Assessment/Strategy Toolkit: Comprehension of Narrative Text Assessments/Strategies

**2 assessments for each category. One for grades 3-4 and one for grades 5-6.

Word Identification:
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Compound Word Maker

Grades 3 and 4

The purpose of this

assignment is to gauge
each student's ability to
recognize, identify, and
create compound
words. This
assessment will provide
the teacher with the
opportunity to see if the
students have any
confusion or are
excelling regarding
compound words.

While reading a book

with student(s), create
index cards that display
the words that make up
each compound word
from the story. These
cards will indicate how
many compound words
the student(s) can form
by putting the cards
together. After the
students become
familiar with this activity,
try timing it for more of a
challenge. Example of
different index cards that
can be put together to
make compound words:
post, man, card, age,
box, pal, pen, mail, box,
bag, office, truck.

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Cloze Passages

Grades 5 and 6

The purpose of this

assignment is to gauge
each student's ability to
identify words using
context clues from a
given book. This
assessment will provide
the teacher with the
opportunity to see if the
students have any
confusion or are
excelling regarding word
identification using the
strategy of context
clues.

Choose a book at the

student(s) instructional
level, select a key word
in a sentence and cover
it with a sticky note. Ask
the student to read on to
the end of the sentence,
then have the student
choose a word that
would fit where the
sticky note is placed and
makes sense in the
context of the sentence.
If the student does not
suggest a word, prompt
him/her to use the
pictures for clues. For
this assessment, it is
important to use books
with vivid illustrations.
For books without
illustrations complete
this assessment by
having the student read
the entire paragraph,
ask him/her to choose a
word by using the
context clues from the
text.

Vocabulary Development:
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Categorizing

Grades 3 and 4

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each students level of
vocabulary skills and
what words they know
regarding specific
topics. This
assessment will provide
the teacher the
opportunity to see if the
students have any
confusion or are
excelling regarding any
certain topics or
vocabulary terms.

The teacher will provide

the student(s) with
several (up to 10)
different main headings
of topics students have
previously studied. The
students will be asked to
name as many items as
possible for each
category. For example,
possible categories: air
transportation, water
transportation, road
transportation, types of
dogs, authors,
vegetables, fruits,
carbohydrates, etc.

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Predict-O-Gram

Grades 5 and 6

The teacher will

encourage the students
to predict the meaning
of new or unfamiliar
words before reading a
story or text. When the
teacher is presenting
these words, the
students will predict
whether the words relate
to a character, setting,
or plot; and then match
them to the correct
heading. For example,
if the word gregarious
was introduced the
students would have to
predict the meaning of
the word and which
category (character,
setting, or plot) it falls
under.

The teacher will present

unfamiliar/new words to
the students. The
students will be asked to
predict the meaning of
words before reading a
story or text. The
students should make
predictions about
whether the words relate
to a character, setting,
or plot; and then they
place them under the
appropriate heading.

Comprehension of Narrative Text:

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Spin The Discussion

Grades 3 and 4

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's
comprehension of
narrative text skills. This
assessment will provide
the opportunity to see if
the students have any
confusion or are
excelling in narrative text
comprehension. This
assessment is a prereading activity that
prompts students to
create the beginning,
middle, and end of a
story. It also helps and
assesses students'
literary knowledge, such
as elements of a storysetting, characters,
conflict, climax, and
resolution which
ultimately strengthens
and assesses the
students' narrative
comprehension skills.

This assessment is
completed between a
teacher and student.
Start out by agreeing
with the student on a
topic and title for his/her
story. Then, as the
teacher, write the first
sentence of the story.
Have the student read
your sentence and then
add their own sentence.
After the student writes
their sentence, you will
read the first two
sentences and add the
third sentence. Take
turns writing sentences
until the story is
complete. Ask the
student about the
different story elements
as he/she writes their
sentences. Once the
story is complete have
the student, retell the
story in their own words.
The focus of this
assessment is
comprehension, not
spelling and grammar.

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Spin The Discussion

Grades 5 and 6

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's
comprehension of
narrative text skills and
create conversation and
discussion about the
story itself, encouraging
students to use their
comprehension
strategies that they
know. This assessment
will provide the
opportunity to see if the
students have any
confusion or are
excelling in narrative text
comprehension and how
well they can discuss
and recall details from a
freshly read story.

Teacher will use a

spinner with the
following prompts in the
four sections: 1. Tell in
your own words what
happened in the story.
2. Tell your favorite part
of the story. 3. Say
what this book reminds
you of. 4. Add
something new to the
story. After the
student(s) have read a
story, ask one student to
flick the spinner to begin
answering the prompt,
other students may add
to the discussion or take
a turn with the spinner
to start a new
discussion until all of the
four questions have
been answered.

Comprehension of Informational Text:

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True or False?

