Education Language Explained

So every area in academia and politics has specific language and jargon.  Sometimes this helps aid the clarity of those who work in such fields, like education.  However, sometimes it's used to get support for things that people wouldn't support.  So here's an explanation of various educational terms (with a slightly comedic interpretation).

Accommodation = Changes in teaching practices and assessments/tests that allow for equality for children with differing abilities (disabilities) or who speak English as a second language. As I've said elsewhere, they don't go far enough.

Accountability = TESTING!!!!  All the tests ever!!!  Whether they're talking about teacher, student, or school accountability they really mean high stakes test that decide student advancement, teacher and principle pay and employment, and school funding.

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) = How schools do on the high stakes tests.  It's the minimum amount of achievement needed to meet NCLB (No Child Left Behind) and get Title I funding.

Alignment = How well curriculum, assessment, instruction, and tools (like text books) meet and reinforce the goals of the educational program or government.  In practice it often means teaching to the test so that teachers and principles keep their jobs and the school doesn't lose funding.

Assessment = A way to see if students have actually learned what they were taught. It can involve essays, portfolios, and various forms, currently it means TESTS!!!!

Benchmarks = Detailed descriptions of what students should know and be able to do at specific ages, grades, and/or development levels.

Categorical Aid = Federal and State funds that go to schools to help them in specific areas, such as making accommodation for kids with special needs, transportation, class size reduction.  Money must be spent on the area if was granted for.

Comparable Growth = certain subgroups of children (like English as a second language, or kids with special needs) within a school who have different requirements for standardized tests. Generally expected to achieve 80% of the predominate group, generally only 10-15% of the students in any school can be in comparable growth subgroups, which is a big old problem when 20% of students have some type of special need, and in some areas almost half of the students are ESL (English as a Second Language).

Core/Common Core - The new tests address these over the previous NCLB tests and standards.  Always includes English and Math, along with Science and History/Social Studies for older students.

Differentiation = Used mainly in academics, haven't seen this term in politics yet.  It means class curriculum and assignments being geared towards the differing abilities of the students within one class.

Disaggragated Data = Comparing students and their stats within their subgroups, instead of the entire school population. Generally segments include students with special needs, living below of near poverty, are a racial or ethnic minority, and are ESL.

ESL/ English as a Second Language - Extra classes or aids to help children who comes from countries or homes where English is not spoken.  Children have only two years of ESL classes before they are expected to take high stakes tests in English without any accommodation or inclusion in a comparable growth subgroup.

Enrichment = Additional courses and programs outside of what is needed for graduation or the high stakes testing. What I do, and because it's not about TESTING! it's severally underfunded, and generally left to after school and outside volunteer groups to perform.

GATE/ Gifted And Talented Education = Program that provides enrichment, differentiated lessons, and supplemental instruction for children that are identified as intellectually gifted and talented and thus test/achieve academically above the majority of children in their grade.

High Priority = Schools/students/what have you that test in the lower half, generally the bottom 10% based on state and school standards.

Inclusion = Also known as mainstreaming.  Kids with special needs are in the standard classrooms instead of a Special Ed. classroom.

IEP / Individual Educational Plan = Plans made to meet the various needs of students with differing abilities.  Designed between the student's parents, teacher, the school special education specialist, and school administrators.  The participation levels of the student depend on their age and abilities.

Integrated Curriculum = Involves using one theme to teach a variety of subjects and skills.  English teachers using Health and biology to teach reading and essays while the students are also learning about the human body is an example.

Intervention = Refers to funds schools get to meet the needs of students who are not achieving at grade level.  Cannot be used as schools general funds, but specifically for the needs of the students its allocated for, so a type of Categorical Aid.

Magnet School = School that focuses on a specific discipline like science, technology, the arts, etc and it recruits students from other parts of the school district.

NCLB/ No Child Left Behind - The educational reforms that became law under George W. Bush in 2002.  Brought the TESTING! mania to the national level.  Has since been reformed with Race to the Top and the idea of the common core.

Proficiency = Ability to do something at grade level.  Determined by high states standardized tests.

Pull Out = Students who need special assistance are pulled out of class for small group activities/learning.  Unlike the sex kind of pull out, these programs are effective.

Rubric = A set scoring or grading system that is supposed to set criteria and the quality for those criteria.

Standards = These really mean state and federally crafted standards that are often created and/or influenced by politicians are opposed to educators. Because politicians are experts on everything!

