Pennington Publishing Blog

Individualized Learning

We’ve all heard the figure of speech: “They can’t see the forest for the trees.”

We teachers tend to have the opposite issue: “We can’t see the trees for the forest.”

Teachers want to see students as individuals (and we often claim that we do so), but we have been culturally inculcated to see our students more in terms of groups. Sit in any staff room at lunch time and you’ll hear the following: “My fifth period is so low.” “My kids are so caring this year.” “My last period is out of control.” “I love my EL kids in that class.”

Now, teachers don’t really see every student as reflective of the whole, but the groups do provide a means generalization and comparison. When teachers generalize and compare, they have some notion in mind regarding the object of comparison. Such objects may include other classes, past years’ classes, “the ways we used to do things,” or often “how it was when I was a student.”

This identification of students in terms of comparative groups influences both our instructional and evaluative practices. The underlying notion of the bell curve permeates our group thinking and teacher experience tends to reinforces the notion that some of any group will really get it; some won’t get it at all; and most will sort of get it. We design our lessons, units, and tests accordingly although few would readily admit to doing so.

Teachers might say, “I teach to the middle.” “My lessons are designed to teach grade-level standards.” “My smart goals include ‘25% basic, 50% proficient, and “25% advanced.'” “This is an honors class (or remedial class) and so…” “I’ll get called into the principal if I have too many D or F grades.” “My colleagues will be upset if I give too many A‘s.” “We have common final exams, so my results (or grades) have to match those of my colleagues.” Administrative pressure, peer pressure, and “being a team player” values reinforce group think.

Our traditional A, B, C, D, and F grading system is tied to seeing students as groups. Were teachers able to teach and grade students as individuals in terms of progress toward content and skill standards, a considerable amount of rehab would need to take place. A 12 step program to change the way we teach and evaluate students might look like this:

The 12 Steps of Standards-based Grading Rehab

1. We admitted we were powerless over group think, generalizations, and arbitrary comparisons—that our instruction and evaluation had become unmanageable, ineffective, irrelevant, inaccurate, and ethically questionable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, that is the belief in the value of the individual.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our teaching over to God and standards assessment-based individualized instruction.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and admitted that we don’t know everything and that we are not perfect teachers with no room for improvement.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our educational malpractice.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of our professional practice and be willing to change long-established and cherished beliefs and practice.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all: to students, to parents, to colleagues, to administrators, and to our profession.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other teachers and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Principles Copyright  1952, 1953, 1981 by Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing
(now known as Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.)

*****

Mark Pennington is an educational author and re-thinker of his own teaching practice. Mark’s assessment-based individualized learning, featuring diagnostic and formative assessments is included in his grades 4–8 ELA and reading intervention programs found at www.penningtonpublishing.com. Check out and use these sample diagnostic assessments to individualize and differentiate your instruction and evaluation:

Get the The Pets Fluency Assessment FREE Resource:

Get the Vowel Sounds Phonics Assessment with Audio File and Matrix FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic Grammar and Usage Assessment with Recording Matrix FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic Mechanics Assessment with Recording Matrix FREE Resource:

Grammar/Mechanics, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills, Writing differentiated instruction, individualized instruction, Marzano, standard based grading, UDL

Assessment-based Individualize Learning

Every educational movement needs a catchy new acronym. ABIL will have to do for mine: Assessment-based Individualized Learning. Simply put, it’s the supplemental instruction students need to help them catch up while they keep up with grade-level instruction. It’s a realistic approach, developed by a teacher without miraculous class management skills and without perfectly behaved students.

What It’s Not

• ABIL is nothing new. Teachers have been doing it forever.
• It’s not about creating individual educational plans for every student.
• It’s not a replacement for rigorous Standards-based, grade-level instruction.
• It’s not funky differentiated instruction.
• It’s not one teaching methodology: small groups, lit circles, writers workshop, learning centers, literacy centers (stations), etc.
• Impossible or unmanageable.

What It Is

• Foundational content, concepts, and skills that every student needs to access rigorous Standards-based, grade-level instruction.
• Reliable and valid diagnostic assessments to determine individual student mastery and deficits in those prerequisites. Assessments which are comprehensive and teachable−not random samples.
• Curriculum which directly corresponds to each assessment item with progress monitoring matrices to ensure student mastery and is conducive to concurrent instruction in grade-level Standards.
• The key ingredient of RtI (Response to Intervention) besides quality, accessible grade-level instruction.
• What SPED, ELL, and ELD students need most.
• How you would want your own child taught with rigorous grade-level instruction and individualized learning to remediate any relative weaknesses.

