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October 26, 2023 - Reading Sheets and Other Site Updates
Hey all,

I'm thrilled to share a new update that includes fresh content and improved code on our site.

Reading Comprehension Worksheet

In anticipation of the upcoming school year, I've added a new reading comprehension worksheet. It's designed to be a daily learning tool, perfect for each day of the school year. This was a goal set back in July, and although it took a bit longer to finalize, I'm happy to say it's here for you, even if it's four months later than planned. 😄 I've diligently reviewed this worksheet multiple times, but if you spot any issue, I'd be grateful if you'd let me know.

Spelling Sheet Auto-Generated Content

The auto-generation process for the crossword clue, definition, and sentence has been updated. It might take a little longer to generate, but the quality has significantly improved, and now there's the option to customize by topic and grade.

Code Update
I've refactored nearly all of the code on the site. This should enhance your experience, and I've been testing the new site version for several months without any issues. However, there's always the chance something might have slipped through the cracks.

More updates are on the horizon in the next week or two, but first, let's make sure everything is functioning smoothly with this update. 😊

If something isn't working correctly, or you need immediate access to the previous site functionality, the old version is still available at:
v6.commoncoresheets.com

Should you notice anything amiss, please reach out and inform me.

Thank you for your engagement and happy learning!

~Robert

Free Unlimited Practice Problems Let students practice as much as needed with the one atta time option. Thousands of Flash Cards Just select Flash Cards on any worksheet to generate custom flash cards. Sheet Layout Customize worksheets with font size, title, instructions, a due date and much more.

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Free worksheets and free distance learning. Printable or online. 100% free math worksheets! Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade and more!

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Daily 5 is a literacy framework that instills behaviors of independence, creates a classroom of highly engaged readers, writers, and learners, and provides teachers with time and structure to meet diverse student needs. Because it holds no curricular content, it can be used to meet any school, district, state, or national standards.

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edTPA Lesson Planning Theories and Best Practices Reference Guide (7)

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SyllaBoards help students break words into chunks for reading and spelling,and can be used in place of a whiteboard for classroom activities.

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SP2026 REVISED Elementary Thinking Organizer.docx JJOHNSON (1).docx

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HLkvlSyXhUhozpPTbvEgoZXAYMclyfR7_PUzAzBMm2Y/edit?usp=drivesdk

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Task 4: Mathematics Assessment Commentary

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Task 4: Mathematics Assessment Commentary

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Task 4: Mathematics Context for Learning Info

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Task 4: Mathematics Context for Learning Info

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Task 1: Literacy Context for Learning Info

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Task 1: Literacy Context for Learning Info

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For edTPA lesson plans you must

- not go over 4 pages

- Arial Font at 11 pt size.

The lesson plans for your edTPA learning segment will be uploaded in Task 1 Part B. The Instructional Materials planned for your learning segment will be uploaded in Task 1 Part C. The Literacy Assessments will be uploaded in tAsk 1 Part D.

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This eight-part series of Candidate Webinars begins with an Introduction to edTPA. The next five recordings contain overviews of each of the three tasks, including two for Elementary Education Task 4, that provide a walk-through of requirements and associated rubrics. There is also a recording for Special Education candidates and one regarding retakes. Each recording will guide viewers through a close examination on what candidates are asked to think about, do, and write, as well as how candidate portfolios are evaluated. Several key resources and best practices will be shared throughout the series.

Your Session is about to expire in seconds.
To continue your session, select Stay Signed In.

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Candidate Support Webinars: Online Learning for Candidate Support

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This eight-part series of Candidate Webinars begins with an Introduction to edTPA. The next five recordings contain overviews of each of the three tasks, including two for Elementary Education Task 4, that provide a walk-through of requirements and associated rubrics. There is also a recording for Special Education candidates and one regarding retakes.

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fireworks

silent dance

roller coaster

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What Is the NGSS? and Why Is It Important?

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Are you a teacher using Eureka Math (EngageNY)? EMBARC is a resource to help you implement it in your classroom. We curate third-party resources to enhance your Eureka Math lesson.

