Welcome Back to ~~~
Who would’ve ever thought we would STILL be teaching remotely in August?!?! Definitely not me! I was so naive I thought after Spring Break I would be back teaching in the classroom last Spring!
Well, here we are starting the year off remotely and none of us ever could’ve imagined it would come to this!
My assignment as a Literacy Specialist for the first few weeks of school has been to assess ALL first graders by giving them a DRA. So I set up 1/2 hour time slots with Sign up Genius and have begun this task. It seemed daunting at first as I don’t know these kids…so I thought – I have to spend a couple minutes getting them to warm up to me and then dive right into testing…ugh!
But, it has actually been really fun getting to know these kids on line and assessing them. I’ve learned a lot in a short amount of time in regards to 1 on 1 testing on line.
I thought I would share some tips that make it much easier!
Google Meet:
Be sure to visit the Chrome extension store and grab Dualless. It will give you options for sharing your screen easily in Google Meet.
Once you have dualless selected – it will have a drop down menu – select the ratio that will work best for your assessing.
This allows you to EASILY see the child and the child can effortlessly see the text to read.
Another thing that has been super helpful is this ring light. It easily attaches to any device with a clamp and has different brightness settings to choose from…
You can grab yours here if you are interested: https://amzn.to/3lmFR67 { affiliate }
Another amazon product that has been super helpful is the computer stand…for a few reasons! One, your students aren’t seeing up your nose…not that they were before but it does give you a much better angle for your students viewing. For me though, it has relieved pressure from my shoulders. I found that I was hunching a bit without even realizing it – now the computer is eye level and it has made all the difference.
If you are interested here is the link: https://amzn.to/31uE7ji { affiliate }
Now onto Zoom which is super easy for adjusting your screen sharing…
If you are using phonics assessments or a benchmark assessment through F & P , DRA, etc. you can have the book or phonics assesment page ready as a tab to share and adjust as needed.
I usually have the book large for the students but still want to see the student to see if I can pick up on any strategies they are using that I would normally notice easily in person but have to dig a little deeper to notice on line. I did see a child this week point to the screen to be sure after the repeated a word and used 1 to 1 correspondence to remedy the situation. I also noticed a child counting out syllables and finger spelling a cvc word to help them.
So, if you are able be sure to look for those behaviors so you can better assist them in your reading groups.
Well… there you have it, I hope this helped you out whether your district uses Google Meet or Zoom. Let me know how it goes for you in Instagram or fb or in the comments below.
Happy { virtual } teaching my friends,