The author of this article, Mark Pennington, is a teacher-publisher of English-language arts and reading intervention programs. Mark provides ELA and reading assessments and curricular resources to implement Assessment-based Individualized Learning. Want to check out the curriculum, designed to help all learners with rigorous, standards-aligned grade-level instruction and concurrent remedial learning? Click here. to view these grammar, mechanics, reading, spelling, writing, and vocabulary resources. Want to download the assessments, answers, and recording matrices described above for your students? Feel free to download each and thanks for checking out my ABIL instructional resources at Pennington Publishing.

Get the The Pets Fluency Assessment FREE Resource:

Get the Vowel Sounds Phonics Assessment with Audio File and Matrix FREE Resource:

Get the Consonant Sounds Phonics Assessment, Audio File, and Recording Matrix FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic Grammar and Usage Assessment with Recording Matrix FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic Mechanics Assessment with Recording Matrix FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic Spelling Assessment, Mastery Matrix, and Sample Lessons FREE Resource:

Grammar/Mechanics, Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary assessment for learning, assessment-based individualized learning, diagnostic assessments, differentiated instruction, grammar assessments, individualized instruction, Mark Pennington, phonics assessments, phonics worksheets, progress monitoring, reading assessments, reading fluency, reading worksheets, spelling assessments, spelling worksheets

Perhaps the greatest guilt-inducers for any veteran teacher are these two questions:

1. Do you know the individual needs of your students? 2. Are you teaching to the individual needs of your students?

For those of you still reading, let’s provide a bit of context to those questions:

Teaching the class is important and takes an enormous amount of energy and skill. Doing it well takes years of trial and error, professional development, and probably some natural ability that just can’t be learned or taught. It’s both an art and a science.

By and large, teachers do a great job at whole class direct instruction. Teachers know their subject areas. They know how to plan instructional units, how to prepare standards-based lessons, how to teach comprehensible lessons, how to provide their students with appropriate practice, and how to assess whether their students have mastered the unit and lesson objectives. Teachers have also learned the classroom management skills to enable most students to make significant academic progress. They know how to teach the class.

However, teaching the individual is quite another skill set.

Teaching the individual student is far more challenging and satisfying than teaching the class as a whole.

When people asked me what a do for a living, I tell them I’m a seventh grade teacher. Of course they ask, “What class do you teach?”

I repeat, “Seventh graders.”

Now, I realize they want to know that I teach English-language arts and reading intervention classes, so I’ll stop being snotty and tell them what they want to hear to satisfy their curiosity. However, I try and get across the message that I’m really teaching students, not a particular class. You elementary teachers have it easier… people don’t expect you to be subject-specific.

Now I like English-language arts as a subject area: the reading, writing, speaking, and listening. And I do enjoy planning instruction for my classes. But I like the seventh graders much more, because they are far more interesting to me than my teaching Walk Two Moons or The Giver for the thirtieth time. Seventh graders are more interesting because they are all individuals.

*****

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted, sounds to print instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every grades 4-adult reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards, speech articulation songs, sounds to print games, and morphology walls. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Click the SCIENCE OF READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM RESOURCES for detailed program description, sample lessons, and video overviews. Click the links to get these ready-to-use resources, developed by a teacher (Mark Pennington, MA reading specialist) for teachers and their students.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Cues FREE Resource:

Get the Diagnostic ELA and Reading Assessments FREE Resource:

*****

Grammar/Mechanics, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills, Writing assessment based instruction, assessment for instruction, diagnostic assessments, differentiated instruction, ELA, embedded assessments, formative assessments, individualized instruction, learning centers, Mark Pennington, Marzano, reading intervention

Chances are that you are the type of ELA or reading teacher who wants to get better at what you do.

Good teachers refine their units and lesson plans to provide quality direct instruction to the whole class. Great teachers, and frankly some never take this step, figure out how to address the individual learning needs of their students. Let’s look at how to individualize instruction according to the information gained from reliable informal assessments.