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Read more about School Climate Survey Compendium

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Supporting the Six +1 Traits of  Writing 

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Language Arts

This site gives teachers some ideas for using shared reading with younger students and less skilled readers. See example ›

Science

This site offers several examples of how activities related to learning about science topics can be centered around the shared reading strategy. Downloads of several different poems are provided. See example ›

Social Studies

This site provides five examples of shared reading lessons based upon the book Map It! by Elspeth Leacock. See example ›

Shared Reading Booklists

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Shared Reading is an interactive reading experience that occurs when students join in or share the reading of a book or other text while guided and supported by a teacher. The teacher explicitly models the skills of proficient readers, including reading with fluency and expression.

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In this blog post: Are you new to the Science of Reading and feeling overwhelmed with how to teach small groups? Are you wondering if guided reading can work with the science of reading or if you need to toss it out completely? Continue reading to find out!
When I first began learning about the Science of Reading, I realized I was going to have to make some big changes in my instruction. Know better, do better.

Honestly, it all felt overwhelming at the beginning!

Making the switch to Science of Reading aligned lesson plans felt like I was tossing out everything I had learned and gotten good at and starting from scratch. It was like being a first year teacher again!

I began to wonder, "Can guided reading work with the Science of Reading?"

If you ask the majority of teachers, the answer would be a resounding NO! That being said, I have a controversial opinion on this, and my answer is... maybe?

Let me explain why I think guided reading can work with the Science of Reading - with a little bit of work.
This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a small commission on purchases made using these links.
What is guided reading?

When you think of guided reading, you most likely think of small groups based around reading levels. This is traditional guided reading.

Will traditional guided reading work with the Science of Reading? No, it won't.

Traditional guided reading is based around reading levels that just don't make sense. Students are asked to read leveled books that contain words that they absolutely cannot decode.

Because of this, guessing strategies - also known as the three-cuing method - are highly promoted. These guessing strategies will most likely be your teaching points in your traditional guided reading lessons.

If you've ever taught guided reading in Kindergarten, you know that there is a HUGE jump between guided reading level C and D. Suddenly, those guessing strategies won't work as the text gets more complex, and students who you thought were strong readers are floundering.

Here is a quick overview of the differences between traditional guided reading and best practices from the Science of Reading:

You might be saying, "Those are two completely opposite ideals! They can't possibly work together. We need to toss guided reading out completely."

Let me explain why that isn't true.

Taking back guided reading

While traditional guided reading is not best practice, the term guided reading has become synonymous with reading small groups.

Even if teachers are not following a traditional guided reading lesson, they are often calling their small group time guided reading.

So when teachers hear that guided reading absolutely cannot work with the Science of Reading, it honestly can feel a little scary. What do I do then? Do I still pull small groups? Do I only teach whole group? What do we work on?
In reality, there's nothing wrong with the formatting of guided reading. It's the teaching points and tools we have a problem with.
So what if we changed the idea of what guided reading looks like?

If we show teachers how their guided reading groups can align with the Science of Reading, suddenly this huge shift begins to seem possible.

Changes to make

When planning for small groups that align with the Science of Reading, you don't have to toss out everything you know from teaching guided reading.

In their book Shifting the Balance, authors Burkins and Yates gave some ideas for easy shifts you could make today to move from balanced literacy to structured literacy.

Similarly, there are some easy changes you can make today that will help align your guided reading groups with the Science of Reading.

Let's take a closer look at those shifts.

1. Swap your level texts for decodable texts

I think that this is the most obvious change you can make to align your guided reading groups with the Science of Reading.

We're not going to be using leveled books that promote guessing strategies anymore. Instead, we will choose decodable books that scaffold off each other.

Some of the benefits of using decodable books in small groups include:

They are designed to add phonics skills sequentially and increase in skills as you go on

Students will get explicit practice on the phonics skills you're trying to target

Most words are decodable to students, which means that they can actually read them! Talk about a confidence booster.

Just swapping leveled books for decodable books is not enough, however. You need to make sure that you are choosing the right decodable books.

