Standard A: Instructional Leadership for Continuous Improvement

w. Align your curriculum with standardized tests that are used for student advancement.
At the end of the year, identify areas that still need to be changed and submit a summary of how
effective your efforts had been.
Alignment:
This alignment is for the Hamilton county literacy benchmark assessment for 3rd quarter
in 1st grade. The purpose of this alignment was to assess what students know, determine student
growth, and set goals for future learning. This assessment is composed of 35 questions that are
aligned to the Common Core English Language Arts standards. These questions cover Reading
Foundational, Language, Reading Literature, and Reading Informational standards.

ELA Areas Assessed

Reading Foundational
Reading Literature

Language
Reading Informational

Areas That Still Need to Be Changed:

From aligning this assessment, several standards were not covered on the assessment.

Reading Literature: RL 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.8, 1.9, 1.10

Reading Informational: RI 1.3, 1.4, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.10

Reading Foundational: RF All Covered

Language: L 1.3, 1.6

Number of Questions for Each Reading Foundational Standard

2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0

Column2

Number of Questions for Each Reading Informational Standard

4
2
0

RI 1.1 RI 1.2 RI 1.3 RI 1.4 RI 1.5 RI 1.6 RI 1.7 Ri 1.8 Ri 1.9 RI 1.10
Column2

Number of Questions for Each Reading Foundational Standard

5
4
3
2
1
0

RF 1.1

RF 1.2
Column2

RF 1.3

RF 1.4

Number of Questions for Each Language Standard

6
4
2
0

L 1.1

L 1.2

L 1.3

L 1.4

L 1.5

L 1.6

Column2

Submit a Summary:
After aligning the assessment to the Common Core Standards, it was obvious that it
lacked questions needed to assess many standards, particularly in Reading Literature and
Reading Informational. This assessment would help teacher to modify instruction for the
assessed areas, but with the numerous questions missing it is lacking substantial information to
properly assess all areas of instruction.
Another area of concern that was noted was the developmental appropriateness. This test
included 35 multiple choice questions and dictated writing section, and it took approximately 4
hours that were broken into 2 hour sessions for 2 days. Given the age of the 1st grade students
(6-7 years old), this test was not developmentally appropriate. These problems arise from a
combination of the developmental characteristics of 3- to 8-year-olds and the kind of curriculum
that is appropriate in early childhood programs. Assessment processes traditionally accepted for
older children are not developmentally appropriate assessment, nor are they sufficiently
informative for assessing young children (Hills, 1997).

This test needs to be shortened to match the attention span of primary grade students.
Another alternative would be to shorten the test sections to allow more breaks throughout.
Above all, the test needs to be given in a natural setting that is in a non intimidating manner.
Works Cited
(2014). English language arts standards. Common Core State Standard Initiative. Retrieved from
http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/.
Hamilton County Department of Education. (2013). First grade benchmark #3: student test.
Hills, T. ((1997). Critical issue: assessing young children's progress appropriately. Retrieved
from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/earlycld/ea500.htm.