Now I’m not talking about revamping your class(es) into some crazy differentiated instruction-learning centers-reading writing workshop-personalized learning circus in which you create individual lessons for every student every day. Some teachers try that… for a year or two. What I am talking about is a sensible, few minutes each day plan to help your students catch up, while they keep up with grade-level instruction. I call this Assessment-Based Instruction (ABI).  Simply defined, Assessment-Based Instruction (ABI) is a commitment to students to help them catch up, while they keep up with grade-level instruction.

Here’s how to implement ABI: In the first two weeks of school, administer  some of these free whole class diagnostic assessments: Grammar, Usage, Mechanics, Syllable Awareness, Syllable Rhyming, Phonemic Isolation, Phonemic Blending, Phonemic Segmenting, Alphabetic Upper and Lower Case Letter Match and Alphabetic Sequencing, Vowel Sounds Phonics Assessment, Consonant Sounds Phonics Assessment, Outlaw Words Assessment, Rimes Assessment, Sight Syllables Assessment, Diagnostic Spelling Assessment, and an Individual Fluency Assessment. Each assessment includes recording matrices for progress monitoring. Plus, most include audio files for easy administration and make-ups.

Next, find targeted worksheets and activities which perfectly correspond to each item in the diagnostic assessments you choose to administer. You could create these resources, but why reinvent the wheel?

For a few minutes each day (as classwork or homework), students complete the worksheets and activities for each item missed on their diagnostic assessments. After completing an assignment, students self-correct and edit from answer booklets to learn from their own mistakes. Print up several booklets so that more than one student can correct at the same time. Finally, students complete a short formative assessment and mini-conference with the teacher to determine if mastery has been achieved. No extra prep, no extra correcting, no classroom circus. You may wish to check out my related articles: 8 Keys to Classroom Management with Assessment-Based Instruction and Using Student Data to Inform Instruction for detailed instructions.

That’s assessment-based learning which targets the individual needs of your students. That’s what great teachers do.

The author of this article includes targeted worksheets and activities with formative assessments in each of his ELA and reading intervention programs to help students “catch up” to grade-level instruction. Each Pennington Publishing program provides Standards-based whole class and individualized instruction.

Mark Pennington, has written the assessment-based Grammar, Mechanics, Spelling, and Vocabulary  Grades 4-8 programs to teach the Common Core Language Standards. Each full-year program provides 56 interactive grammar, usage, and mechanics and include sentence diagrams, error analysis, mentor texts, writing applications, and sentence dictation formative assessments with accompanying worksheets (L.1, 2). Plus, each grade-level program has weekly spelling pattern tests and accompanying spelling sort worksheets (L.2), 56 language application opener worksheets (L.3), and 56 vocabulary worksheets with multiple-meaning words, Greek and Latin word parts, figures of speech, word relationships with context clue practice, connotations, and four square academic language practice (L.4, 5, and 6). Comprehensive biweekly unit tests measure recognition, understanding, and application of all language components.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Grammar/Mechanics, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills, Writing assessment based instruction, assessments for learning, differentiated instruction, embedded assessments, formative assessments, individualized instruction, Mark Pennington, personalized instruction

In my last article, Assessment-Based Instruction, I discussed the importance of whole class diagnostic assessments for ELA and reading intervention teachers. I also provided a link to free diagnostic assessments (including answers and recording matrices).

ABI is a commitment to students to help them catch up, while they keep up with grade-level instruction. The dual focus is important. Direct whole class instruction is an essential means of delivering Standards-based grade-level instruction; however, the diversity of our learners demands that we concurrently teach to the needs of individual students.

In this article I will provide the research base (from the federal government What Works Clearinghouse) and practical tips regarding the use of formative assessments for ELA and reading intervention teachers. Specifically, we will discuss how quick formative assessments can be used on targeted worksheets and activities to address diagnostically assess determined ELA and reading skill deficits to help students “catch up” to grade level instruction. In other words, this article will not discuss how the teacher can use formative assessments, such as “thumbs up, show me your answer” techniques or embedded assessments, in whole class direct instruction to help students “keep up” with grade level Standards.