If you choose decodable books that don't match up to your teaching scope and sequence and that include phonics skills you haven't yet taught, well, they aren't decodable!

You can read more about how to choose the best decodable readers for your class here.

2. Change your teaching points

Changing your teaching point is another easy change you can make to align your guided reading groups with the Science of Reading.

Instead of making your teaching point for each lesson a guessing strategy like "check the picture," swap it for a teaching point or strategy that helps students actually read the words.

In Kindergarten or 1st grade, these will most likely be phonics-based teaching points such as:

Teach a specific phonics skill - "Today we will work with CVC words that contain short vowel a".

Teach a decoding strategy - breaking the word apart, blending, looking for chunks, etc.

However, it's a misconception that your Science of Reading small groups should only focus on phonics skills.

Once your students are able to decode and read fluently, your focus can change to comprehension. The science of reading tells us that comprehension is a very important part of the reading rope!

3. Change how you teach high frequency words

In our traditional guided reading groups, we had a whole sight word routine. I would choose one sight word to work on each group time, and we would focus on that word until the majority of students in the group had memorized it.

Decodable books will still have high frequency words, and you can still work on those in your small groups.

What you are going to change to align your guided reading groups with the Science of Reading is how you work on those words.

Instead of using strategies that promote memorizing the shape or letter order of a word, consider using a process that promotes orthographic mapping to help students connect the sounds in the word to the letters.

My favorite way to do this is with the Heart Words method.

4. Change up your guided writing

In our traditional guided reading groups, we always did guided writing on day 2 of the lesson plan. This included writing a simple sentence that was mostly sight words and then one big word. I would expect students to sound out that big word and write as many sounds as they could.

Guided writing is still important! There is just one change you should make to align guided writing in guided reading to the Science of Reading.

Swap the simple sentences for decodable sentences.

You may also hear this called dictated sentences. You will dictate a decodable sentence to students, and they will write it.

This is a great way to assess where students are with the phonics skill - they can decode the words, but are they making that connection to their writing yet?

For my beginning writers in Kindergarten, I dictate simple decodable sentences that contain multiple words with the target phonics skill.

For example, if we are working on short vowel e, my sentence might be: Ted had a pet hen.

That sentence is short because it would be for early readers, but it hits the skill multiple times and reviews the previously taught short vowel a.

As students become more confident in their writing and progress through the phonics skills, the sentences can become longer and more complex.

This is also when you can switch to writing about the story.

In my more advanced guided reading groups, I will have students write about the story. They can write to retell what happened, write about the problem and solution, or write facts they learned.

This type of guided writing is powerful for two reasons:

1. It works on comprehension of the story

2. Students will naturally be working on encoding words because they are writing about a decodable book. They will have to write those phonics words to retell the story.

So what should guided reading look like?

So now you know what changes you should make to align your guided reading groups with the Science of Reading. But what will your small group actually look like?

Let me lay it out for you.
Teaching Point
First, you will hit the teaching point. In your Science of Reading small groups, this will most likely be a phonics mini lesson.

I like to keep this part short and sweet. I introduce the phonics skill and we work together finding the spelling pattern in a few words and decoding them.

Then we practice blending.

I choose a few words that students will see in the story and that contain the phonics skill we just talked about.

Students practice saying the sounds and then blending those words together.

Then, I use a few of those words to write a decodable sentence on a sentence strip. Students read that sentence a few times through for fluency.

This just gets their brain ready to do the same thing as they read!

On day two of the lesson plan, students will work with a blending sheet for fluency.
Introduce Vocabulary
Just like with leveled books, decodable texts most likely have some vocabulary words that are new to students. If I know that a word might be new for students, we will introduce it before reading.

For example, when we are learning about the digraph sh, we learn the vocabulary word shim.

This isn't a word that we use in everyday conversation most likely, but you will probably see it in your decodable books!
Read the Book
Now students get to read the decodable book independently. They will whisper read to themselves while I listen to each student and take notes.

If a student gets stuck, I can prompt them with a strategy to try. I will also make note to reteach that skill.

