I’d love to do an end of year (our midterm) assessment for the kiddo I’ve been working with. What’s the best resource to easily download or to guide my building of one? Context - I’ve been tutoring a 3rd grader who was diagnosed right at a year ago. Texas has reading by design and I think they fast tracked him through Vol 1 & 2 or the school just put him in the second grade group. He’s struggling with short vowel sound cues. We practice them every session with cards & repeat the closed syllable card. He can identify open vs closed one syllable words. If we start adding in open syllable, a_e i_e etc long vowel sounds, he doesn’t cue switching back to short vowel sounds even with familiar words we’ve been practicing for months. So we continue to work on building word length capacity with short vowel sounds, two and three syllables, & sound pairs (sh, ch, st). I would like to do an assessment to mark where we’re at right now so we can see progress in June at our year mark.

What is a quote you've heard from veteran teachers about coping with the diverse needs of students in your classroom that fueled your determination to find a better way? For me, it was being told to "teach to the middle". That fired me up! The attitude that you should not expect to be able to teach all of your students infuriated me. Why do any job half way? That just wasn't good enough for me. Although that attitude upset me, it did give me the motivation to do better, learn more, and find better ways to serve my students. What "advice" sparked your desire to do better for kids?

Here in Kansas City, it's conference season. Classroom teachers, what worked best for you to get parents actively involved in following through on action plans for their children's improvement?

I would love to share some practice that easy to do at home in the small spaces of time that help with reading. Like creating words on the fridge while cooking dinner. What are some parent+child friendly activiites I could share with my parents to work on at home? Give me your best hacks!