I've been in the classroom now for two half days and have the challenge of discovering all of the students growth since September. I started wondering, "how do you measure growth?"
The spelling curriculum is designed to give a set of 100 words that are commonly used in writing over the course of a year. The list is provided at the beginning of the year for review by the students. The words come and go randomly during testing, but show up at least twice throughout the year. This arrangement allows students time to show growth. If the student misspells a word they have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the word and try it again at a later date. The tests are given in story format, so the students can use visual clues and context to aid them in their spelling. By the end of the year the student should know all 100 words. The spelling plan seems fairly straight forward and fair.
Math, on the other hand, has a very complicated format. Once a chapter test is given the students move on to new material and a different series of tests. The material is always changing and previous information is not retested. So, how do you test growth? With each test the student is showing understanding of new material, but not growth or comprehension of original material.
Hmmm. Interesting question. One thing I've seen is that students need their addition skills to learn multiplication. Then they need the multiplication skills to learn division. If they don't learn one thing they don't have a chance on the next. So maybe progress on the current skill is proof that they learned the last skill.
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