This one’s special for Texas. I guess I should say Yee-Hah! Except I don’t really like Texas-y stuff. Or cowboys. Or the Dallas Cowboys. Or oil.
I guess I’m not a very good Texan.
Not only that, I hate
-and this is a big one-
I. Hate. The. STAAR.
gasp! What? you say. But I hate it.
I know. You’re nice. But I’m not.*note: I know you don’t love it. That was sarcasm.*
I hate it. I hate it so so so much because it makes me think about that instead of ways to make learning relevant and awesome. I still think about relevance and awesomeness most of the time, but a part of the time, I have to think about STAAR. (They say relevance is a part of it, but you know what I mean. Real relevance and STAAR relevance are different.)
Now, the little people we work with shouldn’t worry about the STAAR. That makes me sad that they do. We don’t want them thinking that the only way to show what they know is by taking a multiple-choice test and filling in some bubbles. But, on the other hand, they will have to take tests for the rest of their lives, to do pretty much anything they want to do. Fortunately, they’ll be adults someday and not little children who we’re stifling. But for now, you know, we do what we do.
There’s another special thing about Texas. We don’t do Common Core. At all. We have our own standards that may or may not align with Common Core. They’re the TEKS. And they’re not bad, actually, in reading. They’re genre-based, which is good.
So I tried to think of a fun way for kids to track their progress towards the student expectations they have to learn. A way that would help them see how they’re improving based on specific standards they have to master. It’s also a great way for teachers to track student progress and identify areas they need to plan for intervention and review! The Reading TEKS assessed in 2023 according to the assessed curriculum guides are all included!
I added a place for the kids to record their scores on assessments and a little color code key. It’s available for grades 3, 4, and 5!
I hope you like it and can use it. And, if you’re not from Texas, go back and check out the generic reading assessment graph I made. Maybe you’ll be able to use that one! Pin It 
Good idea. And don't worry. I'm also a bad Texan. That's why I live in Austin. 🙂
The Science Penguin
Great idea! Do you know of any similar resources for 6th and 7th grade reading TEKS?
I can't think of any, actually. But if you downloaded the assessed curriculum from TEA you could make something similar.