When choosing decodable books for your guided reading groups, you will want to decide if you want books with or without pictures. I prefer without pictures because it forces students to focus completely on the words.
Discuss the Book
Just because our main teaching point is a phonics skill, doesn't mean we can't work on comprehension as well! We have a two-day lesson plan for each lesson and book.

On day one, students use the pictures from the story to retell the story. They glue them on the correct page of their decodable reader.

This requires them to truly think about what the text said in order to match the pictures!

On day two, we discuss the story and students answer questions about the text.

We ask recall-type questions and ask students to retell parts of the story. I also ask students to make connections or infer. For example, if a story had a child who found a stray dog, I might ask: What would you do if you found a stray dog? How would you feel if they owner came to get the dog?
Encoding and Guided Writing
Now that students have practiced decoding and reading words with the phonics skill, it's time to use them in writing.

On day one of our small groups, we practice encoding words using the orthographic mapping process.

Students tap the words, map the sounds, and then graph the sounds (graph means to write).

On day one it is all about working with individual words.

On day two, we do our guided writing routine. This is where I will dictate a sentence for students to write or ask them to write about the story.

Getting Started

You might be thinking, That science of reading lesson plan sounds remarkably similar to my traditional guided reading lessons.

Yes! That's the point. You don't have to throw out the guided reading structure you've known and become comfortable with for years.

Rather, it's time to change what guided reading means to us and what we make the "meat" of our lessons.

I know that this was a controversial opinion (and some of you are probably ready to throw rotten tomatoes), but I hope it helped you see another point of view. The idea of guided reading isn't inherently bad. It all comes down to how we define it and what we do with that time.

Science of Reading Curriculum

Are you looking for a resource that will help you take that guided reading structure and align it with the Science of Reading? I designed my Science of Reading Curriculum to take the structure that you know and are comfortable with and make it more effective.

The Science of Reading Curriculum has everything you need ready to go including:

Print and go lesson plans

211 decodable readers

A systematic phonics scope and sequence

Phonics lesson materials

Decodable passages

Blending and fluency pages

Guided writing

Anchor charts and posters

If you're not quite sure where to start aligning your guided reading groups with the Science of Reading, this curriculum makes it simple.

Grab the Science of Reading Curriculum for 70% off here!

Want to learn more about the Science of Reading? Check out these blog posts:

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Can Guided Reading Work with the Science of Reading?

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Are you wondering if guided reading can align with the science of reading? Let me show you 4 quick changes you can make to make it work!

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Zoo-phonics Signals and Sounds || Phonics with movement

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sight words

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Free Google Slides themes and Powerpoint templates | Slidesgo

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Discover the best Google Slides themes and PowerPoint templates you can use in your presentations - 100% Free for any use.

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Easier and more flexible so you can make it with the letter of the topic, with the name of your company, and with any alphabet The new version of Educaplay&#39;s Alphabet Game breaks the structure with each letter arranged alphabetically and allows you to do it your way. You can create a game with the letters you want: the topic of your game (for example, "MARKETING"), the name of your organization, that of your favorite person, or with whatever comes to your mind. The update accepts charact...

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Educaplay: Free educational games generator

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Create your own educational resources from scratch, or from one of our 5 million+ games.

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How Difficult Can This Be- The F.A.T City Workshop

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What about special education anyway - Copy(1)

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POWER OF PLAY Virtual Conference On-Demand through Summer 2025 $75 Click Here to register Join our Power of Play On-Demand Virtual Conference and get ready to LEARN, ADAPT and INCLUDE! Asynchronous online sessions provide participants with the strategies, resources, and best practices needed to make inclusion possible across all settings, in all activities, for children with and […]

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Strategies for Teaching Students with Disabilities - Graduate Programs for Educators

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Teaching strategies are essential for educating, especially for students with disabilities. Explore strategies for teaching these students specifically.

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Distinguishing formal evaluation from informal assessment can be challenging. For one, both methods use similar tools like quizzes and surveys. But how they apply these tools to specific questions separates one from the other.

In this article, we will consider 15 key similarities and differences between formal and informal assessments.

