[MOSAIC] Written response to DRA level M

[Alicia Hincemon]

Many of the teachers in our county act as a scribe for our students that are not developmentally ready for the in-depth written responses that are required on DRA2. The written portion for the student will come with time, maturity, and practice.
 
Alicia 
 

________________________________

From: mosaic-bounces at literacyworkshop.org on behalf of Kukonis at aol.com
Sent: Tue 5/20/2008 10:57 PM
To: mosaic at literacyworkshop.org
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] End of Grade Testing



Although I have no answer specifically to Angela's situation.... her post 
prompted me to write some of my concerns for first graders..... I would like to 
know especially from teachers who administer the dra 2 how they introduce the
 written element of the test which starts at level M.....

Never given this test previously..... I can see why it might not be 
appropriate to administer the level M test to first graders.... however.... our 
district cut off is level M....... although my fluent readers can sail through  the
decoding and even answer those comprehension questions at the end  orally as
well as support their responses with evidence from the text  (at least some of
them can) ... that is a far cry from writing their responses.  The length
alone is daunting! Plus we have not taught them to enter responses in  their
notebooks like that. We use sticky notes and graphic organizers.... kids  use
their reader's notebook responses more for fueling their chats with their 
buddies......

I would think that somewhere after J and before M...... there is a need  to
formally show kids how to answer questions (whether literal interpretative or 
reflective) in written responses that are more formal summaries.... My high 
flyers are aware of the kinds of information that might need to add but 
certainly they talk their way through this more than write their  thoughts.....even
the graphic organizers I provide are more for stream of  thoughts .....

I am interested to know if you do take formal steps to teach this kind of 
writing..... does it occur in your reader's workshop or your writer's workshop 
or does it more naturally occur when they are developmentally  ready?

I know as a grade level we added a unit of comprehension called retelling 
(verbal) before we even gave the DRA in the fall because at those early levels 
kids do not even know what elements to include in their retells.... our
response  was overwhelmingly successful and kids did way better at the beginning of
this  year as compared to the results we gathered the year before. I am
wondering  if the same holds true for beginning the writing of retelling. 



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