Examples from Real Life

When I wrote about Reading Levels I explained that different children develop at different speeds and there is no one right level for a child to be on at a specific age or grade.  Now I work with children between the ages of 5 and 10 and see the reality of this every day.  Recently, I had my students make holiday cards for service men and women who would be over seas for the holidays. The results were both adorable and a good example of how children (even ones from similar backgrounds and educated by the same teachers) reach academic benchmarks at different times.

I selected a small collection of cards made by children from kindergarten to 3rd grade that demonstrate the different skills and levels children can be on, even when they are the same age or in the same class.

This card was made by one of my kindergarten students. I helped Megan spell "merry" and "Christmas" but didn't correct her formation of the letters or tell her which letters should be capitalized.  As you can see some of the letters are backwards and they vary a bit in size.  This is all pretty normal for kindergartners.  She did do a very good job writing in a straight line though; better then I would have at her age.

This card was made by another kindergartner.  He decided to interpret a holiday card for soldiers as a soldier card.  He also didn't want any help from teachers with spelling words, but decided to do some letters anyway.  As you can see the letters vary some in size and change between capitalized and lower case letters (pretty much based on his comfort level with writing the different letters).  The boy who made this card is best friends with Danniell, a 1st grader who made the next card.

Danniell didn't receive any help from teachers when making this card; the sentence structure, word choice, and spelling are all his own.  This shows he understands the form letters take, as well as basic spelling, punctuation, and grammar.  His only spelling mistake was "absolutley yors" which is pretty impressive.  Danniell is highly verbal, has an amazing memory, a love for science, and is self-motivated to learn new things. He hasn't had formal testing yet, but it's pretty easy to see he's in the gifted and talented range of academic abilities.  When talking with my teacher friends I often share stories about Danniell and call him my baby genius. (Last year he loved learning about weather and was very interested when we did a month long hurricane tracking project.  Months later he was the only students to retain the information about the general starting points for hurricanes during different times of the year.)

 Amanda, is one of my second graders and one of the less academically inclined of my students. Her penmanship is good for her age, she spelled everything correctly, and she reads within her grade range.  However, she isn't very interested in school or reading.  A lot of the children I work with enjoy reading and play school, Scrabble, and Banana-grams, or practice writing with the white boards, but Amanda doesn't find any of these things interesting.

Violet's in 3rd grade, or 3erd, as she spells it. She didn't receive any help from teachers and spelled "hollyday" the way it sounds, which if this was 300 years ago would have been academically acceptable.  Violet's a good example of an average 3rd grader.  She spells most words correctly, has legible hand writing, and just reached the point where she can read children's chapter books.  She doesn't mind reading or writing, but doesn't love it the way some of her peers do.

This last card is by Anna, another 3rd grader.  She didn't have any help from teachers and spelled "contrey" wrong, but like Violet she spelled it the way it sounds.  These types of misspellings are pretty standard for child in 3rd grade or beyond (unless they have ADHD, dyslexia or some other type of language based special need).  Her handwriting is a bit better then Violet's, and when it comes to reading she has a higher reading level, which is probably most related to her higher print-motivation.

I wish I had more examples from my older students, but they were less interested in completing this activity.  The school also starts tracking students in 4th grade and while my 4th graders have a range of interests, skills, and abilities the 5th grade students are all in the same levels and so are a less diverse example.

Re-Blog - Occupy Wall Street and Education

I've been very into the Occupy Wall Street movement recently.  I've spent an hour or two a day reading articles on it, re-posting them and commenting on social media to spread the word.  I've gotten into some adamant debates with libertarians and neo-liberals/conservatives.  I attended Occupy Wall Street last weekend.  But I haven't written about the movement here.  I felt there was a relationships between education and the economic injustice that OWS is protesting, but I wasn't certain how to write about the two.

Luckily Nicholas D. Kristof did and his Op-Ed for the New York Times Occupy the Classroom addressed this relationship.

"One common thread, whether I’m reporting on poverty in New York City or in Sierra Leone, is that a good education tends to be the most reliable escalator out of poverty. Another common thread: whether in America or Africa, disadvantaged kids often don’t get a chance to board that escalator."

Multiple Intelligences

In 1983 Dr. Howard Gardener developed the idea of Multiple Intelligences.  The idea is there are a varieties of areas that people can be smart/skilled in and that our method of IQ testing and education does not address all these different areas.  Dr. Gardner came up with eight different types of intelligence, of which seven are discussed and used by psychologists and educators.

