In March, the last month of the academic year, the children in our Libraries in School program answer a library test. We call this the End line test. Here, a story is read out and then the children answer the test based on this story. We designed the test to assess the children’s comprehension and creative writing skills.
The team’s preparation for this started over a month in advance. The most difficult part was selecting the story that could be used for testing. Every week the team would come up with text suggestions which would then be analyzed and discussed to see if it was suitable. We tried to select such books that were comparable to the Base line test that was done at the beginning of the academic year.
We then had a discussion about these texts with Dr. Rama Mathew. She reviewed these texts and gave us valuable feedback. But most importantly she gave us many insights about various assessment techniques.
I learned that oral tests can better help capture comprehension of the children than written tests. This is especially helpful for children who struggle with writing. Rama introduced the concept of Bias for the Best i.e. allow and encourage the best in language learners.
I also learnt that if a question is testing for comprehension, then we must check only for that and not focus on grammar and spelling. If it is an expressive writing task, the children must be given the choice of answering in their own language. This made me realize that we are library educators, and we cannot take on the role of English teachers.
An important change we made this time in administering the test was giving more attention to the children who otherwise struggle with reading and writing. We did this by separating the children based on their reading levels and then administering the test. We read out the questions, did literal translation in the local language, gave the children enough time to complete the answers. We also included a drawing question in the test so the children can express their understanding of the story in a visual form.
My greatest learning from this experience was that testing should be a reflection of teaching. As teachers and educators, we must give opportunity to our children to do their best, and small successes in small tests will go a long way in making children better learners. This was so evident in the smiles of the children after they handed over their papers.