it takes a lot of dedication and multiple running records assessment to determine each problem quickly. Nonetheless with the data from a running record teachers can make a plan for a student to improved the struggling area at school. In addition, the plan created must also be implemented at home for the plan to work. Parents that are fully invested in their child’s education can work with teachers to indeed "catch up” their child. I found that the statement was overly generalized with little evidence to prove his claim.