These multiple intelligences are:

Linguistic - Linguistic Intelligence means being smart/skilled with reading, writing, and speaking.  Authors, public speakers, news reports, and comedians all need a high Linguistic Intelligence.

Logical/Mathematical - This type of intelligence means being number smart.  Scientists, mathematicians, and chess masters all have high Logical/Mathematical Intelligences.

Musical - Musical Intelligence is, perhaps obviously, being smart/skilled in music.  This relates to singing, composing music, and playing an instrument.

Intra-Personal - Intra-Personal Intelligence means being smart about yourself.  Poets who focus on emotions, many psychologists, actors, and people like Siddhartha and Thoreau all have high Intra-Personal Intelligence.

Inter-Personal - This type of intelligence means being smart about other people.  Psychologists, motivational speakers, and people like Machiavelli all have high Inter-Personal Intelligence.

Bodily/Kinesthetic - Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence refers to being smart about bodily movement.  Actors, gymnasts, dances, and other athletes, along with soldiers and fire fighters all have high Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence.

Spatial - This type of intelligence means being picture and space smart. Artists, pilots, and race car drivers all need a high Spatial Intelligence.

Everyone is skilled in one of these areas of intelligence and many people will be smart in multiple areas.  People like actors, poets, psychologists, and Air Force pilots need to be skilled in two or three intelligences to  succeed in their professions.

However, schools often focus on the Linguistic and Logical/Mathematical Intelligences, sometimes to the exclusion to the other types. This has become more frequent with the advent of high states testing and NCLB.  If children do receive education in the other types of intelligences it is often through extra-curricular activities like art, music, and gym, and these extra-curriculars are the first to go when there are problems with budgets or schools need to pull their test scores up. Intra and Inter-Personal Intelligences often aren't addressed in schools and are rarely, if ever, actively taught to children.

Ideally schools would have the funding and time to address every type of intelligence and work the different types into the same lessons so that all children have access to areas they succeed in, and learn material in a method that increases their chances of true understanding.  When learning anything classes can read about the lesson (linguistic), learn equations or logical expressions for it (logical/mathematical), observe charts (spatial), listen to or write songs about the material (musical), how what the class is learning affects people (inter-personal), and apply the learned material to the body/themselves (bodily/kinesthetic and intra-personal).  When all the types of intelligences are worked into the lesson every child in the class has a higher chance of success.

Getting Kids Ready For School

Recently I've been busy getting my program ready for the start of school. Teachers, parents, and students the country over have been buying and organizing supplies and making a variety of plans.  You see plenty of tips about what classroom supplies to buy kids, but the most important aspect of preparing children for school happens in the years before kindergarten.  Prenumeracy and Preliteracy skills are necessary for a successful start to school and are learned at pre-schools and homes in a variety of ways.

Prenumeracy and Preliteracy skills are necessary for children to learn math and reading and range from sorting materials, having a conversation, and holding a pencil.

This being a literacy blog I'll focus on explaining the 6 main preliteracy skills and how to develop them.

Vocabulary
Knowing the names of things is an important precursor to reading.  Most children enter kindergarten knowing 3,000 - 5,000 words.  The more words a child knows the more prepared he or she is for school and the easier reading will be. 

• Using precise language when talking to children helps expand their vocabulary.  Instead of pointing and saying "Bring those here" use object and place words like "Bring the plates to the table." 
• Make sure children spend time outside of the house and point out the names and titles of the animals, people, buildings, and objects you encounter.
• Read a variety of fiction and non-fiction books with your child.  Some books, like Fancy Nancy are created to expand children's vocabulary.
• When speaking to your child occasionally use words they don't know.

Remember children can't expant their vocabularies unless they encounter new words through conversations and experiences.

Narrative Skills
Being able to understand and tell stories and describe things, narrative skills, are necessary for children to understand what they are reading.  Being able to differentiate between the beginning, middle, and end of events and to explain this are important for reading and other cognitive functions.

• Ask children questions about their day.  Help them find and explain the sequence of events by asking questions like "What did you do first?" and "What happened next?"
• When reading to children, or watching a TV show or movie, ask children to summarize the story and explain their favorite parts.

