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3 Ways to Track Student Reading Progress In French

With the many skills and assessments available to French teachers, how do you know which is best for tracking reading progress? How can you keep student tracking from becoming chaos? And how can you make student progress monitoring successful rather than just another to-do item? In this blog, I will share how you can keep data tracking simple and worth your time.

First, why is it important to track reading progress?

Measuring your students reading progress provides you with useful data that shapes instruction. It also helps you identify strengths and weaknesses, so you know what skills need additional help. Student tracking also provides feedback to parents and students. It is a great way to help students see their own growth and celebrate their successes!

How do I assess my students’ reading levels?

Step 1: Utilize a French reading assessment tool, such as the GB+ reading assessment. GB+ is an assessment kit that contains levelled readers, as well as assessment pages.

Step 2: Begin by having students read a levelled book from the assessment kit to themselves and then have them retell the story to you. You will take note of how detailed the student is in the retell, as well as if they need to refer back to the book or not. 

Step 3: Then, the student will read the book to you. You will use the assessment sheet to take a running record of their accuracy. It is important to write down what the student says when they say a word wrong. (Want a cheat sheet for making running records easy? Grab the freebie here.)

Step 4: Finally, ask the student the comprehension questions on the assessment sheet at the end. All of this information will then be compiled to determine the students reading level. To calculate this, you will divide the number of errors made by the number of words in the levelled reader. If the student is at a 90-95% accuracy, then the text is at their level. If they display a 95% accuracy or higher, the text is too easy. Lower than 90%, the text becomes too difficult and frustrating.

How do I track my students’ reading progress?

Tip #1: Track Data by Class

You can track student data by focusing on a particular class. My favorite way to track reading data by class is through a snapshot page. This provides a quick, easy visual on how the class is progressing as a whole, as well as the progress each student is making throughout the year.

With a snapshot page, you can conveniently inform your instruction. The snapshot will display which students need extra support or more guided instruction. By tracking reading data throughout the year like this, you’ll also get a quick glimpse of which students might be “stuck”.

If you want a ready-to-go snapshot page, you can use these tracking sheets.

Tip #2: Track Individual Growth

For a more comprehensive look at a student’s reading growth, we also want to track student data individually. I love to do this through a student profile. In the student profile, you will record your students’ strengths and “next steps”, meaning skills they are focusing on next.

This student profile helps you keep an eye on where students are at and monitor their progress. Are they meeting their “next steps” or remaining in place? This can then help you plan intervention or guided reading groups where you can hone in on specific skills.

If you want a ready-to-go student profile, you can use these tracking sheets.

Tip #3: Track Individual Reading Running Record

Running records are a key way to see students’ growth and measure fluency. By keeping individual running records, you can measure students’ decoding skills, reading behaviour, and overall reading skills. You can also add notes about student behaviours before, during, and after reading, and note if they were able to answer comprehension questions. 

If you want a free running record tracker, sign up on the form below! You’ll receive an individualized observation sheet, an editable running record sheet and a cheat sheet with all the codes you’ll need.

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