Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060028
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MELISSA DeVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
And he's in kindergarten.
The progress 6-year-old Travis made in his Riner Elementary School kindergarten class is a prime example of what 27 teachers and 11 administrators in Montgomery County hope will become commonplace in the future.
The county received a $125,000 state grant last year to assess new forms of teaching for children in primary grades. This week, the results of that study will be put before the state Department of Education for scrutiny. The state will use the information as a model for other counties hoping to improve elementary education in their schools.
"Kids don't come to us all as paper cutouts," said Karen McLeod, project director and an elementary school teacher. "It's up to us, as educators, to create an environment that accepts them. That's what alternative assessment does."
The goal of the program, McLeod said, is to "create a community of learners," one where children are more intimately involved with their own work, and where parents can follow their children's progress.
"When children are involved in their own assessment process, that's when they become real learners," McLeod said.
It teaches children to approach learning as an ongoing process; it teaches teachers to look at the education of children as a constantly changing and growing process.
Alternative assessment was used in four elementary schools last year: Riner, Bethel, Prices Fork and Margaret Beeks.
While the process is vastly different from traditional teaching in which children learned by rote memorization and reading textbooks, it is not too far removed from current teaching practices, said Jean Vengrin, a second-grade teacher at Bethel Elementary School.
"We got away from [rote] memorization a long time ago," Vengrin said. "We now teach more openly, but the key with assessment is that parents are involved with the process. Parents want to look at change over time, and we show them their child's progress."
The children keep track, too.
"One of the biggest changes we've seen is the involvement of children in conferencing," said Sandy Moore, instructional, Chapter I and reading recovery supervisor for the county. "Traditionally, we think of conferencing as parent-teacher only. Now the child takes the lead by describing his work at the conferences. The children get to show how they've grown as writers."
Alternative assessment will not replace grading, McLeod stressed. But it will enhance the more traditional system by allowing better understanding among parents, teachers and children.
Children in Vengrin's class keep their work together in portfolios. That way, their parents can see weeks of work, along with report card-type checklists. It's a better way to illustrate the pupils' progress, Vengrin said.
"And it also is a way of educating the parent at the same time, so they want to be involved," she added.
Treva Kent, a kindergarten teacher at Riner Elementary School, said she likes the concept of alternative assessment because there are no negative feelings among children.
"It doesn't matter what level a child is at," she said. "I try to make them all feel like readers and writers, because they can choose their own books."
This is not to say grades don't matter, McLeod, said. "I'm not going to tell you standardized tests don't have any value ... they are one tiny part, one piece of the assessment puzzle."
Ann Frazier, Travis' teacher at Riner, said teaching methods have followed a pattern over the years, from one-on-one teaching to traditional rote memorization, and back again.
"They used to do [assessment] in one-room schoolhouses, only it didn't have a name then," Frazier said. "This is not a breakthrough - it's a rediscovery."
Frazier, who also uses portfolios in her class, sends them on to the first grade where the teacher there can have a better idea of where the children stand among their peers.
The portfolios chart a child's progress more clearly than a mark on a report card, Frazier said.
"The real difference is that they are writing for a purpose and not for a drill," Frazier said. "They want to write, and that makes all the difference."
For now, Travis is enjoying a summer break filled with swimming, vacations and lazy summer evenings catching lightning bugs. But his dad, Mike Price, said his son is already looking forward to first grade at Riner Elementary School.
"I was very pleased with his progress this year," Price said. "The way that he went from doing nothing [before entering kindergarten] - my daughter always wanted to read, but Travis wanted to go out and play - to knowing how to spell. We were definitely happy with that."
by CNB