Direct Instruction Grades

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Home : 2002 : August : 24

Direct Instruction Grades
By Melissa

Paul,

I know your dilemma! I too use Reading Mastery and Connecting Math. It is definitely more difficult to take daily grades because you are not always getting "independent" work samples from the direct instruction in
small groups. For Reading Mastery, I often find myself giving the time/error limit tests as a way to evaluate. Or I'll use the word lists before the story and see how many they can get right out of # possible. Plus, I usually have the students go back to their seats and independently work on the workbooks so I can take a comprehension grade from that. We try to go back over the correct

answers together, but I often lose my students attention during this process. (If you have any suggestions here for me, feel free!)
As far as the Connecting Math goes, there is more independent work for them to do (worksheets and workbook) and I take grades from that. The time consuming part about that is that I take the number of correct answers from total (which I have to count up every time because the manual does not tell you that). I've gotten smart and have started writing in the # posible on an answer key. It gets to be a lot when you have 3 or 4 different groups for math! But it's just part of our jobs, I guess! I don't just use the direct instruction with my students. I use lots of supplemental material. If you do this, just make sure that the info is being presented in the same format or the students will be totally lost, most likely! Good luck and let me know what you think. I would love to come up with a better way to assess students from Direct instruction materials.