The What Works Clearinghouse report, “Using Student Data to Inform Instruction,” applies the most relevant educational research on both uses of formative assessments. Regarding the use of formative assessments to cater instruction to the demonstrated needs of individual students, the report concludes:

“Armed with data and the means to harness the information data can provide, educators can make instructional changes aimed at improving student achievement, such as: prioritizing instructional time; targeting additional individual instruction for students who are struggling with particular topics; more easily identifying individual students’ strengths and instructional interventions that can help students continue to progress…”

The report has recommendations for both teachers and students:

1. “Make data part of an ongoing cycle of instructional improvement. Collect and prepare a variety of data about student learning. Interpret data and develop hypotheses about how to improve student learning.
2. Teach students to examine their own data and set learning goals. Teachers should provide students with explicit instruction on using achievement data regularly to monitor their own performance and establish their own goals for learning. This data analysis process—similar to the data use cycle for teachers described in recommendation 1—can motivate both elementary and secondary students by mapping out accomplishments that are attainable, revealing actual achievement gains and providing students with a sense of control over their own outcomes. Teachers can then use these goals to better understand factors that may motivate student performance and adjust their instructional practices accordingly. Students are best prepared to learn from their own achievement data when they understand the learning objectives and when they receive data in a user-friendly format.”

Here’s how to follow these What Works Clearinghouse recommendations:

1. After administering content and skill-based ELA and reading assessments, teachers chart the student results data as relative strengths and weaknesses on progress monitoring matrices.

2. Teachers share this data with students and explain how to interpret the information on the matrices. I suggest a simple system of a numbered list of boxes, corresponding to the diagnostic assessments, in which a blank box indicates mastery of the skill or content and a slash (“/”) indicates a skill or content that needs to be mastered.

3. The teacher helps students and their parents set individual goals to “catch up” to grade level instruction by mastering each deficit.

4. Teachers purchase or create diagnostically-based ELA and reading worksheets and activities to address each numbered skill or content focus.

In a 2016 article titled “Practice for Knowledge Acquisition (Not Drill and Kill)” for the American Psychological Association, researchers recommend the following guidelines for deliberate practice (re-ordered and edited). My comments follow. These are necessary components for well-designed targeted worksheets or activities:

• “Provide clear instructions on performance expectations and criteria. Directions must facilitate independent practice and be consistent across all worksheets and activities. If a teacher is assigning different learning activities to different students, students must be able to work on their own to free teachers up to monitor the class as a whole.
• Provide students with fully completed sample problems as well as partially completed sample problems before asking them to apply new problem-solving strategies on their own. Students need both clear definitions and specific examples to learn unmastered content and skills.
• Guide students through sample practice problems by using prompts that help them reflect on problem-solving strategies. Students need just enough, but not too much practice on any content or skill. Additionally, students need immediate feedback on their practice. Rather than having students turn work for teacher grading, I suggest providing answer booklets to permit students to grade and self-edit their own work. Students learn best when correcting their own errors. The teacher requires student to use different color pens or pencils for corrections and assures student that they will not be penalized for wrong answers to discourage cheating. This process affords the students with immediate feedback and re-teaching.
• Provide plenty of opportunities for students to practice applying problem-solving skills before you test them on their ability to use those skills. After self-correcting their practice, students complete a quick formative assessment to master the content or skill. I recommend a writing application.

Following are examples of quick writing application formative assessments for remedial ELA and reading worksheets:

• Spelling−Write an original sentence including each example of the i before e spelling rule, not using any examples found on this worksheet.
• Grammar−Write an original sentence including the past progressive verb tense, not using any examples found on this worksheet.
• Mechanics−Write an original sentence including proper use of commas with three items in a list, not using any examples found on this worksheet.
• Writing−Write an original paragraph without using any “to be” verbs. Don’t use any examples found on this worksheet.
• Reading−Write an original sentence in which you infer what the author means in this sentence.
• Vocabulary−Write an original sentence, using context clues to show the meaning of hyperbole.

5. After completing the formative assessment, a student brings the self-graded worksheet or activity up to the teacher for review in a mini-conference. The teacher discusses the writing application with the student and determines whether mastery has or has not been achieved. If mastered, the student is instructed to change the slash (/) into an “X” on the recording matrix. I recommend posting the class matrices on the wall with either student names or i.d. numbers; however, other teachers have students keep their own writing folders with individual matrices. If the formative assessment has not been mastered, the teacher may elect to have students re-do the sentence or complete additional remedial work on the content or skill with formative assessment.

