Overview
Can you document incremental stages of growth in reading comprehension? Do you test students only at the end of a book chapter or learning unit? Are you sure that your reading assessments are accurate, reliable, and fair, and that they prepare students to meet rigorous state standards? This workshop will help you become an informed consumer of formative assessments, develop a variety of scaffolding approaches, and engage students in their own learning.
Who Should Attend?
Grades 4–12 ESOL teachers
What Will I Learn?
In this workshop, participants will
- identify the kinds of reading strategies, academic vocabulary, language functions, and critical thinking skills needed to learn content-area concepts through informational text
- distinguish between various types of formative assessment tools, including checklists, rating scales, scoring rubrics, multiple-choice tests, cloze tests, and self-assessment
- recognize types of scaffolding appropriate for different levels of language proficiency
- learn the importance of using descriptive language to specify observable and measurable learning outcomes based on standards
- identify key elements of formative assessment that promote learning
About the Workshop Leader
Lorraine Valdez Pierce, associate professor in the ESL PreK–12 teacher licensure program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, supervises ESL teacher interns and teaches graduate courses in assessment. She has also been a middle school teacher of English language arts and reading, and has presented workshops on assessment in more than 30 states.