Thursday, July 17, 2014

Guided Math Chapter 8




Assessment is essential in Guided Math because it drives instruction.  When working with small groups of students, you want to group them with similar learning goals.  I want to work with students that are struggling to understand place value at the same time.  This way my lessons are focused and succinct.  Much like Guided Reading, I will need to constantly be assessing and evaluating student need.  Once a student has mastered a skill they need to move onto a new skill.  this is why the groups need to remain fluid.  No one keeps a young reader in the letter id/sounds group once they are putting the sounds together to form words, the same goes for math.  Why hold a child back?
I use a combination of assessments.  As I mentioned before, I have a plethora of district mandated assessments.  Luckily, the Beginning of Year assessment has been created to assess learning from Kindergarten.  I can immediately look at the data to see what skills my students are struggling to master.  Additionally, I can utilize our MTSS screener to identify areas that need to be mastered.  Paired with my observations this is always a good place to start. 
As I start to work with groups, I can give quick assessments to look for understanding and mastery of the skills.  Often first graders come back to school and just need a refresher on certain skills.   This way I am keeping my student's learning moving forward. 
I have multiple assessments that are provided for my use by my district.  These assessments are to identify holes in student learning based on my instruction.  By implementing Guided Math, I feel like I will be better meeting all student need rather than just noting that Suzie doesn't understand place value -- and moving on, because that's what the pacing guide says!

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