another to present a rich
portrait of how students are
progressing toward a
common goal. For example,
daily checking-for-understanding practices
should contribute to a
teacher’s understanding of
how students will perform
with similar material in a
unit, in a course, and on
state assessments. The
following practices form a
system of assessment experiences that allow for feeding
up, feeding back, and
feeding forward.
Check for Understanding
At the core of daily teaching
is the ability to check for
understanding in such a way
that teachers learn how to
help students. Fostering oral
language and using questioning techniques aid this
kind of informed check-in
(Fisher & Frey, 2007). The evidence on
using student talk as a mechanism for
learning is compelling; in classrooms
with higher rates and levels of student
talk, more students excel academically
(Stichter, Stormont, & Lewis, 2009).
Language frames help stimulate
academic talk in the classroom and also
help gauge students’ understanding of
concepts. Language frames are cloze
statements that provide students with
the academic language necessary to
explain, justify, clarify, and ask for
evidence.
In a mathematics lesson, Ms. Kelly
introduced her 1st grade English
language learners to the language frame
“The _____ is _____-er than the
______” to help them contrast the relative size of two objects, a math standard
in Ms. Kelly’s district. Using a feed-up
strategy, she explained that the students’
purpose was to approximate the size of
two objects. She then had the students,
in pairs, practice making sentences
using this language frame in several
different contexts.
On the day we observed Ms. Kelly’s
class, student pairs were using this
frame to compare the sizes of different
animals on laminated cards (see
www.ascd.org/el to view a video of this
knows and does not know at the
moment. We can rapidly form a hypothesis about what the student might not
know to provide a prompt that will help
that student achieve the needed understanding. Walsh and Sattes (2005)
suggest these follow-up prompts:
; Words or phrases that foster recall
(“Think about the role of hydrogen”).
; Overt reminders to trigger memory
(“The word begins with d”).
When teachers embed test-format practice
within daily formative assessments,
students acquire the stamina and skills they
need to score well on state assessments.
lesson). When Joseph, one of the
students, said, “The snake is wider than
the duck,” his partner Mario asked, “Is
the snake wider or narrower than the
duck?” to cue Joseph to rethink his
answer.
Ms. Kelly let the boys know they
needed to approximate more accurately
and asked each boy to show the width
of each animal with two hands spread
apart. Joseph could gesture correctly but
could not accurately convert his knowledge to spoken language. Ms. Kelly
understood that the barrier was
language and not the measurement
concept, so she concentrated on
reteaching the language frame until
Joseph could use it correctly (the feed-forward element).
Questioning is vital to checking for
understanding, especially as it pertains
to giving feedback on incorrect
responses. When faced with a student
error, we should remind ourselves that
the answer usually makes sense to the
student and reflects what he or she
; Probes that elicit the reasoning
behind the answer to identify knowledge gaps (“What led you to think the
character would do that?”)
; A reworded question that reduces
language demands. For example,
instead of asking a student to “identify
the role of tectonic plates in earth
geophysical systems,” the teacher might
say, “Earthquakes and volcanoes have
something in common; let’s talk about
that.”
Use Common Assessments
In addition to providing a way to check
daily for understanding, an aligned
system includes common formative
assessments that enable teachers to
coordinate with other teachers in their
grade level or department. These assessments are usually based on units of
instruction and become part of the
pacing guide for each course. Such
benchmark assessments gauge increments of student performance and
provide teachers with data that spur