The author of this article includes targeted worksheets and formative assessments in each of his ELA and reading intervention programs to help students “catch up” to grade-level instruction. Mark Pennington’s programs also provide Standards-based instruction, which use formative assessments to inform teacher instruction of the grade-level Standards.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Grammar/Mechanics, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills, Writing assessment based instruction, assessments for learning, differentiated instruction, embedded assessments, formative assessments, individualized instruction, Mark Pennington, personalized instruction

Most ELA and reading teachers are certainly willing to experiment with both classroom management and instructional delivery models. A few colleagues are “stuck in the mud,” but most will try something new to add to their bag of tricks or conclude that “This didn’t work for me.” Of course, a few zealots will proselytize their particular approach with the attitude that “every teacher should be doing this,” but most teachers eventually adopt a “live and let live” model in which they accept the fact that “what works for you and your students may not work for me.” Good administrators draw the same conclusions. Now, I’m not saying that all approaches to classroom management and instructional delivery are equally effective. What I am saying is that teachers want to be good at what they do and so seek a workable balance between what is best for their students and what is best for their individual teacher comfort zones.

While educators readily agree to the fact that each student is different, less often do we admit that teachers are different, too. The same approach to classroom management and instructional delivery won’t work for every teacher. The following 10 keys to classroom management are designed for teachers who want to help their students “catch up,” while they “keep up” with grade-level instruction BUT in an instructional delivery model which facilitates an orderly, on-task, relatively quiet, and time-managed learning environment in which the teacher delegates some, but not all, control and responsibility of the learning to students. I call this instructional approach Assessment-Based Instruction (ABI). Simply defined, Assessment-Based Instruction (ABI) is a commitment to students to help them catch up, while they keep up with grade-level instruction.

In a nutshell, ABI affirms the role of whole-class direct instruction and other instructional delivery models (Socratic Seminars, Inquiry-Based Learning, Literacy Circles, Writers Workshop, etc.) for grade-level instruction (the “keep up,”) but also uses the results of whole class diagnostic assessments of previous grade-level Standards to cater instruction according to individual student needs (the “catch up”) for remediation. The 8 keys to classroom management for Assessment-Based Instruction help teachers implement the instructional “catch up,” to keep students engaged in learning while maintaining teacher sanity.

The 8 Keys

1. Create, find, or purchase targeted remedial worksheets and independent activities which specifically address items tested in whole class diagnostic grammar, usage, mechanics, spelling, reading, and writing assessments. Directions must be concisely and clearly written so that students can complete the worksheets and activities independently. Each must provide samples (examples) of each instructional application of the focus concept or skill. Each must include a practice section that is not too long, and not too short. Each must have a formative assessment (a brief written application of the concept or skill) to determine mastery. Number each worksheet or activity and print copies according to how many students failed to master each assessment item. File the worksheets or activities according to the numbers in boxes or cabinets that are easily accessible by students.
2. Post the results of the diagnostic assessments (by name or student i.d.) or pass out to each student. Simple recording matrices work best. Record an unmastered “/” below the numbered item indicates a corresponding worksheet or activity that must be completed, corrected, and presented to the teacher to determine whether mastery has been achieved.
3. Teach students not to complete the formative assessment until they have self-corrected the rest of the worksheet from answer booklets. Post several answer booklets around the room. Allowing students to self-correct helps them learn from their mistakes before completing the formative assessment.
4. Instruct students to bring the worksheet or activity up to the teacher to mini-conference with you for thirty seconds to review the worksheet. Many teachers like to place themselves in the center of their classroom. A mini-conference focuses on the formative assessment, not the practice.
5. If a student has mastered the formative assessment, the teacher directs the student to change the slash (/) into an “X” for mastery on the appropriate box on the recording matrix. The teacher assigns a reward for mastery: a grade, points, peer and parent recognition, etc.
6. If the student id not master the rule, skill, or concept on the formative assessment, re-teach during the mini-conference. Then direct the student to re-do the formative assessment and return for re-correction.
7. Limit the waiting line for mini-conferences to three students at one time. Teach students to continue working on new worksheets or activities while waiting for the mini-conference. Many teachers use a pick a number system or a write a name on the board system.
8. Help students set their own goals for their own progress. Include parents in the goal-setting and progress monitoring

Grammar, Mechanics, Spelling, and Vocabulary Grades 4-8 Programs

The author’s Grammar, Mechanics, Spelling, and Vocabulary  also has the resources to meet the needs of diverse learners. Diagnostic grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling assessments provide the data to enable teachers to individualize instruction with targeted worksheets. Each remedial worksheet (over 200 per program) includes independent practice and a brief formative assessment. Students CATCH Up on previous unmastered Standards while they KEEP UP with current grade-level Standards. Check out the YouTube introductory video of the Grammar, Mechanics, Spelling, and Vocabulary  program.

