verb or no verb?

I'm wrapping up my district assessments now.

I was noticing in yesterday's classes that some students were not using verbs in their sentences, while others were over-generalizing the use of the third-person singular.

Actually, I always notice this. It's hard not to.

But having just read the article on order of acquisition, it's making perhaps a more profound impact on my thinking process.

I have this rubric I'm supposed to use to score each child. One of the categories on it is verb conjugation. And now I hate that some students who have come so far this year will be dinged so hard on this exam simply because they just aren't "there" yet. I am reminded, once again, that in the educational system we are just expecting that all students will learn the same material at the same pace all year long. Even in my school where we thrive on individualization, we still have this expectation.