Grades 3 and 4

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's
comprehension skills of
informational text. This
assessment will provide
the opportunity to see if
the students have any
confusion or are
excelling in informational
text comprehension.
This checklist allows
students to see reading
as an active process, in
which they constantly
analyze what is being
read.

Before reading the text,

read each statement in
the checklist together.
As the teacher, begin
reading the text, have
the students listen and
pay attention to the
checklist, indicating
which statements are
true and which are false
as you read. For true
statements use a "T",
for false statements use
an "F". Once you have
completed the reading,
have student(s) go back
and make the false
statements true.

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Learning Logs

Grades 5 and 6

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's
comprehension skills of
informational text. This
assessment will provide
the opportunity to see if
the students have any
confusion or are
excelling in informational
text comprehension.
This allows teachers to
analyze what the
students write to see if
they recall the main
ideas or unimportant
details. This
assessment helps
determine if the
students can explain
concepts in logical
order.

After you have read and

discussed a text with
student(s), have them
close all reading
materials and write
about what they have
learned in detail. Their
writing should go in
depth and explain the
new material in detail.

Fluency:

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Echo Reading

Grades 3 and 4

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's fluency
skills. This assessment
will provide the
opportunity to see if the
students are struggling
or are excelling in
becoming a fluent
reader. Specifically, this
assessment allows
teachers to hear if the
student is using and
echoing the appropriate
rate and intonation.

Teacher will read a short

phrase or sentence and
then ask the student to
echo that phrase back,
using the same rate and
intonation.

Record, Check, Chart

Grades 5 and 6

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's level of
fluency skills. This
assessment will provide
feedback on the
student(s) reading
accuracy and the
opportunity to see
where the students are
struggling, if there are
any patterns or common
mistakes in their
reading, and to hear the
student's prosody and
intonation.

Have the student read a

photocopy of a passage
you have selected into a
recording device. While
following along with the
text, have the student
listen to their recording
and mark each error
they heard in black pen.
Without replaying the
recording, have the
student read the
passage again into a
recording device.
Again, you will have the
student follow along to
the text while listening to
their recording. This
time, they will mark any
error they hear in green
pen. Have the student
do this one more time,
(for three times) with a

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blue pen. Then have
the student count how
many errors they made
in each reading.

Writing:

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Friendly Letters

Grades 3 and 4

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's present
level of performance
regarding writing. This
assessment will provide
the opportunity to see if
what the students are
struggling with, to see if
there are common
mistakes and patterns
amongst the class, and
to see what parts each
student is excelling with
in their writing. More
specifically this
assessment looks to
see if students know
how to correctly for a
friendly letter while
writing appropriately to a
particular audience with
proper mechanics.

Teacher will ask

students to write a
friendly letter in the
correct form, with
correct grammar and
spelling to a specific
audience. Example
audiences could be to a
favorite fairy tale
character, to a friend,
parent, animal, etc. The
letter should contain
statements and
questions.

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Diamante Poems

Grades 5 and 6

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's present
level of performance
regarding writing. This
assessment will provide
the opportunity to see if
the students are
struggling, to see if
there are common
mistakes amongst the
class, or to see where
the students are
excelling with their
writing. More
specifically this poem
assesses students
ability to use different
parts of speech,
antonyms, and
adjectives, all while
using proper mechanics.

Students are asked to

create a Diamante
Poem, a seven-lined
poem that follows a
particular structure and
is written in the shape of
a diamond. Below is the
structure a Diamante
poem follows:
Line 1: One noun
subject
Line 2: Two adjectives
describing the subject
on line one.
Line 3: Three
participles (ending in
"ing") that describe the
subject.
Line 4: Four nouns; the
first two nouns relate to
the subject in first line;
the third and fourth
nouns relate to the
antonym in line seven.
Line 5: Three
participles (ending in
"ing") that tell about the
antonym in line seven.
Line 6: Two adjectives
describing the antonym
in line seven
Line 7: An "antonym" of
line one

Spelling:
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Bingo

Grades 3 and 4

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's present
level of performance
regarding spelling. This
assessment will provide
the opportunity to see
where/if the students
are struggling, to see if
there are common
mistakes amongst the
class, or to see where
the students are
excelling with their
spelling. This
assessment could be an
alternate type of weekly
spelling test.

Teacher will orally give

the students a list of
familiar words to write
on their blank bingo
sheet. However, in
order to win bingo, the
words used must be
spelled correctly.

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Spell Checking

Grades 5 and 6

The purpose of this

assessment is to gauge
each student's present
level of performance
regarding spelling. This
assessment will provide
the opportunity to see
where/if the students
are struggling, to see if
there are common
mistakes amongst the
class, or to see where
the students are
excelling with their
spelling. More
specifically this
assessment looks to
see if students can
recognize and identify
misspelled words within
a text and correct their
spelling.

Teacher will provide

students with a story at
their independent level.
Within this story, there
are many spelling
mistakes. Students will
be asked to find and
correct all of the spelling
mistakes within the
story.