Teaching Reading Strategies

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Teaching Reading Strategies (Intervention Program) is designed for non-readers or below grade level readers ages eight–adult. This full-year, 55 minutes per day program provides both word recognition and language comprehension instructional resources (Google slides and print). Affordable and evidence-based, the program features the 54 Sam and Friends Phonics Books–decodables for each lesson and designed for older students. The digital and print word recognition activities and decodables are also available as a half-year (or 30 minutes per day) option in The Science of Reading Intervention Program. Both programs include the easy-to-teach, interactive 5 Daily Google Slide Activities.

PREVIEW TEACHING READING STRATEGIES and THE SCIENCE OF READING INTERVENTION PROGRAM RESOURCES HERE. 

Grammar/Mechanics, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing assessment based instruction, classroom discipline, classroom management, differentiated instruction, individualized instruction, Mark Pennington, personalized instruction

As a reading specialist teaching seventh grade English-language arts and reading intervention classes at a lower-performing urban middle school, I start off the school year administering reading, spelling, grammar, usage, and mechanics diagnostic assessments to my students. Most of you won’t be surprised to learn that the diagnostic data indicate that some students have severe instructional gaps.

I’ve especially noticed a decline in these basic skill areas over the last five years as teachers have been largely expected to re-invent the wheel and create Common Core aligned units and lesson plans. Last year, the ten members of our ELA department never even checked the district adopted ELA textbooks out of our library. Everything now being Common Core-ized. Now, I’m not blaming the Common Core State Standards for the decline in basic ELA and reading skills. Having taught a number of years, I know that major educational transitions always coincide with some decline until teachers get up to speed with the new Standards, educational approach to instruction, curriculum, administration, economic downturn. Teachers do have a way of making lemonade out of lemons, but many of our students do have ELA and reading skill deficits.

So, what should teachers do to address these academic deficits? Answer: Assessment-Based Instruction (ABI).

Oh great… another acronym, another educational approach, another district “bold goal” to direct district-trainings and faculty meetings, another instructional movement to provide conference speakers the subject of keynote addresses, fodder for a new book for Heinemann, oh… a grant from the Bill and Linda Gates Foundation. No. The last thing teachers need is something new. It’s time for something old that has stood the test of time. Something that steals from the best. Something that will last beyond the three-year life cycle of most educational approaches. Something that can be explained in one sentence–simple, but not simplistic.

Assessment-Based Instruction (ABI): Defined

Assessment-Based Instruction (ABI) is a commitment to students to help them catch up, while they keep up with grade-level instruction.

Rationale

“We teach children, not Standards.” Most of the states are still hanging on to the Common Core State Standards. Some have dropped them and have been developing their own versions; however, the standards-based movement is still alive and well. In the midst of this movement, educators have to remember why we got into the education business: to teach students, to teach subject material, and to have summers off :). I would hazard to guess that none of us wrote “My passion is to teach the ELA or reading Standards” on our teacher credential program application letters.

So much of our teaching involves training students to be good people. Good citizens. Kind and respectful. Well-balanced. Healthy and happy. We know that children are snowflakes. Each is different and requires different approaches to get the results we want. Teachers know that Roberto has different instructional needs (catch up) than does Luis (gifted and talented designation), than does Pedro (auditory deficits), than does Ivan (English-language learner), etc. Yes, all of them need access to and instruction in the grade-level Standards (keep up). Again, teaching different children (ages 4-18) necessitates a catch up, while they keep up with grade-level instructional approach.

“Learning is recursive.” When the Common Core State Standards first came out, I was relieved to see the inclusion of Appendix A. Appendix A provides so much validation of what teachers already know and do. The Common Core authors affirm the facts that learning is recursive and instruction must be cyclical as well as linear. In fact, anyone who has taught the basic parts of speech to freshman in high school won’t be surprised to learn that excellent teachers from elementary school and middle school taught the same parts of speech every year.

Because learning does not always pursue a linear path, the Common Core authors included numerous documents such as the Progressive Skills Review in the Language Strand to identify key grammar, usage, and mechanics re-teaching at every K-12 grade level. As teachers who believe in recursive instruction, we have to use such documents as ammunition when called upon to focus, focus, focus on grade-level Standards, especially for the PAARC and SBAT tests. We need to be equipped to counter the thoughts of some, like my former principal, who told me, “We can’t teach basic reading skills at middle school. That was the job of elementary teachers. If students can’t read, our elementary teachers are the ones to blame. That’s not our job.” Or a district language coach who asked me, “Why are you teaching that? It’s a fourth grade Standard.” Because they don’t know it!

