Writing Assessment Chapter 6 by O'Malley & Pierce

For writing in Yup'ik for fourth grade on up, I have students make word lists for their standards in their levels. In a word list the students write the Yup'ik and English words. For spelling practice, the students write each Yup'ik word five times, then make up sentences for each Yup'ik word relating to their background knowledge. The students can also draw pictures to make meaning more clearer for themselves. Other writing practices are creating acoustic poems or creating their vocabulary map. The word search and the crossword puzzles are extension individual work to help with word recognition and more spelling practices and to comprehend meanings. I have second and third grade write short story pages and illustrate from storybooks they listen to learn in Yup'ik.

Reading Assessment & Instruction - Chapter 10 Peregoy & Boyle

The reading assessment and instruction chapter addressed on various aspects of teaching reading. The discussions began with the theoretical view of language proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Reading assessments focused on processes of mature readers and how non-native English speakers bring their background knowledge, language knowledge, word recognition, vocabulary, and comprehension to help their learning in process of reading. Others included were the description of informal reading inventory and how to determine a student reading as an Independent, Instructional, or Frustration level; and other ways of evaluating learners in reading, such as in Echo reading, Guided Reading, and Read Alouds. I would like to experience some of these reading assessments with my students in various grades to see if they will actually work with the Yup'ik reading. It will be interesting to find out which reading assessment and instruction will benefit the learners.

Chapter 5 Reading Assessment by O'Malley & Valdez Pierce

The chapter on reading assessment focused on the nature of reading in school, authentic assessment of reading, and using reading assessment in instruction. This semester I experienced teaching reading with short stories in the second and third grade Yup'ik classes. We spent time reading the book entitled, "Assaliayagaaq." The students wrote and illustrated the story in Yup'ik on paper. We checked for vocabulary understanding as we read in class as groups, pairs, and individually. We made vocabulary list for the story and practiced them as a class each day. We also made a story map to review the story at different times. A couple of students were delighted to read their storybooks in Yup'ik to their parents during parent/teacher conference. I hope to experience other reading assessment activity suggestions and examples from this reading chapter in the future.

Assessing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Robert L. Rhodes

This chapter on the Disproportionate Representation of Diverse Students in Special Education reminded of our special education students here in our school. The Sped teacher stated that seventeen elementary and high school students are currently attending special classes. These students spend shorter time in the sped room and spend longer time in the regular classroom. The sped teacher has plenty of paperwork for each special ed students and that he is still learning about sped. Generally,special education teachers teach in most minority groups throughout the nation, but all cultures have special education. There are many factors such as mental retardation, learning disabled, emotionally disturbed, and educable mentally retarded among the nation who are referred to special education. Many years back, I referred one of my children to sped to receive help with her speech. Parents and teachers refer students to Sped to assist them and to improve learning.

Dynamic Assessment in the Language Classroom

While reading this article, the terms, Dynamic assessment, Vygotsky's theory of the Zone of the Proximal Development, Formative assessment, and Summative assessment stood out for me. I realized that I may have used some mediations of these assessments at one time or another in my classroom. What makes this article interesting for me are the relationships and differences of interpretations among these assessments when used between the teacher and the students. The authors defined Dynamic assessment as outstanding for being systematic which is aimed at long term development; unity of true assessment and instruction for learner development; and that DA, as defined by Luria, is that an assisted learner with performance tasks benefits to finishing tasks are able to transfer their performance to different tasks. This article as given me ideas to make assessment improvements with students in my classroom.

O'Malley & Pierce Portfolio Assessment

Reading this article has informed me much about portfolio assessment. The article mentioned that portfolio assessments help students to monitor their own learning progress and help them to become responsible with their learning goals. I have never used portfolios for any of my students in Yup'ik. At this point, I'm thinking to want to experience with a grade group using portfolios to possibly discover positive uses for my students and to make improvements with instruction and assessment activities. If I choose it, I am envisioning more parent involvement as home collaborators to help their child(ren) progress in the Yup'ik language. If you are someone who had portfolio experiences, please share your story.