Kristin Hensley

ELM-305: Foundational Literacy Skills and Phonics

Kelli Moore

3/27/2022

Clinical Field Experience C – Literacy Pre-Assessment

During our clinical hours this week, Mrs. Brown and I sat down and worked on a pre-assessment

to go along with our chosen book “Three Billy Goats Gruff” that could measure the student’s

reading comprehension, writing, and vocabulary skills. The standard that we chose to look at was

“RI.K.3 With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events,

ideas, or pieces of information in a text (North Carolina Department of Public Instruction).” The

learning objective I chose is “Using supporting evidence from the story, students will be able to

answer comprehension questions about the story, vocabulary, and describe the main characters

with 80% accuracy in 4 out of 5 trials.” The pre-assessment will ask vocabulary questions about

terms within the story such as meadow, bridge, troll, and gobbled. Comprehension questions in

the assessment will ask about the story’s setting, the reasoning for crossing the bridge, and why

the troll wouldn’t let the goat’s pass. Lastly the students will be asked to give their descriptions

on what the Billy Goats Gruff looks like, as well as the troll, and the meadow. For the students in

the average to high learning group, they will be given handwriting lines and open-ended

questions to answer in a formal way with written answers, whereas my lower learners will be

given a word bank. For my student who has only been enrolled in school for a month, he will be

provided with one-on-one testing support with picture visuals to support him during the test.
 Mrs. Brown really liked the content of my pre-assessment but noted that there were other

ways to measure the students in a more engaging way than paper and pencil. She suggested that I

take a moment and investigate creating a Kahoot it for the students and allow them to play

against one another in a game like setting. She mentioned that for students who struggle with

ADHD or who lose focus quickly, it’s a great way for them to move around and use their bodies

while they’re learning so that they remain focus. Kahoot will also store data for the teacher so

that I can look at the scores (Kahoot!, 2022). The only con to this path, is that it’s difficult to

differentiate for higher learners and evaluate writing skills since this is done using their devices.

She suggested consolidating the pre-assessment into a Kahoot game, and then creating a short

open-ended comprehension question for students to write their answers, and to dictate for lower-

level learners so that they can write one to one on their papers.

I want to make sure that I can measure a student’s academic growth while still

maintaining a high level of engagement and rapport with my students. I really appreciate that

Mrs. Brown took the time to brainstorm creative ways to still create an effective assessment but

in a way that is effective for the learners in her classroom, while also explaining her reasoning

and ensuring that I knew other ways to meet the criteria of my assignments. In the future, I think

that effective time management is an important part of creating a pre-assessment that meets the

needs of what you’re wanting to measure, but still being able to modify it accordingly to meet

the unique needs of the learners within your classroom (Reading Rockets).
 References
Kahoot! (2022, March 16). Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

https://kahoot.com/

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. (n.d.). ELA Standard Course of Study | NC

DPI. Dpi.Nc.Gov. https://www.dpi.nc.gov/documents/files/ela-standard-course-study

Reading Rockets. (n.d.). Comprehension: Activities for Your Kindergartner.

https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-101-guide-parents/kindergarten/comprehension-

activities-your-kindergartner