Reading

Reading, writing, speaking and listening are the major areas of study for all
standard English language arts curricula. So how do you assess those skills?
Read this lesson to find out.
Language Arts and Skills

English language arts teachers have a lot on their plates. In fact, their plates are
filled with main courses of reading and writing, with a side of speaking and
listening. These topics encompass a wide range of skills, and each area is
essential in order for learning to take place in all other subject areas. ELA,
English language arts, teachers must always be assessing students in these
areas to ensure they acquire the necessary skills to continue their education or
succeed in the professional world. This lesson discusses several examples for
developing effective assessments for all three main categories for ELA.
Reading
Reading skills are those necessary to read text, process the information and
gather meaning. Reading is truly essential for all other subject areas. Imagine
you are an 8th-grade science teacher. What would you do if your students could
not read the textbook? Or could read, but got no meaning from it? Reading is a
skill that is universally used not only in all subject areas, but nearly all
workplaces.
Since reading is a very internal skill to develop, assessing it can be tricky. The
overall purpose of assessing for reading skills is to verify students are learning
how to personalize and interpret a variety of texts. Let's use a sample learning
standard, or objective, to discuss ideas for assessing reading skills.
 Trace the development of a writer's or poet's ideas, viewpoint and themes

through a text and relate these to other texts read.
This standard focuses on theme, which is the moral or message of the story. You
can assess for theme using a number of ways, including observation, group
work, creative writing and many more. You might follow these steps:
1. Spend some instructional time defining theme and finding examples in

literature.
2. Assess each student, which could include a theme scavenger hunt. Give
students different themes to hunt for, like everlasting love or coping with
loss.
3. Students must search the textbook, or other anthologies, to find other
pieces of literature that share that theme.
This type of assessment could be modified for any number of reading objectives
and standards. Basically, your assessments need to show that each student is
processing and gaining meaning from various texts.
Writing
The second major area of language arts is writing, which include skills needed
to express ideas using the written word. These include grammar, punctuation,
spelling and sentence structure. Like reading, writing is also essential across
curriculums and in the workplace. Assessments for writing should center on
students producing quality writing samples. Here is a sample writing standard:
 Demonstrate controlled use of a variety of simple and complex sentences

to achieve purpose and contribute to overall effect.
From this objective, you can do a variety of activities to assess your students.
Let's say your students have learned the basics of simple and complex
sentences. Now you have to assess whether your students can use both types in
their own writing. One activity could be an analysis of a famous speech. Have
students identify the simple and complex sentences and explain why the author
used them. You can use observation or group work to assess this step.
Furthermore, after the analysis, have students write their own speeches on a
different topic but mimicking the structure of the original speech. This will allow
you to assess if students can use simple and complex sentences in their own
writing. All assessments you create should involve students using a specific
writing concept in their own writing.
Speaking and Listening

Speaking and listening make up the final area an ELA teacher must
assess. Speaking revolves around producing verbal expressions. Listening is
the process of hearing words and recognizing the message. Most people focus
heavily on reading and writing and turn a blind eye to speaking and listening.
However, the latter skills are equally important. Students need to learn how to
speak in an appropriate manner and to listen to others. Each person will use
these skills in every verbal interaction for the rest of his or her life. Let's use the
following two objectives to discuss ways to assess speaking and listening:
 Work in groups to formulate ideas and plans of action.

 Give short presentations and answer questions, maintaining effective
organization of talk.
There are multitudes of activities you can use to assess these two objectives.
One impromptu activity is simply asking a student to share a written response.
You can observe this student speaking, and then ask another student to
summarize, add onto or give an opinion on the original student's response. Thus,
you are observing the second student's listening and speaking skills. You can
even give groups five minutes to prepare a short presentation of their responses.
A more formal assessment for speaking and listening is a class debate. Debates
are a fun way to get each student engaged and speaking in class. Be sure to
establish roles or jobs in the debate, so each student must speak at some point
in the activity. In addition, a debate is at its heart, a competition. This means
students will be listening to the other side's argument, and they will have to
respond in the rebuttal portion in order to win the debate. This way, you can
observe each student not only speaking, but also as he or she responds to the
other team. Thus, a debate could be the perfect way to assess both the speaking
and listening skills of your students.
Lesson Summary
To review, ELA teachers must assess skills in several categories. Reading skills
revolve around interpreting and understanding text, writing skills are the ones
needed to express ideas via written pieces and speaking and listening involve
expressing ideas and processing the statements of others.
There are many ways to assess each category. To assess the reading skills of
your students, design an independent, paired or group activity specific to a
certain standard or objective, like a textbook scavenger hunt on theme. To
assess writing skills, try starting with analyzing a famous speech before moving
on to students writing their own speeches. Finally, to assess speaking and
listening skills, ask students to respond to their peers' verbal answers or
organize a formal debate. Keep these suggestions in mind as you design
assessments for your classroom.

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Reading, writing, speaking and listening are the major areas of study for all

Language Arts and Skills

 Trace the development of a writer's or poet's ideas, viewpoint and themes

1. Spend some instructional time defining theme and finding examples in

 Demonstrate controlled use of a variety of simple and complex sentences

Speaking and Listening

 Work in groups to formulate ideas and plans of action.

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