Print Motivation
Print motivation is the interest in and the enjoyment of books.  Some children naturally have a higher print motivation, but it is something that should be fostered in all children. A child with print motivation will play with books, pretend to read, and enjoys being read to and trips to the library.  Between natural inclination and my parents reading to me a great deal my high print motivation kept me liking books despite my learning disabilities and helped me (eventually) become an avid reader.

• Point out and read words everywhere you see them, on signs, cereal boxes, newspapers and everything else.
• Take children to group stories times at libraries and book stores.
• If possible make story time and every day activity.
• Take children to the library and help them find stories they'll enjoy.
• Make sure to keep reading enjoyable by not forcing children to sit still for longer then is natural for them.

Print Awareness
Print awareness is knowledge of how books and writing works.  Children with print awareness know that text is read from left to right and that pages are read top to bottom.  They know that the print on the page matches up with what is being read to them.  Over time children will learn that capital letters signify names and starts of sentences and that punctuation ends a sentence.

• Point to words when reading them.  Make sure to do this with text outside of books to.
• During story time run your finger along under the words so your child sees how words match up with what you're saying.

Letter Knowledge
Letter knowledge means learning the alphabet.  Its learning the names and sounds of individual letters.  You can start teaching letter knowledge to babies before they begin fully talking.

• There are a variety of books and activities made to teach letter knowledge.  Letter blocks, carpets, and alphabet books are ways to introduce your child to letters as babies and toddlers.
• Describe the shapes of letters: B has two bellies, M is two mountains.  Make sure to find ways that make sense to the individual child.  You can also ask kids what they think the letters look like.
• For pre-schoolers try drawing letters in the sand, snow, flour, or while playing with markers and chalk.
• Remember to keep things fun.  The point is to get children comfortable with letters.  Few children have the patience or ability to learn actual spelling befor turning 5 and entering kindergarten.

Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness is knowing the sounds that make up words. It includes being able to hear and create rhymes, to say words with sounds left out, and putting two words or word parts together to make another word.

• Play silly word games that makes use of rhyming. Like "Anna, bananna, fe fi fofanna". 
• Lots of children books are written in rhyme, make sure to read some with your child.
• Say words with pauses between the syllables. "Rab" - "It" "Wat" - "Er"

Reblog

Shakesville: Educate the People - But Not So Much That Corporations Can't Still Exploit Them, Obviously

One of the topics at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference was on Education, specifically in relation to corporations.   Shakesville's creator and several other writers attended the Conference and this is one of their summaries on this topic.

"After more than an hour, I was left wondering: Who is education meant to benefit, and whose interests is educational reform meant to serve in this country? ... Strange how that works. One group—those making millions (billions? Bieberillions?) of dollars think education is important because at the end of the day, it benefits them. The other group—those slogging away, educating children, doing the so-called "dirty work" on the ground think education is important because it empowers the individual receiving the education to have some control over hir life's destiny. "

Unfortunately it's the model of children being future workers for corporations that dominates in many schools right now.  Jonathan Kozol's Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America discusses this at length, and provides many examples.  Many children, especially those in inner city, predominately POC, schools are taught to follow directions without question, recall, recitation.  They're not taught how to actually read and write and develop and explain their own thoughts.  They pick out vocabulary and understand it only in the exact was they were taught.  They summarize, but never critique.  So few students learn higher order thinking skills, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that pencil pushers and factory workers don't need to know how to critique and judge the worth of things.  They don't need the learning levels of Synthesis and Evaluations, in fact, it's easier for corporations if their workers don't have these skills.

Standardized Testing

Generally speaking I'm against standardized tests.  It's not so much the idea of state wide assessments so much as the way they're carried out.
Here's a collection of links that help explain the different types of tests and why I'm opposed to them.

Mother Jones - Education: Standardized Tests, Explained

USA Today - Five Years After NCLB took effect, problems remain

New York Times - Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math

Fair Tests - What's Wrong with Standardized Tests?

High Stakes Testing are Standardized Tests that are used for grade promotion, scholarships, determining teachers’ salaries, and funding.  NCLB makes the States Standardized Tests tied to the schools' Title I funds and whether the schools might be taken over or sold to private companies.  Individual states tie their testing to other benefits and reprisals.  Massachusetts requires all students to pass the sophomore level state test to graduate and scholarships to state colleges and universities are partially based on a student's score.  Meanwhile, Florida bases teacher's salaries on the testing abilities of students.

