Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine

National Pedagogical University M. P. Dragomanov

Institute of Child Development

Summary on: «Student Assessment in Primary School»

CONTEXT

	INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………...
I.	WHAT ASSESSMENTS ARE LIKELY TO OCCUR AT PRIMARY SCHOOL?....................................................................................................
1.1.	School Entry Assessment and Running Records………………………….
1.2.	Six Year Net (Observation Survey), PATs and STAR Tests……………..
ІІ.	STANDATIZATION AND MODERATION…………………………….
ІІІ.	FUNCTION AND TYPES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL LEARNING ASSESSMENT……………………………………………………………
	CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………….
	BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………

Introduction

The topic of the work is “Student Assessment in Primary School”.

The Aim of work: to give a basic idea of the most common types of assessment in primary school and identify why they are used.

The aim of the work envisages the fulfillment of the following tasks:

1. To analyze and to learn the theoretical material on the topic.

2. To characterize the most common types of assessment in primary school.

3. To show the importance of assessment in primary school.

Assessment of our children forms a big part of their education. It gives teachers useful information about how well students are progressing, and what students need to do next to continue learning. Learning assessments in primary schools have changed over the years. Traditional methods of elementary school learning assessments include student assignments and tests to evaluate how effectively a teacher presents and transmits knowledge of a subject area. Over time, many schools began using standardized testing to check learning levels of students statewide.

While some types of assessment provide a mark or a score, teachers interpret the results in ways that give the student much more information than a mark out of 10 would ever provide. Teachers also use examples of other students' work as a basis of assessment.

There are some reasons why assessment might occur:

• helping teachers determine students' strengths and weaknesses as a basis for their future tuition;

• reporting on students' achievements towards the end of periods of education which may influence their paths through the system;

• tracking how the whole school system has been performing over time;

• making comparisons between different groups within the system and between the system and those of different countries.

The problem of assessment is very popular nowadays. Generally speaking about the most common types of assessment in primary school we can underline the school entry exam, running records, 6 year net, PAT and STAR testing. We are going to characterize them in the following text.

І. What assessments are likely to occur at primary school?

1.1. School Entry Assessment and Running Records

School entry assessment. Children in NZ are generally assessed when they begin primary school as a new entrant. This school entry assessment enables teachers to gather information about their literacy and numeracy skills so they can better work with the children they have in their class as both individuals and in groups. There are national tests that can be used for this assessment but some schools may have developed an assessment tool that better suits them and their students.

Running Records are an ongoing form of assessment that gives teachers reliable information about a student reading skills and fluency.

It works with the student reading aloud to the teacher while the teacher records what the student reads or does. Through doing this, observing, scoring and interpreting the reading of the student, the teacher gains an insight into the student's reading ability, behaviour and is able to determine when the student is reading fluently.

For example a student must be able to read fluently at one level before they are able to progress to reading at a higher level.

Running records also give the teacher the opportunity to assess who of their students may need extra assistance with their reading. The struggling student will likely be referred to the Reading Recovery program.

Once reading fluency is achieved running records are no longer held on a student. It is around this time that STAR testing picks up to assess a student’s reading progress and ability [1,  60-62].