Parents - many of you have asked about our upcoming Open Court Reading Assessments. These assessments provide ongoing data to be used to improve teaching and learning in the classroom. The 2nd Open Court Reading Assessment will take place before Winter Break for First, Second and, Fifth Grade. Grades three and four will take theirs in the middle of January. Kinder will be given mid-year assessments in February.
Kinder will be assessed on recognition of syllables, and the naming of uppercase and lowercase letters.
First Grade - Fluency Target will be at least 30 words per minute. They are to use capitals letters to name people and places and to start sentences.
Second Grade - Fluency Target is 65 words per minute. Vocabulary Skills assessed are antonyms, multiple meaning words, synonyms and context meaning. They are asked to identify the use of capital letters, the correct punctuation for quotation marks, and the format and correct punctuation of a letter.
Third Grade - Fluency Target is 86 words per minute. Vocabulary Skill assessed is antonyms, synonyms, multiple meaning words, and context meaning. They are asked to identify the correct verb tense in a sentence, the best conjunction that completes a sentence and the adjectives and adverbs in sentences.
Fourth Grade - Fluency Target is 105 Words per minute. Vocabulary Skills assessed are antonyms, synonyms, multiple meaning words and context meaning. Students are asked to identify adverbs, prepositional phrases, use conjunctions and know how to make words using prefixes and suffixes.
Fifth Grade - Fluency Target is 119 words per minute. Vocabulary Skills being assessed are antonyms, synonyms, multiple meanings and context meaning. Students are asked to identify the complete subject and complete predicate correct verb form and the correct pronouns in sample sentences.
All students are also assessed on spelling patterns that they are learning in the classroom. They are also asked to read and answer comprehension questions.
In order to help your children at home, ask your children questions while they are reading to you or you are reading to them. Ask them why they think something happened, or to predict what might happen next, ask them what the setting is and who the characters are in their stories.... Talk about how what they may be reading may connect to their life. Help them to draw conclusions from what they are reading to what they already know and thus draw conclusions from their own prior knowledge.
This is a guideline for continuing assessments to prepare for grade level standardized testing in May.