On some level a lot of the basis of High Stakes Testing makes sense, as does the consequences.  Most problems arise from implementation.  Firstly, the tests are often partially biased, both culturally and in an individual day to day manner.  Students from the suburbs test better because of the wording.  When I did an assessment of a test for second graders one section had picture analogies.  These were meant to test students reasoning skills, and ideally they were using everyday objects.  However, if you like in a city and don't have a yard you're not going to get the relationship between a rake and trowel or sprinkler and watering can.  Or if you do it takes longer to come up with the comparison because these are not objects you'll be personally acquainted with.  These biases exist in all tests and are the reason that students from the mid-west score better on the ACT than they do on the SATs, while the reverse is true for students from the East Coast.

Meanwhile, simple things like amount of sleep, whether a person ate breakfast, has a head ache, or numerous other small differences effect how a student scores.  This also ties into larger biases when students live in poorer areas and 80-90% of students are on free or reduced meals.  Something that might affect several of students from one area, and make them perform more poorly on the tests, is part of the daily lives of the majority of students from other schools.  Add the fact that many of these Title I schools are in urban or extremely rural areas and suffer from the biases of the test construction and it becomes apparent that some schools and districts go into High Stakes Testing already behind the curve, and these schools are the ones reliant on government funds to meet the varied needs of their students.

Often these schools are forced to devote a good deal of their time preparing students for the Tests, so subjects like history, science, and foreign languages are over looked.  Students also learn how to answer multiple choice questions or word short answers to get more points, but they have no meaningful understanding of the material they're learning and often have difficulty applying it to other scenarios.  There are scenes from Season 4 of The Wire that are almost identical to what some teachers and students experience, and it's heart breaking.

Another mark against High Stakes Standardized Testing is that they don't properly account for students with special needs.  Under NCLB schools may exempt a certain percentage of their students from the tests for reasons are special needs.  However, this percentage is far less than the 20% of students with ADHD and the 10-15% with learning disabilities that require extra time or other accommodations to test at their actual achievement level.  Also students who speak English as a second language must take the State Tests after being in US schools for two years; however most of these students are not proficient enough to score well in this time frame.  One of my friends works as a bilingual school in New York City, and from kindergarten to 5th grade they transition the students from speaking primarily Spanish to having full English comprehension, and this time frame is rather necessary when students come from homes that don't speak English.

And all of these reasons are why I find the tests themselves biased and therefore damaging to students and American schools.  These articles and what I've written barely touch on the consequences of these tests.

The Importance of Head Start and Title I

The US Deficit and Budget have been all over the news for the last several weeks and while I have thoughts on a bunch of the proposed or House passed budget cuts one in particular ties into the purpose of this blog.
 Last week Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his colleagues passed $63 billion in budget cuts for the end of fiscal year 2011, with the understanding being that the cuts would continue into 2012.  These cuts are all to non-security programs and don't differentiate between successful and failing programs. The Department of Education is undergoing such cuts, particularly to Title I schools and Head Start.  Over all the Department of Education will lose almost $5 billion.  Source

Head Start and Title I assist people living in poverty and the schools who educate them.

Head Start provides a variety of services, but is most known for their pre-schools and before and after school care.  Most low-income families require both parents or all responsible adults to work, many times several jobs.  Therefore they can't provide care for young children and often don't have the time or energy to educate them on pre-literacy and pre-numeracy skills.  (I'll do another post later about the necessity of these skills being learned before kindergarten.)  Head Start provides pre-school care for the children of these families.  They can't reach everyone and Head Start locations are run differently from each other, but once you get in the program you can stay in it, throughout all levels of school.

Head Start teaches skills necessary to academic achievement, they provide safe and supervised places for children of all ages, they provide homework help and academic enrichment.  Head Start even helps with college applications and scholarships.  Children enrolled in the program often achieve better in academics and are more likely to graduate from high school.  Head Start specifically assists children and families who do not have the resources to pay for or find this help from other places.  They combat the cyclical and systematic results of poverty and institutionalized racism.  For more information about Head Start and the affects of the budget cuts visit their web site here.

A Title I school is a school where 40% or more of the students live at a proverty level where they qualify for free or reduced lunches.  Basically this means approximately half or more of the students live at such levels of poverty that their families cannot afford to feed them.  When this is the case the schools receive assistance from the federal government, through Title I, to meet the specific needs of children living in poverty.  Title I started in the 1960s under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) states that schools must make adequate yearly progress to continue receiving funds.

