Using BOY Benchmark Assessments to Group Students

Determining Overall Microphase

After your BOY Benchmark Assessments are complete, use the assessment scores to place students in their respective microphases. It's possible that students may receive different microphase scores on different assessments. When a student places later with decoding skills than encoding skills, the teacher should take very detailed notes about the data from the assessment, paying close attention to the skills that need to be reinforced.

For example, the student might have difficulty identifying the media vowel sound and omit this in their writing, or maybe the student forgets to add the ending vowel to the bossy "r" words. In either case, we must ensure that the learning of a particular skill or pattern is solid. If we advance the student based on the decoding score and not the encoding score, we run the risk of widening the gap in the student's learning because the complexity of spelling and having a firm knowledge of phonetic patterns will increase over time.

The aim of the curriculum is to ensure that the student is both decoding and encoding at the same level. It is advised to default to the earliest microphase to fill the missing gaps. Through progress monitoring along the way, teachers can later determine if the student is ready to advance to a later microphase based on data fom cycle assessments and benchmark assessments.

Grouping Students into Microphases

As you create groups, consider how many students you'd like in each group, and how many groups feel manageable for your classroom. Ideally, every student would be placed in a group that directly corresponds to their microphase. However, you may need to make some adjustments based on what's manageable for your classroom. Groupings should be determined based on data from the Benchmark Assessment. If you have a large cohort of students at one microphase, consider splitting them into two groups, both working at the same microphase. Keep in mind that we suggest you meet with groups below grade level every day, and groups on or above grade level 1-2 times a week. Use your expertise to make informed grouping decisions in these cases.

Re-Grouping Students Throughout the Year

The curriculum suggests microphases based on student performance on benchmark assessments. We recommend that you administer the Benchmark Assessment at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. While re-grouping students comes naturally at the mid-year assessment, students may shift groups at other times if they are accelerating faster than their group or need additional practice. Students are dynamic people who are ever-evolving and for this reason, progress monitoring is especially important for students who appear to exceed or lage behind in a microphase. Conducting frequent cycle assessments and monitoring snapshot and exit ticket assessment results is the most efficient way to determine if students are ready to move on to the next microphase, or need more support in their current microphase. when time permits, administering the benchmark assessment in a shorter interval will be helpful to determine movement. This should only be done with the few students who seem to be overly exceeding or lagging behind in the current microphase.

Note: If students are advanced to a higher microphase in their differentiated groups, teachers will need to ensure that students are proficient at the cycle content they skipped.

Grouping Students and Sample Schedules