Grasp Levels

With all of the focus on data analysis in the classrooms lately, how can children communicate their own learning?  With these Grasp Level communication posters!! 

  This concept was actually introduced to me many years ago when I was first completing my teaching degree.  That was almost 10 years ago and I can no longer find information on the original grasp levels (I remember there had been 7 of them).  So these posters represent my perspectives of how well students can communicate what they understand.  They tie in both with scaffolding the students from teacher-led, to partner practice, to independent work through the Gradual Release Model of Instruction and balance with Bloom's Taxonomy for higher level thinking.  I believe it is very important for us to not only teach the students how to learn, but how they learn.  

When these are first introduced you can even have students identify how well they "grasp" classroom behavior!

  I created different posters for different age groups and all are done with a scale of 1 to 5 for quick teacher assessment by having students hold up the number of fingers they feel describes their grasp of the concept during a lesson.  The posters progress (all included in the pack) from pictures and numbers for the youngest learners to pictures, numbers, words, and strategies for attaining the different levels on the last poster.  Also included are gray-scale posters so copies can be made easily and shared in student data packs, binders, or at parent night.

  The last idea I love for using these posters include easily pairing students by their grasp levels.  For example, if a student feels they are at a level 4, they can show it by helping a level 1.  Some students can also learn from a role model at the level just above them increasing learning through cooperative learning and student engagement.  Can you grasp the usefulness of these posters? :)  Click here!