Emma had her DRA2 testing this past week and did good. I was not sure what to expect at first because she had tested in the fall. I was not sure if they would base her testing off of last spring or the fall. Turns out, with a little research, the highest they would test her would be level 24, which is the benchmark for the end of 1st grade.
Anyways, she passed with no problem. Suggestions were given where to improve over the next year. I see some things conflicting slightly with what we use for the curriculum… For instance, she is learning to summarize stories/fables concisely and the DRA2 was looking for a lot more detail. That is easy to work with. Other than that, she does a lot of what is suggested at home in everyday life, comparing what she reads to real life situations,
I was also shown what would be expected at level 28, which is helpful. At that level, Emma is required to write her answers out, so we can start incorporating that into our lessons. She already has to tell me what happens in fables and short stories with one of her language art curriculums, so now we can start working on her writing it out.
Suggestions made:
- Model and support how to use background knowledge to make meaningful connections.
- Teach how to retell a story: include important events in sequence, use character names, identify important details, use language/vocabulary from the text.
- Model and teach learner how to think about “Why” questions during and after reading a text.
- Ask learner to identify and discuss the most important event in a story.
-Encourage learner to reflect with statements such as: “This reminds me of….(my world) because…”
- Teach learner how to think about relevant background knowledge before reading an informational text.
- Teach how to identify important information (key facts and ideas) to include in a retelling.
- Encourage “This book reminds me of another book because…”