“If they know it, they will show it; if they don’t, they won’t.”

If teachers believe that students need to catch up, while they keep up with grade-level instruction, it simply makes sense to find out what students know and what they don’t know. Only reliable diagnostic assessments can answer this question. Since my focus is on ELA and reading, I’ve developed whole class, internally and externally valid assessments in reading, spelling, grammar, usage, and mechanics to help students show what they know and don’t know. Check out these free, quick and easy-to-grade diagnostic assessments: Grammar, Usage, Mechanics, Syllable Awareness, Syllable Rhyming, Phonemic Isolation, Phonemic Blending, Phonemic Segmenting, Alphabetic Upper and Lower Case Letter Match and Alphabetic Sequencing, Vowel Sounds Phonics Assessment, Consonant Sounds Phonics Assessment, Outlaw Words Assessment,Rimes Assessment, Sight Syllables Assessment, Diagnostic Spelling Assessment, and an Individual Fluency Assessment. Each includes recording matrices for progress monitoring and most have audio files. What’s the catch? If you use ’em, you’re gonna want to teach to ’em. Our Pennington Publishing program resources are all assessment-based, teacher-created resources; and they perfectly correspond to the items in the comprehensive diagnostic assessments. For example, if Annie misses the items on vowel digraphs, there are worksheets and activities for that. If Andre misses the commas in a list test item, there are worksheets and activities for that. Every resource has a formative assessment to check mastery. Oh, and answers as well. You could create these, but why reinvent the wheel?

Our next article really deals with where the rubber meets the road. How does Assessment-Based Instruction (ABI) handle the management issue? How can teachers help their students catch up, while they keep up with grade-level instruction without the usual nightmares of any instructional approach other than whole-class direct instruction? Think differentiated instruction, individualized instruction, personalized instruction, learning centers, readers and writers workshops, cooperative groups, learning style groups, etc. for examples of “been there, done that, won’t do that again” instructional approaches. Let’s invest in an approach to instruction that makes sense.

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Teaching Grammar and Mechanics Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and High School Programs

I’m Mark Pennington, author of the full-year interactive grammar notebooks,  Syntax in Reading and Writing, and the traditional grade-level 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and high school Teaching Grammar and Mechanics programs. Teaching Grammar and Mechanics includes 56 (64 for high school) interactive language conventions lessons,  designed for twice-per-week direct instruction in the grade-level grammar, usage, and mechanics standards. The scripted lessons (perfect for the grammatically-challenged teacher) are formatted for classroom display. Standards review, definitions and examples, practice and error analysis, simple sentence diagrams, mentor texts with writing applications, and formative assessments are woven into every 25-minute lesson. The program also includes the Diagnostic Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessments with corresponding worksheets to help students catch up, while they keep up with grade-level, standards-aligned instruction.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Grammar/Mechanics, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing assessment based instruction, differentiated instruction, individualized instruction, Mark Pennington, personalized instruction

At the height of the free-wheeling differentiated instruction movement, I and a number of educators interested in teaching to individual student needs tried with only minimal success to co-opt the movement into something that teachers would actually implement in their classrooms. Teachers heard a lot of idealistic approaches at conferences and in university classrooms, and some testimonials from superstar teachers, but differentiated instruction never gained traction in the typical teacher’s classroom. The same has turned out to be the case with both individualized instruction, and personalized instruction. Brothers of another mother (no matter what the few remaining practitioners claim).

Now the only time I hear differentiated instruction, it seems to be in the context of some snide teacher remark about false expectations or administrative cop-out remarks on teacher evaluations. Sad, but true. Additionally, some elements of some differentiated instruction have fallen into disfavor, such as learning styles and free choice learning.

But back in the day… As a district reading specialist, I learned plenty of practical ideas about differentiating, individualizing, and personalizing instruction−some well worth trying. I would demonstrate an instructional technique or approach with some degree of success in a teachers’ classroom to a rapt audience of 30 fifth-graders or 38 seventh-graders. Of course, the teachers had bribed her class with extra recess time or no homework passes if they behaved perfectly and threatened death and dismemberment if they did not.

