I had two rising 4th graders take the starter diagnostic. When I analyzed their errors, I found they were not really diagnostic of what quill thought they were diagnostic of: for the prompt "The athlete goal is to win medal at all of her competition this season", both students wrote "he athlete’s goal is to win a medal at all of her competitions this season" and got marked incorrect - but "a medal" seems a more natural solution that "medals" For the prompt "It is another cold day in Seattle. It is another windy day in Seattle", one student wrote "it's another cold and windy day in seattle" - that has capitalization errors but the diagnosis is failing to coordinate adjectives before a noun. Scoring needs to match the diagnosis to the error and, eg, ignore other errors. Similarly "Pho is a soup made with herbs,bone broth and noodles" was scored incorrect either because of a missing space (which seems a little harsh) or no oxford comma (which seems debatable). Another was scored incorrect because of the typo "beatch" for beach. I get the idea of requiring accurate typing and so marking those responses incorrect is not my problem. It is that the diagnosis should be "check your typing" not "fails to coordinate adjectives and adverbs." Otherwise, love quill! Thanks laurence.holt@gmail.com
