The what, why and how of collecting baseline data in the first days of school.

What?

The "what?" is determined by your grade level and your standards. Each grade has sure "Power Standards" that are building blocks for that grade level and prerequisites for the side by side grade. If you are a new instructor, you will find out what these standards are when you are planning with your class level.

Consider this example. Commencement grade has literally dozens of reading/ela standards. 1 standard covers how to use commas in a series while another states that students tin can read on level text with purpose and understanding. A first grader tin move on to 2d grade and be successful fifty-fifty if they did not main where to put commas in a serial but they cannot exist successful in second class if they did not master reading on get-go form level text with purpose and agreement. That is a power standard. Y'all volition want to encounter what level the educatee is reading on in your baseline data because that is something y'all will desire to track all year long and will exist a cistron in determining readiness for second grade at the end of the year. In dissimilarity, you will certainly teach and formatively assess the standard about commas simply it does not warrant a place in your baseline data.

Why?

Why get together baseline information at all? You lot are going to assess the students summatively at the cease of units, quarters, the year. The summative information will ultimately inform your decision almost readiness to promote, and so why bother with diagnostic or baseline data?

Starting time all all, we live in an era of accountability in which we are required to justify our methods, materials and even our instruction. The gathering of baseline data allows you to bear witness student progress, prove why y'all are using the method or materials that y'all are using and show the need each young learner has, in a very specific way.

Secondly, baseline data gives you a starting bespeak for pedagogy. It tells you what your students already know and what they demand to know. You are able to be your almost effective when yous tin provide direct instruction and exercise on precisely the skills students need to acquire.

Thirdly, baseline data is essential to tracking student progress, or lack thereof. When you lot gather baseline information in the starting time week of school, y'all will exist able to identify struggling students within the first few weeks when you see they are not making progress from their baseline. You will be able to deliver remediation or reteaching rapidly and foreclose a huge learning gap from developing. In the lower elementary grades especially, it is a responsibleness of the teacher to place students who may have innate learning difficulties that will require extra, ongoing interventions. The baseline data is just the first data signal in this procedure. The process is quicker and more than efficient, thus providing the student with the help they demand that much sooner.

Lastly, there is a wealth of research out there suggesting that when the student and the teacher know exactly where the educatee is academically; students tend to abound more and quicker. Giving a diagnostic cess with the right attitude "Information technology'southward okay if you don't already know this; I just want to encounter what you already know." allows students to see that they do accept something they need to learn, which in itself can exist impetus enough for them to appoint in learning.

How?

How do you collect diagnostic/baseline data? Y'all've heard the expression "There's more than i style to skin a cat." Although I don't hold with skinning cats; I concord there are many ways to appraise. There are multiple means to assemble this data and y'all can use the method that works best for you lot.

  • Whole grouping – some data tin exist gathered in a whole group setting. For case, math computation tin be done whole group because y'all are looking to see if a kid can compute the correct answer (be sure to use privacy boards or folders to prevent copying.)
  • Small group – some data tin exist gathered in small groups. For case, a second grade teacher may want to do the math computation in pocket-size group if she is also taking note of who withal uses their fingers to count, and and then on.
  • Individual – in a perfect world, we would have enough of time to practise all of the assessments individually and then that we could take note of private strengths and weaknesses and which strategies the pupil prefers. However, some assessments MUST be done individually such as reading sight words, naming letters, making letter sounds and reading running records and fluency.

You will brand fourth dimension for these assessments in the first week (or two, at the most) of schoolhouse because you will not exist instructing until you lot have gathered the baseline data (it informs your instruction, recall?). The transition from summer pause to school is difficult for immature learners and you tin can brand information technology easier on them and on your data collection by providing structured play activities that will let yous to work with individuals and small groups to gather data. Activities that are considered developmentally appropriate and also mentally valuable in K-five are playdough, blocks, legos, puzzles, brain teasers, computer/ipad based activities like ABCya.com, PBS.org, BrainPop and TumbleBooks.

Suggested baselines to gather, by course:

  • M – write proper noun, recognize letters, recognize letter sounds, sight words, recognize numerals, count sets to 10, addition to 5
  • ane – sight words, running record (reading level), sight word fluency, add-on fluency to 10, subtraction fluency within ten
  • 2 – sight words, running tape (reading level), reading fluency, addition fluency to 18, subtraction fluency within xviii
  • 3 – running record (reading level), reading fluency, addition fluency to i,000, subtraction fluency within 1,000, multiplication facts
  • four – running record (reading level), reading fluency, addition and subtraction fluency to 10,000, multiplication fluency through 12's, partition fluency inside facts to 12's,
  • five – running record (reading level), reading fluency, multiplication fluency through triple times double digit multiplicands and corresponding division as well as creating decimals with division

This is just a basic listing of suggestions for some of the heavy hitter standards at each grade level. Your school, your system, your grade level may do others as well.

Which ones do you use for your grade level?

I create Common Core aligned materials for teachers. I blog nigh my standards-based classroom.