1. Assessment at Brent
PTA Meeting
March 14th 2012
Sara Ewbank
Ruey Timberg
Sarah Werstuik

2. Benchmarking
Assessments
Types of Assessments: Grades:
GOLD PreK Continuum PS - PK
DIBELS K-5
Fountas & Pinnell K-5
ANet 3-5

3. What are Benchmarking
Assessments?
• Administered Periodically
• Beginning, Middle, and End of the Year
• Provides teachers with information about students’
progress on skills
• Are useful to inform instructional decision making.
• Low stakes for individual students

4. Teaching Strategies
GOLD
• Objectives are organized into
10 areas of development and
learning
• Teachers record observations for 38 GOLD Objectives
for Learning & Development

5. GOLD Continuum:
Process
• Teachers observe students playing in small
groups, during centers, and at outdoor activity
times
• Examples:
– 2c, Interact with peers
– 11c, Solves problems
– 14b, Engages in socio-dramatic play

6. GOLD Continuum:
Data
• Families receive an "Individual Child Report"
for each reporting period
• Reports provide child's current levels on all
learning objectives
• Information includes data from GOLD's
Assessment Opportunity Cards supplemented
with teacher’s notes for assessments

7. DIBELS
Dynamic
Indicator of
Basic
Early
Language
Skills

8. What is DIBELS?
• A way to quickly identify students who are struggling with
early reading skills and to gauge the effectiveness of any extra
help they are getting.
• Used K – 5th at Brent
• A series of one-minute assessments that measure a student’s
ability and growth in essential early reading skills:
• Phonemic Awareness : Hearing and identifying the individual
sounds in a word
• Alphabetic Principle: Associating those sounds with a letter or
letters
• Accuracy and Fluency: Putting those words together into smooth
phrases

9. DIBELS: Process
• Every student in the school participates in a DIBELS
assessment at least three times a year: In September, January
and May
• Students sit one on one with the teacher and it is all talking
and pointing: nothing written
• Testing takes 10 – 15 minutes depending on the number of
DIBELS measures required at the student’s grade level.
• Relaxed and fun. Younger students consider DIBELS
assessment to be “games with letters and sounds.”

10. DIBELS: Data
• If a student scores below
what is typically expected,
extra help in that skill will
be offered.
• These students are
frequently monitored (
every two to four weeks ) to
determine if the
intervention is resulting in
improvement.

11. DIBELS: Reporting
• Three times a year, a letter goes
home with your child’s DIBELS
scores and suggestions for
targeted skills practice you can do
at home.
• Scores in each DIBELS measure
falls into one of three categories:
– Goal: your child is right on track
– Some Support: Let’s keep an eye on
this skill and try some extra
instruction and practice
– Most Support: your child is behind
where he/she needs to be in this skill
and needs focused instruction and
practice

12. Fountas & Pinnell
Leveling
• Fountas & Pinnell provides
reliable and consistent
reading assessments at
every reading level
• Teachers administer
assessments individually to
determine the student’s
instructional level

13. Fountas & Pinnell
Leveling
• Teachers use this
information to plan
lessons that target
student’s needs
• Students select
independent reading
books according to their
levels

14. Achievement Network
(ANet)
• 3/4/5 Graders
• Teachers deliver
instruction according to
a pacing guide
• Each test assesses only
what was taught during
that interim period

15. ANet: Data
• Teachers reflect on class and student data to
determine content that needs to be re-taught.
• Leadership team reflects on grade level data
to determine instructional trends.
• School level data can be compared with other
ANet schools to monitor progress during the
year.

16. ANet: Reporting

17. What About the
DC-CAS?
• A one-time test; not a benchmarking
assessment
• Data is collected and used at the state level,
rather than at the school level
• Standardized administration
• Basis for determinations of school progress,
but not instructionally useful

18. Where to Find More
Information
• www.teachingstrategies.com
• www.wirelessgeneration.com
• www.heinemann.com/fountasandpinnell
• www.achievementnetwork.org