What is a Formal Assessment?

Depending on the context, formal assessments can be norm-referenced or criterion-referenced. For example, if you want to know how a learner's score compares to the average class score, then a norm-referenced is your best bet.

What is Informal Assessment?

Informal assessment is an intuitive evaluation method, where the teacher assesses students without measuring their performance against some rubric or metric. The structure of informal evaluation methods allows teachers to observe the student's progress at different points in the learning period.

The instructor can also ask students to take part in group quizzes or brief presentations about a particular subject. Informal assessments allow instructors to provide immediate feedback to students and address any learning gaps in time.
Read: Motivation Assessment: Definitions, Types, Tools + [Questionnaire Examples]
Differences Between Formal and Informal Assessments

Definitions

A formal assessment is an evaluation method that uses a grading system to score a student's level of knowledge. Typically, students respond to the same questions under the same conditions, and the instructor grades them based on the extent to which they satisfied pre-defined requirements.

An informal assessment measures students' progress and performance with no standard grading criteria. The instructor uses different methods that allow students to show their knowledge while providing feedback on learning gaps.

Types

Common types of informal assessment include quizzes, writing samples, and project-based assignments. In informal assessment, quizzes are used to improve class engagement and participation. So, you'd find the instructor splitting the class into groups while every student has a go at the questions.

Project-based assignments and writing samples are intertwined. For example, the teacher can ask students to create a science project and write a summary of their ideas for the project.

Examples

Common examples of formal assessment include tests, quizzes, surveys, and questionnaires. Exit surveys, observation, and oral presentations are examples of informal assessment.

In some sense, formal and informal assessments can use the same methods. What matters is how the instructor applies these methods to achieve specific objectives. For example, the structure of a quiz for formal assessment significantly differs from a quiz for informal evaluation.

When to Use

Teachers use formal assessments when they want to determine students' knowledge based on specific standards and criteria. Instructors use traditional assessment methods when they need factual data that qualifies a student for the best learning phase, for example, moving from high school to college.

Advantages of Formal Assessment Over Informal Assessment

Since formal assessments have standard evaluation criteria, there's little or no opportunity for examiner bias. This differs significantly from informal evaluations, where the instructor's subjectivity determines how they rate the student and the type of feedback given.

Another advantage of formal assessment over informal evaluation is it spurs students to pay keener attention during classes. Since a formal assessment is high stakes, it motivates students to perform better to get higher grades.

Also, formal evaluation determines whether a student moves to the next phase in the learning process. An individual who wants to gain admission into college needs to ace the required promotional examination.

Advantages of Informal Assessment Over Formal Assessments

Also, informal assessment gives room for improvement, unlike one-off tests. Since there's little or nothing at stake, students can make mistakes and improve their knowledge without undue pressure. Informal evaluation methods allow students to explore different angles of a particular subject.

Use of a Grading System

The significant difference between both forms of assessment is while formal evaluation uses a rubric or standard assessment criteria, the other doesn't. A rubric is an assessment tool used for judging a particular type of work. More than stating different grade levels, a rubric provides details on the requirements for each grade.

During informal assessments, the instructor doesn't use a set of predetermined criteria for grading. Instead, they compare a student's performance with their past presentations to know if they've made any progress.

Purpose of Assessment

The formal evaluation aims to assess a student's overall knowledge, usually at the end of a learning experience. Sometimes, formal assessments allow the instructor to compare a student's performance with others in the same age group or class.

Informal assessment is used to track learners' progress and identify any challenges they might face with the subject.

Scope

Formal assessments provide a broad view of a student's knowledge, while informal assessments provide detailed information. In formal evaluation, the instructor measures a student's performance at the surface level. The aim is to have enough evidence for assigning a specific score and grade to the learner.

Informal assessments are different. It allows the instructor to do a thorough analysis of the specific experiences of individual students. The teacher can make adjustments to instructional methods based on the specialized needs of each learner.

Flexibility

The instructor can adjust informal assessments based on context and the specific needs or set of students. For example, if a student cannot communicate their thoughts via summary writing, the teacher might ask them to give an oral presentation.

