It is often easy to get lost in the process of assessing and forget that the assessments actually have a purpose beside simply measuring student progress. They are also meant to help us plan for future instruction in the classroom. This year I utilized this important piece of assessment in many areas, but especially in my small group reading instruction. I had one reading group that was of an average ability level, although they often were very low in their contextual understanding and reading comprehension. I realized after having the students complete several writing assignments related to their reading, that they were not understanding much of the vocabulary that was being presented in the book. I also realized in my informal assessments during our book talks that the students in this particular group would often skip over their lack of understanding of specific words, and often they didn't even notice that they were lost! I used this information to plan a two week long student with this group on vocabulary in texts. I had the students make their own glossaries of important or tricky words in their reading. At first I guided them in this process, helping them to identify difficult words on the page. Then they were given the assignment to add more words to their glossaries on their own. We would then come back together to meet to discuss the new words and what the possible meanings of the words might be based on the context. I found this process to be extremely helpful for the students, and it also helped me to plan future small group lessons on contextual understanding and words with multiple meanings.
