Student Assessment

Lake Tahoe School teachers continually assess their students to best inform their instruction.

Three times a year, K-8 students are more formally assessed with the Renaissance Early Literacy, Reading and Math computer adaptive tests. These customized assessments choose each question from a large pool of test items, making subsequent questions more or less difficult than the prior question depending on whether the student answered the prior question correctly. The pool of test items is large and the software tracks which questions a student has already seen so a specific question will not be repeated for a student within 120 days.

Our teachers use the wide variety of Renaissance reports to determine best instructional moves for each student, for their class and more importantly to track and measure growth. Educational software that we use to enhance teachers’ individualized instruction include Lexia Core5 and ST Math.

Additionally, K-3 teachers use Words Their Way to both assess and guide their students’ word knowledge. The qualitative spelling inventory at the heart of this developmental word study provides students with the opportunity to record as many spelling patterns and features as they know. Teachers use the data from these inventories to plan instructional word study stages.

Each day, teachers give and use formative assessments and anecdotal observations to provide the best instruction for each of their students. End of unit tests, writing projects, and other summative assessments provide more evaluative insight for our staff.

SOURCES:

Renaissance Learning. (n.d.). What is Star Reading? . Retrieved June 25, 2021, from https://help2.renaissance.com/SR/WhatIsSR

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2016) Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction. (6th ed.). Pearson.