Testing, testing, and more TESTING

It is truly amazing how much we test our little ones in K. Between ongoing assessments, OARS, benchmarks, Unit assessments, running records, daily observation/anecdotal records, and everything else we are constantly testing! I know it is a good thing, but if it is this overwhelming for me I wonder how the kids are! Carlos and I spend 1/2 our teaming time testing sometimes!

We started our flexible reading groups this week and the kids love it. They are doing wonderful and becoming quite the scholarly readers! I am excited for them to have thier own book bags, besides the decodables, they can read during workshop. I had them read their books to thier 5th grade buddies last week and they were impressed.

I have two interesting things to share from today. First, I got a new student who has NEVER been in school before. She does not know a color, letter, shape, number....NOTHING. I feel so bad for her because she is just lost. She does not like it at all and does not really try. I just kept encouraging her today, but she looked pretty overwhelmed. During writing time I helped her with her name-which she had never seen before. I know she just needs time, but it really is just so sad. What are her parents thinking? It is one thing if you are doing things at home, but that is clearly not the case. There should be a test you pass before you can have children. I am serious. You would not believe what some of these parents tell me. "I work with her/him everynight and they can do it. I don't know why they can't do it at school." That is my favorite one. Sure you do.

The second thing that happened today was with Mr. Munoz's class. I was doing some testing in the afternoon after reading groups and one part was rhyming. I gave the child a word and they had to give me a word that rhymes with it. My first rhymer was Joshua. I gave him the word "bit" and he said "shit" without knowing what it meant. They are allowed to give any word, nonsense or not, that rhymes with the word so I took it. I said to Joshua can you give me another word and he gave me more so I accepted another and wrote it on the test. Next up was Iris. I got to the word "bit" again and she quickly responded with "tit". I almost lost it...two in a row. What a day! she had no idea once again, so I asked her for a few more and she gladly responded with many more.

Finally, I am really proud of 15 of my students. They are writing so well and trying to become better writers each day. They are taking more risks with thier sounds and ideas and I can't wait to capture their "small moments" for our writing celebration. I will definitely share when they are done!