How Title I funds are used is up to the discretion of the school.  They can be used for curriculum enhancement, counseling, increasing parental involvement, more staff and general program improvement.  Generally the funds are used for extra instruction in math and reading as these are some of the most important subjects, and since NCLB the test scores for these subjects affect the Title I funds received by the school.  Millions of children are assisted anually through Title I funds.  For more basic inforamtion visit here. Or the US Department of Education's site here.

Personally, I spent two years working at a Title I school where numerous children where enrolled in Head Start.  At this school over 80% of the children received free and reduced lunches and I helped run an after school program which improved children's literacy.  Parents had to enroll they're children in our program, and Head Start children did not attend as they received after school care and academic assistance through the Head Start Porgram. The school was making adaquate yearly progress so they were receiving the maximum Title I allotment. The school was also receiving grant money for being a community school (meaning they provided help for the whole community) and there were several other grants helping the school meet the needs of all the children.  My program and position was funded by one such grant. 

With these four programs providing extra money to the school they were able to provide 2 meals a day to the students who qualified, health services to the students and their families, run before and after school care with sports, arts, and academic programs.  They also were able to hold occasional events to promote community involvement and find out how they could better help the needs of the community. 

When I compare the kids I worked with at this school to others from similar backgrounds the differences are staggering.  They are more confident and happy, they're less likely to skip school or drop out, they could make goals and figure out how to reach them.  They also tested very high in the state standardized testing.  Which means most of them are at grade level. These children are having their basic health needs met, receiving academic assistance and getting adult support, and it took more then the Title I funds or Head Start to reach all the children in the school.  So the idea of cutting funding to Title I and Head Start, to further limiting the number of children they can help, is horrifying.  The effects of the budget cuts will be staggering and so hurtful to low income families and eventually the rest of the country.  Because everything is connected in some way, and the more one group falls into poverty, crime and illiteracy, the more everyone else does too.

Because of all of this I've signed the petition to save Head Start and I hope others will too.

Levels of Learning

A lot of schools and organizations talk about what level children are learning at or the need to increase higher level learning.  There are several options for exactly what they might mean, but probably they're discussing Bloom's Taxonomy.  Benjamin Bloom, with the assistance of several colleges, created levels of goals for the learning process for three different educational domains (Knowledge, Attitude/Emotions, and Physical Skills).  These levels start with the simplest skills and work up to the harder/higher levels.  Most educators, especially in regards to classrooms and testing, focus on the Knowledge Domain, so that's what I'll be explaining today.

Bloom's Taxonomy has been updated with some parts renamed or positions changed.  The image is of the original Taxonomy, but I'll discuss all the changes.  The first levels are at the bottom of the pyramid, these lower levels are necessary for the upper ones to be reached.

Knowledge/Remembering: This is the first and lowest level and has to do with recalling information. This means that a person is able to take in data, remember it and recite it back. The Key Words to describe this level of learning are defines, identifies, knows, lists, matches, recalls, recognizes and states.  For the other levels to build on this one it is necessary to remember this information for a long time.  Of course using this knowledge at a higher level helps with retaining it for a longer period of time.

Understanding/Comprehension: For most people to truely understand something they must be able to explain it in their own words.  So it's not just reciting a poem or reading a story but being able to explain the meaning of it. An example in math would be translating a word problem into a number problem. The Key Words are comprehends, converts, defends, estimates, explains, gives an example, infers, predicts and summarizes.

Application: This level is about using a concept or information in a new way.  Often this can mean an unprompted use of something a person already knows and understands.  Examples of this level in action are reading a recipe and changing the amounts of ingredients to fit the desired outcome or finding the theme of one story in class and continuing the find the themes of other books, movies, or TV shows without being asked to. The Key Words for this level are applies, changes, constructs, demonstrates, discovers, modifies, operates, produces, relates, shows, and solves.

Analysis: Refers to being able to break information into component parts. Examples are being able to learn the meaning of a new word from the context it's used in, recognizing logical fallacies and telling the difference between fact, opinion and inference.  The Key Words that describe this level are analyzes, breaks down, compares, contrasts, desconstructs, differentiates, distringuishes, identifies, illustrates, infers, relates and seperates.

The last two levels are sometimes switched in order, I'll be explaining them in the order they appear on the graphic. However, I think Evaluation comes before Synthesis.

