Teacher Tip: Conduct a Self-Assessment to Elevate Your Teaching

Take the time to reflect on your teaching. Select one instructional setting a week and analyze: How did it go? How did students respond? What shifts in learning are you confident that took place? Don’t get mired in the details or expect to do everything perfectly, but notice whether you and your students are beginning to handle routines smoothly and automatically, leaving more time for rich talk and thinking. Call in a colleague to observe, and talk through your self-assessment with her. 

For the purpose of guided reading, we include a Self-Assessment for Guided Reading on p.590 of Guided Reading: Responsive Teaching Across the Grades and in Online Resources (resources.fountasandpinnell.com). It is comprehensive, but you can select one or only a few areas at a time. We also include a simpler and more abbreviated self-reflection form (Self-Assessment: Getting Started with Guided Reading). In our other professional books and on our website, you will find many such tools to support your continuous learning. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of self-reflection and professional development is the talk and problem solving that takes place between colleagues as a result.

From Guided Reading: Responsive Teaching Across the Grades by Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. Copyright (C) 2017 by Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. Published by Heinemann.