A formal assessment uses well-defined criteria for performance evaluation. So, the instructor cannot deviate from the grading system, even if this system doesn't work for some students.

Score Comparison

Depending on the type of formal assessment, the instructor might compare students' performances in the same class or age group. However, for informal evaluation, the instructor assesses students individually. While the instructor might compare a student's present performance with their past ones, there's no room for student-to-student comparison.

Tools

For formal assessments, an essential tool is a rubric or some other well-defined grading system. Formal assessments also use online quiz platforms, surveys, questionnaires, or presentation tools like Google Slides and PowerPoint. Teachers use straw polls, exit surveys, and observation methods for informal assessment on the flip side.

Similarities Between Informal and Formal Assessment

Feedback

Another thing to note here is feedback is always personalized in informal assessment, while formal assessment can provide generic feedback to students at different grades. For example, the instructor can send a general feedback email to everyone who scored a "B" in a test.

Educational Assessment

Instructional Needs

Teachers use formal and informal assessments to improve their instructional methods. Based on results and feedback from both forms of educational assessment, educational stakeholders can change the subject curriculum, grading system, and instructional design for the classes.

How to Use Formplus as an Online Assessment Tool

Formplus allows you to create quizzes, polls, surveys, and questionnaires for formal and informal evaluation as an online assessment tool. Here is a simple step-by-step guide on how to do this.

Step 1: Log into your Formplus account.

Step 2: On the dashboard, choose the "create new form" button. This takes you to the form builder.

Step 3: On the left side of the builder, you'd find different form field options like rating scales, text fields, and other advanced fields like signature and payment fields.

Step 4: Click any field you'd want to add to your form. Alternatively, you can drag-and-drop fields into the work area from the builder's inputs section.

Step 5: After adding the fields, click on the edit icon beside each to access the editing tab. Here, you can add the specific questions to each field and make other changes like setting fields as "compulsory" or "read-only."

Step 6: Click on the "save" icon, so you don't lose all the changes you've made. This also takes you to the builder's customization section automatically.

Step 7: Use the different options in the customization section to change the appearance of your form. Since you're using this for assessments, it's a great idea to add your school's logo to the survey or questionnaire. You can also create a custom theme from scratch for your form.

Step 8: Go to the "share" section and choose your preferred form sharing option. You can copy the form link or share it via email invitations.
Conclusion
When it's time to choose one form of educational assessment over the other, the most important thing teachers should consider is context. Ask questions like, "what do I want to achieve with this?" and "how does this fit into the existing learning system?"

In many cases, teachers combine formal and informal assessment methods for evaluation. During the learning process, informal evaluation methods like concept mapping and straw polls help the instructor track each student's progress. At the end of the learning period, the instructor uses formal evaluations like end-of-term examinations to assess each student's knowledge and make high-stakes decisions.

Create Assessments with Formplus for Free

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Formal vs. Informal Assessment: 15 Key Differences & Similarities

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Distinguishing formal evaluation from informal assessment can be challenging. For one, both methods use similar tools like quizzes and surveys. But how they apply these tools to specific questions separates one from the other. In this article, we will consider 15 key similarities and differences between formal and informal assessments.

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Formative Assessments for Social Studies

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Choose the formative assessments for social studies that work best for your classroom to improve student learning.

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Introducing Rubrics to Students | Exemplars

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Exemplars rubrics and anchor pages help students clearly understand the standards they are trying to achieve and how to accurate compare and assess their work. Learn how to introduce science, writing, and math rubrics to your students for higher performance.

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Analytic Rubrics

An analytic rubric resembles a grid with the criteria for a student product listed in the leftmost column and with levels of performance listed across the top row often using numbers and/or descriptive tags. The cells within the center of the rubric may be left blank or may contain descriptions of what the specified criteria look like for each level of performance. When scoring with an analytic rubric each of the criteria is scored individually.

Example Analytic Rubric

Articulating Thoughts Through Written Communication-Final Paper

Advantages of Analytic Rubrics

Provide useful feedback on areas of strength and weakness.

