PART ONE - INITIAL ASSESSMENT

INITIAL ASSESSMENT PROCESS:

General Discussion:

The first meeting with the learner should be viewed as the first opportunity to begin the ongoing process of information gathering, collaboration, goal setting, assessment and redirection that constitutes good literacy practice.

With this in mind, the initial assessment process needs to be well thought out and include carefully selected tools and procedures. This will ensure that appropriate information for goal setting and instructional planning can be obtained. It will also ensure that the learner can be actively involved in planning for his/her own learning.

The following tools and procedures should be considered when planning the initial assessment process:

1. Interviews
2. Informal Assessments of Literacy Skills
3. Learning Styles and Preference Questionnaire
4. Interest and Attitude Inventories and Checklists

A discussion of each of the above components follows.

1 . The Assessment Interview:

A well planned initial interview with carefully considered questions can be a very effective procedure for gathering information and facilitating the development of a collaborative, participatory approach to instruction and learning.

The interview should be conducted in such a way as to make the learner feel comfortable, valued and competent, an equal partner in the learning process.

The interview should be conducted as a conversation rather than as a question and answer session. Using a tape recorder (with the learner's permission) may make it easier to avoid an inquisitory approach.- Having a record of the interview will also ensure that important information is not forgotten.

The interview can be conducted over several meetings with the learner. Several short interviews spaced over time are not only more effective than one very long interview on the first day, but they also promote the idea that information gathering needs to be an ongoing process if instruction is to be effective.

The interview questions need to stimulate discussion and encourage the learner to reflect on his past experiences. They should also provide opportunities for the learner to express what he understands about himself as a learner, and identify where he wants to go and what he needs from himself and from others to get there.

A sample of an effective assessment interview is available on video from the Literacy and Continuing Education Branch, Department of Education and Training.

A sample interview format is included in Appendix A.

(It should be noted that the Student Intake Form prepared by the Literacy and Continuing Education Branch is designed to collect the kind of information that is required on the annual Statistical Return. Although it should be filled out during the initial assessment process, it should not take the place of an assessment interview.)

2. Informal Assessment of Literacy Skills:

A. Reading

An initial reading assessment should help to identify the learner's strengths and weaknesses. It should also give you some idea of the different strategies that he/she knows and how and when he/she uses them.

This information can then be used to plan appropriate instruction and to match learners and materials.

The work of Sue McCulloch indicates the following points to consider when conducting an initial reading assessment with a learner who is a Stage Two or Three reader:

• The learner should be offered a selection of reading materials of different levels of difficulty.

• The reading materials should simulate a real-life task an adult may have to cope with in everyday life.

• The reader must feel as relaxed as possible with the assessor, and the assessment should be done in a situation that does not resemble a test.

• The person giving the assessment should explain what is happening and why, particularly if the instructor is going to write down notes while the person is reading.

• After the reader has selected the text, the assessor should give an introduction to it so that the context is established for the reader. This is true to life as we rarely have to read anything without knowing something about it first.

• The instructor should also tell the learner that after the reading she/he will ask questions about the passage to check for understanding.

• Errors should be recorded as the learner is reading.

• The instructor should discuss why the errors were made with the learner after the reading. Adults are often very insightful about their own strengths and weaknesses in reading.

Work by Mary Norton (June 1988) offers some guidelines for assessing adults who are considered to be at Stage One. She suggests that through observations and discussions, the instructor should gather information about the learner's knowledge of:

• World knowledge
• Spoken language patterns
• Letters and letter sound associations
• Sight words
• Sentence patterns
• Organization of meaning

The Initial Assessment Pack available from the Literacy and Continuing Education Branch provides additional ideas about how to conduct a reading assessment. Information and reading materials from this pack are included in Appendix B. Appendix B also includes other samples of real-life reading tasks and comprehension questions that can be used to assess reading ability, as well as materials that can be used to assess pre-reading skills in very beginner readers.

B. Writing and Spelling

An effective way to determine how well a learner is writing and spelling is to have the learner write about something that is very familiar to him or her. Asking the learner to write about what he/she did yesterday is a very non-threatening topic to suggest if the learner says "I don't know what to write.

Appendix B includes examples of other topics that you may want to suggest.

3. Assessing Learning Styles and Preferences:

Learners need to be supported in identifying their learning preference and styles so that they can better choose appropriate learning strategies.

All learners have preferred ways of taking in information that they want to understand and learn. Some people prefer to see information, others to hear it, and still others to experience it through muscle movement.

Most people would group learning preferences into these general categories:

• Visual: Learners with a visual preference may feel that they need to see it on paper, or read about the information before they can understand it.

• Auditory: Learners with an auditory style will often need to talk about the information, or say it aloud in order to learn.

• Motor (sometimes referred to as kinaesthetic): Learners with a motor style need to do any activity that involves muscle movement in order to learn something. They like to write out spelling words, or take things apart in order to learn how they work.

Not only do people tend to have a favoured learning modality that is, they prefer to use a certain sense to take in information, but they also have a favoured learning style. That is people also tend to have a certain way that they liked to have information organized and presented to them, and they also like to interact with information in certain ways.

For example, some learners like to do assignments independently, whereas others like to work on group projects; some learners need to have new ideas presented in logical, sequential order with a clear introduction and conclusion, others like a brainstorming format where new ideas are explored in a random way and learners formulate their own conclusions and make decisions about what is and is not relevant.

Furthermore, it is now well recognized that Native learners have learning Preferences and styles that may be very different from their non-Native counterparts. Work by Kaulback (1984) indicates that " Indian and Inuit children are most successful at processing visual information and have the most difficulty performing well on tasks saturated with verbal content."

Studies of Aboriginal cognitive learning styles indicate that Aboriginal learners may prefer to have information presented in a meaningful context with a emphasis given to the introduction and overview before getting into specific details and applications. These studies also suggest that aboriginal learners may also learn best if material is presented through images like diagrams, metaphors, symbols, etc. and if concrete support materials are used.

It is also important to recognize that Aboriginal learners may prefer to interact with information in ways that are different from their non-Native counterparts. Studies suggest that they prefer a " watch then do" or "listen then do" or "think then do" approach to learning. Since most classrooms frequently use a " trial and error" approach where learners are encouraged to try out an answer verbally and then improve the answer after receiving feedback from teachers and peers, Aboriginal students will not experience an optimum learning environment if their preference is not recognized and accommodated.

Assessing sensory preference can be done quite easily through the use of questionnaires. However, since not everyone uses the same names to refer to a particular learning style, assessment tools for learning tools can often seem confusing.

Gregorc, for example, uses the names "Concrete Sequential," "Concrete Random," "Abstract Sequential," and "Abstract Random" to refer to the learning styles that he identified. Some use the terms "Physically Centred," "Emotional/Relational," and "Mentally Centred," and others use terms like "The External Feeler," "The Thinker," and "The Observer" to refer to learning styles that are very similar to Gregorc's. It really doesn't matter what name you use as long as you choose one set and use the assessment procedures for that set.

Appendix C, Part 1 contains questionnaires and information about Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic learning preferences.

Appendix C, Part 2 contains information and questionnaires to help you determine learning styles.

4. Assessing Interests and Attitudes:

Knowing the interests and attitudes of learners will help in setting instructional goals, deciding on curricula and planning assignments.

Appendix D contains samples of materials that you can use to determine interests and attitudes.