Book Club Discussion #1

Our book club is reading 'Kindergarten Literacy' by Anne McGill-Franzen.  Shannon and I read and discussed part one and part two.  I love that Anne is quick to recognize the importance of a good kindergarten teacher.  I teach kindergarten and I sometimes feel that colleagues in upper grades and administration do not look at kindergarten as an important academic grade.  Anne is quick to point out that kindergarten teachers need to be equipped with not only reliable assessments and tools, but powerful professional development opportunities as well.  Shannon and I discussed the impact of powerful professional development.  Our school implemented the Fountas and Pinnell reading benchmark assessment this year.  We weren't just given the kit.  We were provided high quality professional development and training in order to give the test and differentiate instruction to needs of each student.  In part two we discussed the assessments given in the book compared to the kindergarten assessments we give.  We discussed ways we can revamp our beginning of the year assessment.  We test on letter names and sounds, but we discussed the importance of adding print concepts to the assessment.  In addition to the kindergarten assessments we already give, we like the use of portfolios as a way to document student progress.  We also found the stages of spelling development to be interesting.  In the past we have given spelling test and simply marked a word wrong if one letter was wrong.  The spelling assessment in the book gave examples of allowable spellings and tips for scoring. Shannon and I discussed the writing rubric as a guideline we can follow during writer's workshop.  Although part two of the book was overwhelming, it gave us important guidelines to follow when creating a useful kindergarten assessment.