I have checked in with all three teachers I provided the training to. I have worked the most with the 7th grade teacher. She gave the students the pre-assessment in early September 2021. I answered questions she had during the scoring process of student writing samples. Questions that came up are bolded and my responses are italicized.
1. How to score a run-on sentence? It depends on what is going to be the most helpful to you when it comes to instruction. If it would be complete if it had a comma in the right place you could score it complete and note the sentence was a compound sentence but was missing a comma. In that situation when you teach compound sentences the focus for that student maybe more on comma usage and placement. However, if the run-on sentence needed more than just a comma to make it complete, you should score it as an incomplete sentence and note that it was a run on.
2. How to score a sentence if there is no capital at the beginning of the sentence? As far as capitalization goes, I would not count it as a complete sentence if it does not have a beginning capital. I might note that is was a simple sentence, compound sentence, etc. and no capitalization but I would not give credit for it. The manual says it can count if there is end punctuation prior when scoring the pre-assessment but that is not the case later on. I prefer to be consistent as it is a better indicator of progress and growth. Susan Trumbo (my trainer) said something along these lines to me a few years ago.
3. Will it count as a simple sentence out the words are spelled wrong? It will count as a simple sentence if words are misspelled. If words are left out then it would not.
The 7th grade teacher has said that instruction on the strategy is going well. One of the biggest challenges (an this is true for all teachers and all subjects this year) has been disruptions to individual students instruction and progress due to being quarantined, etc. I did share with the teacher some tips including making instructional videos for students to watch, creating Schoology assessments or Quizziz games (both of which are self scoring) that students can complete and repeat to practice skills (such as identifying subjects, verbs, PENS steps, etc.).
1. How to score a run-on sentence? It depends on what is going to be the most helpful to you when it comes to instruction. If it would be complete if it had a comma in the right place you could score it complete and note the sentence was a compound sentence but was missing a comma. In that situation when you teach compound sentences the focus for that student maybe more on comma usage and placement. However, if the run-on sentence needed more than just a comma to make it complete, you should score it as an incomplete sentence and note that it was a run on.
2. How to score a sentence if there is no capital at the beginning of the sentence? As far as capitalization goes, I would not count it as a complete sentence if it does not have a beginning capital. I might note that is was a simple sentence, compound sentence, etc. and no capitalization but I would not give credit for it. The manual says it can count if there is end punctuation prior when scoring the pre-assessment but that is not the case later on. I prefer to be consistent as it is a better indicator of progress and growth. Susan Trumbo (my trainer) said something along these lines to me a few years ago.
3. Will it count as a simple sentence out the words are spelled wrong? It will count as a simple sentence if words are misspelled. If words are left out then it would not.
The 7th grade teacher has said that instruction on the strategy is going well. One of the biggest challenges (an this is true for all teachers and all subjects this year) has been disruptions to individual students instruction and progress due to being quarantined, etc. I did share with the teacher some tips including making instructional videos for students to watch, creating Schoology assessments or Quizziz games (both of which are self scoring) that students can complete and repeat to practice skills (such as identifying subjects, verbs, PENS steps, etc.).