How to assess literacy of at-risk high school students

Many urban high schools face enormous challenges when students present learning problems that are not anticipated. Many students are quite mobile in their search for a school to meet their needs. However, few of these students travel with a written history of the past performance. This article presents a starting point for a creative and cost effective approach in student assessment for home schoolers, tutors that are called in to "save" the student, or other high school educators working in high risk environments.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• computer lab with access for all high school students
• a comitted teacher/lab director to facilitate assessment process

1. Part I. The Techno-Literate Assessment Process
   The school could use their technology lab as a literacy assessment studio to implement the Techno-Literate Process. At any time during the school year each student should be required to write a 2 page essay about their aspirations, complete a grade specific spelling test and complete a punctuation test. Prior to receiving a grade, the students read paragraphs from their essay out loud to allow the teacher to gain a better understanding of the individuals reading and writing fluency. The output from these samples allows the teacher to engage in personal dialogue with each student to determine if there are any external factors affecting their written performance.
   This assessment strategy is usually conducted at the beginning of a semester but could be implemented at any time given the review of student academic performance.
2. After using this approach, I have been able to identify most of the T-1 students without prompting from that office using this assessment tool and actually wrote multiple referrals for these students.
3. The second series of exercises that the students engage in are typing and typing with oral commands from the instructor. There are differences in how a student performs with visual commands and oral instruction. These activities can provide similar insight into the cognitive performance of the student as the WRAT writing and assessment tests. Findings similar to the STAR reading tests and SLOSSEN tests are also revealed during this two week period.
   • The writing sample provides clues about a student’s motor function and penmanship and information processing.
   • The typing sample provides clues about a students information processing and motor functions.
4. • The oral typing sample provides clues about the student’s ability to process oral commands, information retention and short term memory.
   • The spelling and writing samples provide insights into a student’s learning gaps if any, relative to reading, reading comprehension, and spelling.
   • Observation of typing and writing behaviors also provides clues into the visual acuity of the student.
   • The assessment strategies above allow the teacher to identify students performing at or above grade level.
5. The most salient challenge for schools is to determine the appropriate post assessment steps that identify strategic, cost effective and resource efficient solutions. It is important to have "resource advocates" in place to allow the school to reach for solutions. Resource advocates could be members of a university department, parent organization, business partners who want to make a difference in the life of the students and the instructional outcomes of the school. They should be able to provide the funding for additional staffing to support pull out programs and other resources requisite for improving the learning outcomes.