Criterion can be weighted to reflect the relative importance of each dimension.

Disadvantages of Analytic Rubrics

Takes more time to create and use than a holistic rubric.

Unless each point for each criterion is well-defined raters may not arrive at the same score

Developmental Rubrics

Developmental rubrics are a subset of analytic trait rubrics.

The main distinction between developmental rubrics and other analytic trait rubrics is that the purpose of developmental rubrics is not to evaluate an end product or performance. Instead, developmental rubrics are designed to answer the question, "to what extent are students who engage in our programs/services developing this skill/ability/value/etc.?"

Generally, this type of rubric would be based on a theory of development.

Example Developmental Rubric

Intercultural Maturity

King, P.M. & Baxter Magolda, M.B. (2005). A developmental model of intercultural maturity, Journal of College Student Development, 46(2), 571-592.

Advantages of Developmental Rubrics

Useful when the goal of evaluation is to determine level of development rather than the quality of a final product.
Especially when there is no expectation that students should or could fully develop a skill or ability during the course of their education or potentially ever (such as in "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," there is no expectation people can or will become "self-actualized").

Rubric can be based on relevant developmental theory.

Disadvantages of Developmental Rubrics

Conceptually, this type of rubric is more difficult to design.

Developing a developmental rubric requires a close tie between assessment criteria and the theory of development.

Holistic Rubrics

A holistic rubric consists of a single scale with all criteria to be included in the evaluation being considered together (e.g., clarity, organization, and mechanics). With a holistic rubric the rater assigns a single score (usually on a 1 to 4 or 1 to 6 point scale) based on an overall judgment of the student work. The rater matches an entire piece of student work to a single description on the scale.

Example Holistic Rubric

Articulating thoughts through written communication- final paper/project.

1. Above Average: The audience is able to easily identify the focus of the work and is engaged by its clear focus and relevant details. Information is presented logically and naturally. There are no more than two mechanical errors or misspelled words to distract the reader.

2. Sufficient: The audience is easily able to identify the focus of the student work which is supported by relevant ideas and supporting details. Information is presented in a logical manner that is easily followed. There is minimal interruption to the work due to misspellings and/or mechanical errors.

3. Developing: The audience can identify the central purpose of the student work without little difficulty and supporting ideas are present and clear. The information is presented in an orderly fashion that can be followed with little difficulty. There are some misspellings and/or mechanical errors, but they do not seriously distract from the work.

4. Needs Improvement: The audience cannot clearly or easily identify the central ideas or purpose of the student work. Information is presented in a disorganized fashion causing the audience to have difficulty following the author's ideas. There are many misspellings and/or mechanical errors that negatively affect the audience's ability to read the work.

Advantages of Holistic Rubrics

Emphasis on what the learner is able to demonstrate, rather than what s/he cannot do.

Saves time by minimizing the number of decisions raters make.

Can be applied consistently by trained raters increasing reliability.

Disadvantages of Holistic Rubrics

Does not provide specific feedback for improvement.

When student work is at varying levels spanning the criteria points it can be difficult to select the single best description.

Criteria cannot be weighted.

Checklists

Checklists are a distinct type of rubric - where there are only two performance levels possible. Checklists tend to be longer than other types of rubrics since each aspect of performance you are looking for in students' work/performances essentially becomes its own criterion. When you are using a checklist, every decision is binary (yes/no, present/absent, pass/fail, etc.). Most rubrics can be converted rather directly into a checklist. For example, here is a rubric for grading journal entries:

Here is the same rubric converted into a checklist:

Advantages of Checklists

Checklists are generally a simpler and faster way to grade than using a more traditional rubric since you are making discrete decisions for each individual performance criterion rather than trying to determine where students' work fall into performance criteria that generally encompass a range of difference performance expectations. This also makes the grading clearer to students. Using checklists may result in less arbitrary (and more consistent) grading decisions. For example, most instructors are clear on what the top performances look like and what the bottom performances look like, but the middle gets fuzzier. When students understand that their grades will be based on all or nothing decisions, checklists also have the potential to raise the rigor of and students' performances on our assignments.

