ESGI for the New Year!

                         
I'm once again sharing my love of ESGI with you, because when I go back to school after break, I'll be diving in with my iPad, ready to assess my class and get a great starting point for each of them after their time off.

Assessing students with ESGI is not like other tedious, time consuming assessments.  Using ESGI allows me to quickly assess each of my students during free choice time- without piles of papers and messes of past assessments to file through and compare.   All past assessments are saved online.  As I call a student to the table to check shapes, or number recognition, or sight words, or letters  and sounds, it's a quick process - and that new data is saved along with any past data.  No paper. No mess. No stress.  The kids can't wait to come work with me. It's a game to them to come use the iPad with me.  We all love it.

Assessments weren't always this way.  Before ESGI, I had stacks of papers that I would rifle through to try to find someone's previous assessment to compare. I would have one from September, October, November, December- and I would have piles to go through.  Or papers with different colored ink that I tried to use to make it easier to keep track of the latest assessment.

Here is a reenactment:  (This is probably me...)

That all seems so frustrating to me now since I use ESGI.  I love the clean, easy, no fuss assessments- and the clean, orderly, no mess data.

We all have enough paperwork that we HAVE to have and keep- we don't need the children's assessments mixed in that mess.  This year before my subscription was updated, I thought I would just check some of the children's letters and sounds.

                          
 By the time I got going and looked back at what I'd done, I had lots of papers- and some confusing information to then organize and decipher.  This is what I used to do all the time, but once I was spoiled by ESGI, it was really hard to go back to it.  I just stopped screening, and waited to get my subscription! I knew it would be so much quicker and easier-and give me much more usable data to use my ESGI.

I use many of the assessments that are available from ESGI, like the letters and sounds, shapes, and number recognition.  ESGI offers so many great assessments that are already made!  I wanted to make a specific sight word assessment, using our specific  word list.  It was SO EASY to make.  And if I can do it, believe me... you can easily do it.

For ME to say that I don't ever want to assess without using ESGI on my iPad ever again, says a lot.  It says that ESGI makes it SO EASY and SO QUICK.  And then gives SO MUCH assistance to teachers to help with students' areas of weakness.

Not only done, but "meaningfully done."  By that I mean that after I assess my students, I can quickly see the what they have mastered and not mastered.

This time of year, I will be printing out sight word flashcards to send home with my students each week.  I keep one set at school to use for RTI when I have a few minutes or if I have another adult available to work with a student.  The kids can even work with each other with the flashcards! Here is a sample of flashcards for one of my students.

ESGI provides parent letters that you can print, with exactly what areas need to be worked on at home! Talk about a time saver! Here is a sample parent letter for the Letter ID assessment.

You can also edit the letter to parents.

Another favorite part of ESGI  is the Class Management tools.  I can print pages for name tracing, cubby names, table name plates, class lists... you name it! What a time saver this is!  I have several students still need some name writing practice.  I can print out name pages for those students to practice with one click!  So easy. I use these all the time in the beginning of the year for whole group practice, center time, and extra help at home.

 

As the year goes on, there are more and more benefits of ESGI.  If you want to learn more about ESGI and to get a free 60 day trial of the software, click here and try it out for yourself! Our district bought the subscription for our grade level.  It's so easy to show your administrator the benefits of ESGI.  We are encouraged to use more and more technology, so this fits perfectly into that, too.

I posted ALL about the benefits, bells and whistles,  and some examples of what ESGI offers HERE.  If you like using it and want to purchase the program, you can use my special PROMO CODE B1119 and receive $40 off your purchase for the first year. The price is usually $199 a year, but with the promo code, it will be $159 for the first year. Check with your administration because they may be able to purchase it for you. They can use the code and get it for $159 for the first year, too.  It's a great time of the year to try it out. 

It has made me actually enjoy assessments now, because I know I'm not going to be wasting time. It's quick and neat! The results are easy to see and the materials for RTI are already made for me!

I always like to get special opinions when I do an ESGI post. Here's a little visual story to explain the difference of assessing with and without using ESGI featuring some Disney Princesses if they were Disney Teachers...

Disney Teachers who just finished assessing without ESGI...

 Those SAME  Disney Teachers who used ESGI to assess their students!

Can you believe it?  I KNOW!  Give it a try.  I know you'll love it.

Thanks for stopping by!