I got plenty of compliments about my lessons and consensus that we all have to teach to individual needs, but the teachers never adopted differentiated instruction, individualized instruction, nor personalized instruction in their classrooms.

Why Not?

1. Behavior Management−Teachers frequently hear conference speakers or university professors trivialize the challenge of any teaching approach other than whole-class direct instruction. I know what teachers think: “He or she does not know my classroom. That might work in an ideal situation, but not where I teach with the constraints that I have.” Behavior management was the first nail in the coffin of differentiated instruction. Simply put, whole-class direct instruction provides teachers with the most control to maintain discipline and structure.

2. Administrative Gate-Keeping−Administrators like to see students in their seats, quiet, attentive, and on-task. No matter what they say in faculty meetings. To quote from 12 Reasons Why Teachers Resist Differentiated Instruction, “Administrator-teacher relationships are optimally viewed as professional and collegial with differences simply being ones of roles and tasks. Practically, administrator-teacher are management and worker relationships. The fact that administrators wield the one-sided powers of evaluation and teacher grade-subject-or schedule assignment make teachers conform to some degree to the wishes and tone of the administration in any school. Teachers who don’t play the game to a certain degree may find their input marginalized or their services outsourced to another site.” The safe choice for any teacher is whole-class direct instruction, not the freedom of choice learning centers, rotating cooperative groups, reading and writing workshops, etc.

3. Not Enough Prep Time−Any form of individualized instruction requires considerable amounts of lesson preparation, assessment, visits to the copier, and more paper correction. Differentiated instruction meant more work for teachers at home, on weekends, during summer.

4. Not Enough Class Time−More and more class time is being eaten up by broadening the scope of teaching and adding on subject requirements. With the new PAARC and SBAT assessments in most states, more class time is allocated to test prep and the tests themselves. More state and district mandates steal more class time. Extending the number of instructional days is simply cost-prohibitive. Something’s got to give. Time is reductive. If time were allocated to teaching to the needs of individual students, instructional time would be reduced in other academic areas. A typical teacher legitimate excuse: “I would like to differentiate, but who has the time? There are so many Standards to get to and testing takes up so much time, as well.”

5. Standards-based instruction−Common Core and the standards movement has made many teachers abandon differentiated instruction. Comprehensive standards and emphasis on teaching to standards-based tests have re-focused many teachers on the what of teaching at the expense of the how and why of teaching. For many teachers, teaching the “power standards,” that is the standards most often tested on the yearly test, are more important than teaching to the needs of individual students. As one colleague once told me, “My job is to teach the grade-level standards, if students have not yet mastered the previous years’ standards, that is the fault of their teachers. I have to do my job, not theirs.”

6. A Teacher Is Not Omnipresent−Key to individualized instruction is the focus on the individual. Duh! A middle school teacher may have 38 individuals. A teacher can’t be everywhere at once.

7. Academic Rigor−The emphasis on rigor with high standards has led many teachers to abandon instructed catered to the needs of individual students. The thought is that students need to rise to the level of expectations (without any scaffolded means to do so). Also, the Depth of Knowledge (D.O.K.) Levels movement has made many teachers I know feel that unless their students are involved in instruction at Level 3, they’re not really teaching. Most teachers I know would like to help students “catch up” through scaffolded instruction, while the students concurrently “keep up” with rigorous grade-level instruction. However, teachers often feel the pressure to do the latter at the expense of the former.

9. Curricular Materials−We tend to use only district adopted instructional materials or the curriculum and class novels that our colleagues use. We may “cut and paste” with a few purchases from Teachers Pay Teachers, but most materials focus on whole-class direct instruction. Districts are always financially strapped. When new English-language arts and reading program adoptions are finally purchased, the ancillary materials e.g. ELD, lower reading level, additional practice, differentiated instruction workbooks, and software are often jettisoned. Teachers are left to create on their own, and they frequently don’t.

10. Tradition−We tend to teach the way that we learned. “If it was good enough for me, it should be good enough for my students.” Most of us learned through whole-class, non-differentiated instruction.

So the 10 Reasons Differentiated Instruction Died got me wondering… What would teachers not only agree to, but also actually implement in their classrooms to attend to the individual needs of their students? Check out my article on Assessment-Based Instruction for some answers.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Grammar/Mechanics, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing assessment based instruction, differentiated instruction, individualized instruction, Mark Pennington, personalized instruction