Reading with Mrs. Shivers

It is midyear at school, and the high stakes assessments have begun. Are the students on track? Will they be ready to go on to third grade? How should the intervention be modified if students are succeeding? There are more questions than time, but the common theme is always this: What data do you have to back up your answer? Which means, what assessments have you done to confirm your anecdotes about this child’s learning? Short answer then is, yes, I believe some form of testing is necessary. Done the right way it does not have to be a necessary evil. So then, if we are going to test, what should that assessment look like, and how should the students be measured? Traditional schooling measures how students perform in two core areas: reading and math. In the upper grades, we also test social studies and science. In the United States we use the Common Core Standards, and assess students in such a way that they are prepared based to pass state testing based on the No Child Left Behin...

My father was a pastor. In the Christian marriage ceremonies he performed, people recited versions of the same traditional vows: I take this man/woman to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. Divorce, however, changed my family forever when I was a child. My father and mother divorced when I was four years old. She moved into a small apartment across town. My sisters (twins aged 5) and I were to begin spending half of each week, literally 3 ½ days at each of their houses. My day to day world was very different as my stay at home mom went to work. As for my father, he had begun dating already, and about a year later, he remarried. My new stepmother came with two boys of her own from a previous marriage. With new rules and ideas about what we should do, my new stepmother was seen as an intruder. She practiced what she called “tough love”, at a time I had no interest in another mother. Two year...