Synthesis/Creation: This level is basically the opposite of  Analysis.  It is the taking of different parts/information and building a new structure/pattern/meaning.  Examples would be writing new classroom rules, designing a machine to complete a specific task, using information from history/politics/science to explain an author's intent or a book's theme in a reading class.  This is one of the more openended levels and a very difficult one to test for, especially on standardized tests.  The Key Words are catagorize, combines, creates, devises, designs, explains, generates, plans, rearranges, relates, revises and (re)writes.

Evaluation: This level involves making judgements about the value of information, ideas or materials.  In my opinion it is closely tied to Analysis.  Examples in action are selection the most effective solution to solve a math problem or science experiment, judging the worth/importance of historical documents, and being able to explain if the effect of a poem or story matches the author's intent. Key Words to describe this level are appraise, compares, concludes, critique, defends, discriminates, evaluate, interperets, judge, justifies, relates and supports.

Some acts or skills span two levels and some learning levels can be taught or performed at the same time as others.  For examples with reading, a person and read a book and gain knowledge and comprehension at basically the same time.  Likewise, a person can analyze information and evaluate it's worth in basically the same action.  This is because the higher levels are built on top of the lower ones.  So to learn at a higher level means you have already learned/or are currently learning at all the lower ones as well.  The importance of learning at all levels, and the difficulty in using Standardized Tests to assess the higher levels, are some of the main reasons for my dislike of High Stakes Testing, but that's another post.

Reading Levels

Knowing a child's reading level can be difficult.  Schools use different types of testing and classifications, few of which mean anything to people who don't work in education.  And quite honestly, the specifics of some of these systems are unknown to me too.  What follows is a comparison chart of the different systems used in schools in the US. Please remember that all children learn and develop at different speeds and there is no one right level for children of a specific age to be.  The stages contain a bunch of different levels and scores.  This list only goes up to the 6th grade, when really different reading levels exist beyond. I'll also explain what some of these stages and levels mean and how this translates to the real world.

Emergent Readers need guidance and assistance from adults, either one one one or in small groups.  They spend lots of time sounding words out.  Good books for Emergent Readers have predictable texts with sight words.  This means the sentences should have a formulaic structure, such as See Spot Run, and many of the words should be for physical objects or actions (bowl, dog, mirror, run, jump) or ones they see written in many places (stop, red).

Fluent Readers are able to read paragraphs and so should be reading easy chapter books.  They are developing the ability to read without lots of pauses or stumbling over words they are familiar with when reading out loud.  Fluent Readers are also working on reading to themselves and might start to be able to guess the meaning of new words from their context.  It is important for Early Fluent Readers to continue reading over school vacations so that they don't lose the skills they've gained.  Children at this stage should spend some time reading with an adult and some time reading to themselves.

Self Extending Readers mostly read to themselves.  When they read out loud they are able to do so clearly with a minimum of pauses.  They can learn the meaning of new words from examining their context.  Self Extending Readers can read chapter books that take days or even weeks to complete.  They are learning (or know) how to apply back round knowledge and connect texts with other books they have read.  Self extending readers have the skills to learn and improve their reading abilities on their own. 

What this means in every day life:

The basic reading level needed to function in adult life is generally considered to be 5th Grade.  Medication and assembly directions are often written at this level.  The newspaper USA Today writes at this level.  The adverage person or TV journalist speaks at this level.

The general highest reading level, outside of technical/area of a college degree, is 10th Grade.  High School Standardized Tests assess at this level. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are written at this level.  Any reading levels higher than this are related to a person's specific knowledge.  For example I have a degree in English/Creative writing and have taken college courses in Education, Womens Studies, and PostColonial Theory.  I read at the college level in these areas.  I know the specific jargon used and have the background information necessary to talk about the difference between "Post Colonial" and "PostColonial".  I do not have much college education in the sciences so if I read an article on medicine, global warming, or astrophysics, I can understand up to the 10th Grade reading level.  After that the information/writing is too specific and technical for me to understand.

Again, I feel it's important to state that these reading levels and stages are just a general guide line.  There are exceptions to all of these.  It's very possible for people to be Fluent or Self Eextending Readers and to not sound that way when reading aloud.  Also big jumps between reading levels are possible, especially for younger people. Because of my ADD and learning disabilities I was well behind most of my age group.  With tutoring from a specialist and reading out loud with my parents I jumped from being an Early Fluent to Self Extending Reader in half a year.  One of my roommates works at a middle school that is trying a new reading comprehension program.  They've just assessed its effectiveness and on average children's reading improved four grade levels in as many months.