4.D.01
Teachers or others who know the children and are able to observe their strengths, interests, and needs on an ongoing basis conduct assessments to inform classroom instruction and to make sound decisions about individual and group curriculum content, teaching approaches, and personal interactions.
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| The special educator and the teacher discuss modifying an activity based on information from an observation/assessment taken during worktime. |
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| The teacher discusses the work of a student with an assistant to illustrate the progress the child has been making in his literacy. |
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| The special educator and Special Ed. Teaching Assistant work together to observe and record the progress of a child. |
As stated before, all staff members who work in The Tree House (teachers, assistants, support staff) contribute to the assessment of all the children in the classroom, with or without special needs. We meet formally every one to two weeks to discuss curriculum goals and activities as well as individual growth and development. Furthermore, informal conversations happen daily about observations of the children in the class. These discussions, both informal and formal influence decisions about activities and strategies utilized when working with the children.
4.D.03
Teachers interact with children to assess their strengths and needs to inform curriculum development and individualize teaching.
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| The speech pathologist interacts with a child about the daily calendar. As this occurs, she will assess his skills as they are related to his goals and then discuss this with the team during a planning meeting. |
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| The teacher is conversing with and documenting the conversation of 3 children to use for assessment of language and cognitive development. These conversations are also used to determine any new interests for investigations. |
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| During activities, teachers converse with the children to asses their understanding of concepts and skill at expressive and receptive language. |
All staff members may interact with the children individually, in small groups or in large groups to help assess development and plan for meaningful activities that address both curriculum and individual goals.
4.D.07
Teachers talk and interact with individual children and encourage their use of language to inform assessment of children's strengths, interests, and needs.
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| In this photo, the teacher and the child are counting their fingers. She is assessing his verbal skills and counting skills. |
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| The assistant discusses an activity with the child in order to ascertain if he understands the directions to the activity. |
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| The speech pathologist converses with the child during a writing activity. She determines his level of success with literacy and writing |
Conversations with children play a significant role in assessing the strengths, interest and needs of individual children. Individual, small group and large group discussions are documented and utilized to inform curriculum content and assessment. This documentation may include but is not limited to dialogue transcripts, charts, graphs and webs of experiences.
4.D.08
Teachers observe and document children's work, play, behaviors, and interactions to assess progress. They use the information gathered to plan and modify the curriculum and their teaching.
As mentioned above, various methods are used to document children's progress, assess their learning and plan activities to address curriculum and individual goals. As a result, all activities are compiled and then organized into content domains onto a weekly activity guide. To view an example of a weekly activity guide, click here.
