Pre Assessment - Short and Long Vowel Sounds.

My second grade class recently had a lesson on short and long vowel sounds. Unfortunately, in real life, this was done in one half-period, but if I were allotted more time on the subject, here is what I would do to give the students a proper pre-assessment and differentiated learning according to their skill levels.

The Pre-assessment would be a worksheet that has a list of words, and requires the students to sort them between words with short and long vowel sounds. The words would all be single syllable and adhere to standard phonetic rules in this case.

Then I would determine the three skill levels for my students depending on how many answers they got right.

MASTERED

The students who did not miss any would be sorted into the group that has mastered the learning goal. They already understand the concept of short and long vowel sounds, so their learning should be spent on developing their ability to produce (and spell correctly) words on their own. As per my mind map, I like to have students who have mastered the content produce content for other students to work on. Up to this point, most of their language practice has been on reading and copying known words, but very little on spelling. Therefore, I would ask the master students to give each other spelling tests. I have large lists of short and long vowel sound words for each vowel, so I would let the students take turns reading from those lists, trying to stump their classmates with different words. 

Another option would be to let them work online, with online spelling and reading-based work that focused on differentiating between the different vowel pairs that produce long sounds. 

READY TO LEARN

The Ready to Learn group, or simply the “ready” group, missed 1-3 problems on their pre-assessment. They understand most of the content but maybe are unaware of some of the vowel sounds produced by vowel pairs, or are unsure if a given sound is short or long. In their case, I think that practice will make perfect. The main focus would be on the sounds that a majority of them struggled with, and also making sure they are aware of the short and long vowel sounds for each and every vowel. 

I would give these students a series of assignments of words with missing letters in order to further develop their ability to recognize vowel pairs. It would gradually get more difficult and end with them producing words with no letters given as hints. 

ALMOST READY TO LEARN

The Almost Ready group missed more than 3 on their pre-assessment. They might not even know all of the vowel pairs, and as a result aren’t even ready to sort between long and short vowels. I think for the Almost Ready group, the first step would be to review previous content to make sure that they are up to speed and ready to learn the new content. In this case, I’d review all of the long and short vowel sounds that they know and give them simple example words of each. From there, We’d work on sorting between the two. This group would likely receive a bulk of my attention, as they are most in need of individual focus from the teacher. 

After this review, I would ask them again to sort words into short and long vowel sounds, but this time as a group activity with manipulatives such as picture cards so that I can guide them, track progress, and offer immediate feedback. 

English Language Learners

In my case, all of my students are English Language Learners to some degree. As such, the main pitfall is lack of vocabulary. To that end, the initial pre-assessment would include pictures with each of the words, to help them understand the meaning of words. This is important because ELL students at this level have likely been drilled on phonics rules, but without meaning behind the words are just practicing rote skills and not fully developing their language. 

Because a particularly low level ELL student is likely to end up in the Almost Ready group, I’d continue to make sure to define the words as I am teaching the various vowel sounds. Picture cards that include pictures alongside the spelling of the words would be beneficial here.