Checking For Student Comprehension

Checking for Student Comprehension

How do you get students to show you what they know? 

The number one job that a teacher has is to assess his/her students. It is knowing what the students know and what they don’t that gives teachers the information they need to set their students up for success.  Comprehension checks are invaluable assessment tools. 

The trick is always, ‘how do I get them to show me what they know?’  Once we figure this out, we can give students an opportunity to demonstrate their level of understanding and adapt our instruction according to their needs.

There are both effective and not-so effective ways to check for comprehension.  Here are five typical ways teachers check student understanding:

1. The Look:  This instructor looks at the students’ faces and thinks, “They all seemed to understand.”
2. The Feeling:  This teacher scans the classroom with his/her intuition and says, “It really felt like they were getting it.”
3. The Question:  This educator asks the class if they understand and states, “I asked them and they all nodded, yes.”
4. The Test:  This instructor uses formal test, reviews it and considers, “It looks like they’re getting this but not that.”
5. The Show & Tell:  This teacher gets the students to show they understand and considers, “What is this telling me about the students’ needs?”

Checking for comprehension is not only vital, but it can be a wonderful way to engage students when done effectively.

 More on Comprehension Checking Strategies...

Information on K12 Professional Development
Checking for Comprehension and SIOP

How do I plan a multilevel lesson?

Best Practices in Multi-level Teaching:

Planning a multi-level lesson

Teaching a multi-level class can be a fabulous experience or a frustrating endeavor. While every class can be classified as a multi-level language class (students are, after all, individuals), there is something unique about teaching a class where a portion of the class has a higher or lower proficiency level than the rest.

The principal challenge in multi-level teaching (MLT) lies with designing and delivering a lesson that sets every student up for success, regardless of the proficiency level. 

Multi-level teaching Mixed Ability Groups

Teaching in a way that invites both the lower-level and higher-level students engage them in their own learning process.  Refer to Actively Engaging Students in the classroom for more on this subject.

Structuring a multi-level lesson appropriately makes sure you’ve consciously considered how to scaffold each group of students towards language ownership.  It also encourages you to consider how you will give the students opportunities to work with peers who share their proficiency level and with those who don’t share their level of language proficiency. 

In this segment of our Multi-Level Teaching series, we will unpack a model multi-level lesson to uncover more principles of multi-level teaching (MLT).

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