Assessment
We provide three types of feedback to your child in addition to our regular live help hours:
Feedback On Individual Practice Items
June Writers scores each practice item your child completes and shares those scores with you and your child at the end of every week. We also provide written feedback, where helpful; give guidance to parents on how to give feedback; offer regular live help hours to discuss writing questions and roadblocks for both kids and parents; and will return any practices that aren’t complete with information on what’s missing.
Unlike some other disciplines, writing is a funny beast when it comes to feedback and assessment. We need to balance immediate praise and critique with giving room to children to try new, scary skills, make Big Brain Leaps, and hold onto their joy. Did they neglect to capitalize the beginning of their sentences on this practice but make no other mistakes because they don’t know the convention or because they’re being silly or pointedly, surgically trying to get a rise out of you—an adult who always reminds them about capitalization? Are they using “creative spelling” because they think it’s roll-on-the-floor funny and their deliberate mistakes reflect a sophisticated understanding of spelling and language or because they truly don’t know how to spell? Sometimes it’s hard to tell in a single practice if you aren’t familiar with a child’s writing. Patterns emerge across multiple practices, and there’s little that bugs kids more than being misunderstood. So we support the whole ecosystem of the family when approaching feedback during practices.
Practice feedback: An example of our written feedback on individual practice items.
Weekly progress reports: We send you weekly progress reports, including overall scores for your child’s recently completed practices, and links to incomplete practices.
We include star ratings of individual practices in your student’s weekly progress report:
⭐️ = Not yet demonstrating mastery of the skills in play in the practice
⭐️⭐️ = Demonstrates mastery of the skills in play in the practice
⭐️⭐️⭐️ = Demonstrates especially strong mastery of the skills in play in the practice
When we give one star on a practice, we usually also include specific suggestions on how to improve or revisit the practice in our written comments. It is up to you and your child whether to follow that advice. You’re welcome to re-do the practice with our tips in mind or move forward with that advice in mind. If a child reaches the end of a lesson and has not yet demonstrated mastery, we will ask them to pause and spend more time in that lesson before advancing. Note that we also may include specific next-step recommendations for kids who receive two stars on their practice. Again, it’s ultimately up to you and your child whether to follow that advice.
2. End-of-Level Assessments
At the end of each level of the June Writers program, we ask your child to complete three tests and one self-reflection exercise. The purpose of these tests is to check whether your child has mastered the concepts and skills in the level, give you and your child feedback on the current strengths and weaknesses of their writing, and figure out the best next steps in their development as writers and thinkers. We recommend having your child complete each test in a separate work session because the exercises require time and deep thought. We also encourage you to make sure that your child takes the time to complete the self-reflection exercise, even if you decide it makes more sense to have them record themselves speaking rather than writing their thoughts. It’s more important that they do the self-reflection than that they do it a certain way.
After your child completes the tests, June Writers will review each one, assign scores to both specific skills and the overall test, and then send you and your child a message with scores, personalized written feedback on their test and overall body of work, and recommendations for next steps. Please allow 24 hours for our response, Monday through Friday*.
⭐️ = Not yet demonstrating mastery, needs more time to work on current level skills
⭐️⭐️ = Demonstrates mastery and ready to advance to the next level
⭐️⭐️⭐️ = Demonstrates especially strong mastery and ready to advance to the next level
Important: Our overall assessment grade for a test will not be an average of the particular skill grades. We do not advance children who have not yet mastered the expected level of critical thinking for that level even if their mechanical skills are solid. Grading writing is a subjective process and we strive to be consistent and fair while holding our June Writers to a high standard. Our goal is to give you and your child concrete and meaningful information that you can use to appreciate where your child is in their development and where to focus next, all while never losing sight of the critical importance of joy for children of this age.
Test Scoring: We’ve assigned skills to each practice item and test. You will receive overall scores for practice items in your weekly progress reports. For tests, you will receive scores for both the individual skills and the overall test. Our goal is to give you concrete, meaningful information about your child’s development and next steps.
Test Scoring: June Writers wants your child’s writing to reflect mastery of mechanics and comfort with complex thought. We assess both in our tests.
*Our responses will be slower during national holidays.
3. Final Assessment
When your child finishes Level 11, they will be ready for our final assessment series. The goal of these four tests and the self-reflection exercise is to check whether your child is ready to move on to advanced academics. Children who complete the June Writers program will be ready to use writing to learn at a deep level—anywhere. This means that they’ll be able to use writing as a way of grappling with complex topics across any subject, whether it be a science paper or an analysis of power dynamics and imagery in Macbeth. Just as young children move through learning to read to reading to learn, your child will have moved through learning to write to writing to learn. And perhaps—perhaps—they’ll also now write the most fantastic Happy Birthday cards.
