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What is assessment?

What is instruction?

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The CAFÉ BookDaily Literacy Assessment & Instruction

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+CAFÉ Assessment Practical, simple way to integrate assessment into daily

reading/writing & discussions in our literacy workshops Goal: To develop proficient, lifelong readers (1) Provides structure for conferring about reading-

writing skills/strategies (2) Common language to promote literacy development (3) Tracking literacy growth and promote literacy

independence (self-regulation of literacy processes) Gives you record-keeping forms, benchmark goals, and

flexible grouping opportunities (beyond Guiding Readers)

+CAFÉ Assessment“Teachers are conscientious and want to do things ‘right’

and well.”

“The CAFÉ menu can easily be integrated into whole-class strategy lessons you have likely used successfully for years to teach reading and vocabulary, to create word walls, or to focus your read-aloud.”

“Our goal is to help you see that CAFÉ isn’t ‘one more thing’ you have to somehow find time to teach. Lessons you have taught successfully for years likely fall into one of the four category headings and can easily be integrated.”

“It is simply a visual organizational tool that can help you link assessment data and goal setting into purposeful, intentional instruction.”

+Research Base for CAFÉ

“We were under a mandate to follow scripts from our reading programs, but doing so went against what the researchers were saying worked best with children.” –Boushey & Moser

Betts (1946)- match readers with appropriate texts to read independently

“Meeting each student’s needs with tailored instruction”

“Early in the year the exemplary teachers largely followed research by offering greater amounts of instructional time with the poorest readers in their rooms. Gradually teachers reduced the amount of attention as those children developed better reading skills.” -Allington

“More effective classrooms have a distribution of whole-class, small-group, and side-by-side instruction”- Pressley et al.

What is Best for Kids Exemplary Literacy Instruction

+The Literacy CAFÉ MenuFive Major Areas of Reading Instruction: Comprehension, Accuracy (Phonemic Awareness/Phonics-Integration), Fluency, Vocabulary

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Reading/WritingSkills & Strategies

Daily 5 Behaviors

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What would you put on your CAFÉ Menu

in your classroom?

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Skill = Strategy

Strategy = Skill

+The CAFÉ Assessment Structure

+Assessment to Instruction

+Assessment to Instruction

+Assessment to Instruction

+Whole-Group Instruction

Brief intervals- far more frequent WG Instruction becomes a mix of:

Introducing new strategies (skills) Use assessment data to provide what children need next Revisiting/re-teaching strategies (skills) we’ve already

introduced Make adjustments to meet your curriculum and

accommodations to meet your students “Ready Reference Guide” provides ideas for whole-

group instruction beyond your curriculum

+Whole-Group InstructionLesson Progression

Identify strategy & the “secrets to success” Teach the strategy Students practice with partners Select a student to write & illustrate CAFÉ Menu

strategy card (first-time only) Review the strategy as needed in small-group or

whole-group Encourage use of strategy during independent

reading Continually connect new strategy to learned

strategies on CAFÉ Menu

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+Strategy Group Instruction Strategy being addressed in the group = frequency of

interactions As you move up in the elementary grade levels, literacy

needs become more pronounced and require more frequency.

Launch Strategy Groups after establishing literacy routines and behaviors during the first 4-6 weeks of school Use WG Instruction to address immediate literacy needs during

this time.

Reinforcing: What is your goal? What is the strategy?

+Strategy Group Instruction Change “fluidly” – group members move in and out as

literacy needs change through instruction Approximate age = approximate # of minutes for

“teacher talk” Teach the strategy (skill) focus for group Move to independent/partner practice and application

Focus on any CAFÉ menu strategy (skill) in strategy groups

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+Conferring with Children

Coaching Toward a Target- Produce, Effective, Focused Teaching & Learning

Reading & Writing Conference Forms (with Icons) From Assessment to Conferring- Sample Needs &

Strategies Ready Reference Forms- Goals & Strategy Specific

Lessons Tracking Forms- Strategy Groupings- Curriculum Calendar

+Conferring with Children

Goal: Confer with 2 to 3 individual students each day Keep an eye out for those students who are easy to

overlook because they read and write so well (proficient and advanced students)

Walk to the child to confer- avoid disruption + allow time to review conferring notes

Listen to the child- direct instruction, from assessment, to match the child’s literacy needs

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+Food for Thought…It’s true that teachers have never been under

more pressure. We’re bombarded by demands and directives deemed by others as necessary and non-negotiable. As a result, teachers everywhere are making Herculean efforts to fit everything in. It’s no wonder there’s talk by some of hurry-up-and-get-it-done.

But when getting done takes precedence over the doing, when finishing becomes more important than the figuring out, we’ve lost sight of why we became teachers in the first place.

-Debbie Miller (2008, p. 106)