Reading Assessments For First Graders Missing Tooth Grins

Leo Migdal

-Dec 9, 2025, 9:36 PM

reading assessments for first graders missing tooth grins

At the beginning of the year, we are busy with mastering routines, building community, and solidifying procedures with our students so that the rest of the school year can run smoothly. What else are teachers doing? Giving reading assessments—one-on-one assessments to students—and figuring out the best way to group students to continue building reading skills and helping them become stronger readers. In this blog post, I will share a few of my favorite informal assessments to gauge students’ reading comprehension, sight words, and phonics skills, and provide insights on how these assessments guide instruction. First grade is a pivotal year in a child’s reading development. It’s the time when students transition from learning to read to reading to learn.

Early reading assessments are crucial because they help identify students who may be struggling before these struggles become entrenched. For instance, if a student has difficulty with phonemic awareness, this might not be immediately obvious during regular classroom activities, but an assessment can highlight this issue, allowing for early intervention. By detecting these challenges early, teachers can implement targeted support strategies, such as additional phonics instruction or one-on-one reading sessions, to help these students catch up with their peers. Early intervention not only improves a student’s reading skills but also boosts their confidence and engagement in learning. Every classroom is filled with students at varying levels of reading proficiency. Reading assessments provide valuable data that enable teachers to differentiate instruction.

For example, while some students may need more practice with basic decoding skills, others might be ready to tackle comprehension strategies or explore more complex texts. With the insights gained from reading assessments, you can group students based on their needs and provide instruction that meets each student where they are. This tailored approach ensures that all students, regardless of their current reading level, are being challenged appropriately and given the support they need to grow. This data also allows for flexible grouping, where students can move between groups as their skills evolve. Rather than locking students into a “reading level,” informal assessments allow teachers to respond to student progress. Do you teach kindergarten, first, or second grade?

I create and give new ideas for teaching math, reading, and writing in the primary grades. Picture this: two students are in your classroom. One student devours books at every opportunity, while the other groans at… Read More At the beginning of the year, we are busy with mastering routines, building community, and solidifying procedures with our students… Read More Using color by code printables is a fun way for young learners to practice different skills, such as letter recognition,… Read More What is the best way to organize my classroom library?

Do I organize them by reading level? How can young… Read More Children’s Books For Point Of View This list of books for teaching point of view will help your students understand… Read More Making predictions can be a tough concept to teach; however, with the right lesson plans and activities, it doesn’t have to be! This comprehensive, thorough Making Predictions Reading Unit is a great addition to your reader’s workshop and mini lessons. This unit is filled with engaging lesson plans, reading center, small group activities, and more!

Full, complete lesson plans are included, as well as assessments, small group work, reading passages, and colorful centers. Students will enjoy the group activity, “Prediction Investigations” where they look at clues to predict what the topic of the envelope is. Students will love the fun activities and teachers will love the easy set-up! Get your planning time back! You can plan a lesson plan for each day or extend one plan over 2 days and fit in the additional activities throughout. In my classroom, I would plan to spend 2 days on each lesson plan so that I could add in the other activities that are included.

I would also use the discussion cards that are included in both a whole group and small group setting. When you use this reading unit, you will be able to effectively teach your students to make predictions before, while, and after they read. The lesson plans make it simple to set up your instruction. While teaching our first graders letter sounds, how to decode, and read words, we also need to teach them comprehension strategies so that they can understand what they are actually reading. This is why I feel like first grade is such a big deal in the reading world. 1st grade teachers have to teach these students to read words and to understand their reading.

It’s such a big job! This is why 1st grade teachers are magical. Our first grade units include hands-on activities, engaging lesson plans, reading passages, anchor charts, small group activities, graphic organizer worksheets, and more for different comprehension skills. These reading units are aligned to the common core. Some of these units could be used in 2nd grade if your students have not yet mastered the comprehension skill or you just need additional material. There are reading centers included in the different reading units to include in your literacy block as well.

Most units have weekly lessons (and it’s currently being updated to have more). In this blog post, I am going to break down the different reading units and the reading skills they focus on. A great way to teach different reading skills is with mentor texts as well. Make sure to check out the different links with books lists for each reading skill. It is important for first graders to be able to make connections while they read. When they can make connections between what they are reading and how they can relate to the story, they will have a deeper comprehension and critical thinking of the text.

In this unit, they learn to make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections while reading fiction texts. They learn to make connections between people, between ideas and information, and events when reading non-fiction texts. Here’s what is included in this reading unit for both fiction and nonfiction:

Reading Assessments For First Graders Missing Tooth Grins

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