Disadvantages of Checklists

Creating checklists for your assignments might be a slightly onerous process. This is both because checklists are longer than a traditional rubric and because identifying each of the discrete elements of "clearly written" or "well organized" might be difficult. You may find that cannot easily convert every performance element you are looking for into a checklist format. Performance criteria that are difficult to operationalize will also be difficult to convert into a checklist. It may also be difficult to decide on the exact level of granularity that might be appropriate for each assignment. For example, "uses good grammar" might be appropriate for most classes, but would be far too broad if you are teaching a course on grammar. Checklists also lose the middle so there is not a way to award credit to students who get most of the way toward achieving a criterion.

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An analytic rubric resembles a grid with the criteria for a student product listed in the leftmost column and with levels of performance listed across the top row often using numbers and/or descriptive tags. The cells within the center of the rubric may be left blank or may contain descriptions of what the specified criteria look like for each level of performance.

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Lots of resources in this website. Includes classroom examples and worksheets too.

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Handwriting Without Tears is a proven program for teaching handwriting to children. Developed by OTs, it uses multisensory techniques to make writing fun.

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Explore annotated writing samples from kids in pre-K through grade 3, and see next-step suggestions for instruction. You'll also learn about writing milestones and different purposes of writing - along with ideas for how to make room for writing during the day.

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Grammar is a very important English language skill for children to master at elementary school level. Building English grammar knowledge will assist your child in the development of other reading and writing skills, such as spelling and punctuation, which together form a strong foundation that'll set your young learner up for success.

This section of our website explains all you need to know about the grammar standards expected of elementary students at different grade levels, and how you can help your child develop them. Our guide includes lots of activities that will keep your child engaged and interested in working on their grammar skills, including practice tips from experts, free language arts resources, and suggestions on useful grammar lessons, quizzes, games, and challenges.

Keep reading for more information about elementary grammar, or select your child's grade level above to start learning!

What is grammar?

Grammar, at its most basic level, is a set of rules about the types of words we use and what they do. It also tells us how words work together in sentences.

Grammar at any grade level can be overwhelming for children as there are many rules to learn, and they tend to come thick and fast. For example in first grade, children focus on learning the basics on common and proper nouns, verbs, sentence structure, capital letters, and tenses. In second grade, children are expected to build on grammar skills acquired in their first elementary school year, including their knowledge of superlative and comparative adjectives, and irregular verbs. At mid-elementary level ( third grade and fourth grade), children start learning more complex grammar rules, including furthering their understanding of superlative adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, pronouns, and parts of speech. Finally, as learners reach late elementary school ( fifth grade and sixth grade), they're expected to use all the grammar skills learned in previous grades to build even more new knowledge. This includes how to correctly use prepositions, interjections, and more.

How do you teach elementary grammar?

There are many ways to successfully teach elementary grammar, but due to its intricate rules it can be a challenging area of language arts to teach on your own!

Our language arts program for kids includes thousands of elementary grammar activities, which have been created by experts to boost your child's skills in a fantastically fun way! It uses gamification to teach English language arts, which ensures children remain engaged, focused, and entertained as they develop reading and writing skills. Nightzookeper.com offers thousands of word games, grammar challenges, lessons on reading comprehension to explain context clues, printable worksheets for offline learning, and much more!

Night Zookeeper is a fully adjustable education program, which means that you can adapt the content your child has access to based on grade level, age, or current learning ability! You can also decide the type of content your child has access to, to ensure that they get exactly what they need out of the program. For example, you can search for specific assignments that target grammar if you'd like your child to focus on that! For more information on the program features, please visit our user guide.

These features also help to make our program very inclusive and accessible for as many learners as possible. Night Zookeeper has been proven to work well for SEN schooling, including many success stories from children with dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, amongst many other special educational needs (SEN).

About the guide

This grammar guide is here to help you throughout each elementary school year, as your child progresses through different topics and the content becomes more challenging. Our aim is to provide a strong outline of how to equip your child with a firm grasp of the grammar rules and principles covered across elementary school and early-middle school.

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