Carolyn Shackelford, Routman Chp. 7 - Make Assessment Instruction's Working Partner

In this chapter, Routman discusses the importance of making evaluation and assessment a daily routine. I like how she said that not matter what the students are doing, we should adopt a mindset of evaluation and maintain an awareness that helps to constantly connect instruction and evaluation. The best way to move a student forward it to sit next to them, observe them reading, probe their thinking and evaluate their reading. Reading is no longer about reading a story and answering a bunch of questions. Naturally, students want to talk (ALL the time!) so it makes sense to have them talk about what they are reading. As an adult, I do some of my best thinking out loud while talking to a cohort or my family. I liked Routman's suggestions for conducting reading conferences, but was surprised to read that you only need to meet with most students once a month and with outstanding readers once every two months. Yes, the lower readers need to conference more often, but that seems like a long time to go between conferences, even for strong readers.


I have often struggled with the question, "How can I tell if the student understands the book if I haven't read the book?" Routman addresses this question directly with reassuring words that you will able to tell by how much detail he gives about the story, his language makes sense and has flow and he has an obvious sense of what the book is about. Thinking back on conferences that I've had with students this year, I realize that she is right. When a student is really reading and enjoying a book, they can go on and on about it in great detail and usually much excitement.


I really liked the "Framework for an Informal Reading Conference" list that she provided. Many of these things I already do, but there is more I can add, especially the "Child-Friendly" Reading goals. I know what they need to work on, but struggle with how to get them to know what they need to work on. After reading this chapter, I now have some great resources and ideas to use with my running records and reading conferences.