Analysis and interpretation of student data allows principals and teachers to make informed decisions about their schools – decisions that, in turn, increase student achievement. The TCRWP helps schools engage in this important work by providing them with the knowledge, tools, systems and structures to foster on-going data analysis.
Professional development for teachers focuses on supporting the collection and analysis of data that tracks students’ progress as readers and writers. Professional development for school leaders helps leaders integrate all the data to make informed school-wide decisions about interventions, professional development needs, resource allocation and school goals so that each school leader can devise a coherent plan that steers his or her school or district towards improved student outcomes.
In order to make these informed decisions, it is important to collect and study data on all that a school values, including, for example, attendance, library book circulation, volume of reading and writing, progress along a continua of writing development in narrative, opinion and informational texts, spelling, progress in the skills involved in higher level comprehension, increasing students reading level progress. Of course, the results of standardized tests are also valuable, and need to be studied closely in order to draw informed conclusions from them.The community of teachers, staff developers and leaders comprising the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project team has developed a host of assessment tools, and we share these freely with any interested schools and teachers.
We have also developed a web-based software system, Assessment Pro, to help teachers and principals synthesize many forms of data analysis tools. Above all, AssessmentPro is an assessment system that allows schools to record, track and compare a variety of reading assessments for every student. AssessmentPro provides educators with instructional guidance for each student based on benchmarks and grade levels, provides letters to parents and students about student progress, and also allows administrators to filter and sort reports of student progress.
To view or to use many of these assessment tools, please visit our Assessments area of the site.