With the pressures of state testing and the College and Career Readiness Performance Index, our school’s Better Seeking Team examined what we could do to increase student achievement. During our investigation, we realized our students in grades three and five were not doing well in the literacy area, specifically with their Lexile scores. First of all, Lexile was not something we knew much about because our school had always used grade equivalency, not Lexile to measure students’ reading ability. This curriculum-based issue would need more concentration, not just for our students but for our teachers as well. Secondly, we realized the impact these Lexile scores had on our students’ overall GA Milestones scores. After all, it is the Lexile score …show more content…
I assembled this group by inviting the reading teacher from fifth grade along with a classroom teacher from fourth grade since we would be concentrating on fourth and fifth grades. I also asked a teacher from the Program for Exceptional children to be on the team, along with a teacher from the Early Intervention Program. Our school media specialist also attended the meetings to help when needed. After organizing this team, we dove right into the data since most of the team members were not part of the Better Seeking Team. I led them in analyzing the data from the GA Milestones and from the STAR reading assessments to see that Lexile was a major concern for our school. In fact, they worked together to make a chart of the average of our students’ Lexile scores from the Fall STAR Reading Assessment. That data alone was frightening with only 26% of our fourth graders meeting the Lexile measure and only 42% of the fifth graders with a meeting score; we all knew we had a curriculum-based issue, and it needed our attention right …show more content…
They were able to feel this due to the power being put into their hands. I was able to share the data with them in which they found an area of concern, Lexile levels. Then they were able to take the information from the data analysis to research ways to improve our curriculum-based issue. They were able to narrow down the research with my leadership and found teaching research-based teaching strategies to begin implementing in the classroom. They learned this process takes time and dedication, along with ongoing data analysis to ensure student achievement. It instilled a sense of urgency and independence that made lasting impressions. Since going through this process, the Lexile Improvement Team has now evolved into our school’s Literacy Professional Learning Community. I continue to lead this PLC in leading literacy initiatives for our school. With this PLC, I have led this group of teachers in establishing trusting relationships with peer teachers in order to be successful and to continuously increase student
This is a reading intervention classroom of six 3rd grade students ages 9-10. This intervention group focuses on phonics, fluency, and comprehension. The students were placed in this group based on the results of the DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency assessment. Students in this class lack basic decoding skills.
I work in an elementary school as the ELL support and have seen first- hand how the program works in our school. Over a year ago many of teachers in our school deployed students by reading ability to different classrooms to receive reading instruction at their reading level. Unfortunately, the homeroom teacher was not able to know their student as a “reader”. It was especially difficult to share reading progress with parent at conferences unless the reading teacher was there at attend. Students in the classrooms worked on similar needs. Teacher used their own systems of delivery. Teachers used the anthology for teaching reading and pulled from their own sources. Some students who were deployed were apprehensive about going to another room and it...
The reading plan includes at least two interventions with a proven intervention program like Star Reading, Success Maker, Words Their Way, or other
...racy skills to function as adults, and we have a responsibility to our students to help them acquire those skills. We need to improve our weak characteristics of our campus and continue to use our strengths to develop new programs that will benefit our students’ abilities. If given the chance to improve my campus’s literacy programs, I would do whatever it took to make it a success and I would use multiple resources to find answers to questions that I could not answer. I would bring all these things together to make an after school literacy program a success.
The need for basic literacy skills is vital in order for our nation to continue to operate successfully. With approximately 5 million students, graduating below the National Standard for Literacy and unable to read, we must take a look at the curriculum and teaching techniques to assess whether the current systems need to be revised to better assure ALL students are successful. (Adolescent Literacy: A Policy Research Belief p. 1) The issue begins first with the definition of “Literacy”, and the fact that there are several aspects of literacy which are not currently included in the curriculum. Another issue is the “old” standards which are in place do not support the level of diversity which is now seen in many school systems. Then comes the issue of funding for schools and many schools in better neighborhoods obtain the highest level of private, and public funding and therefore are able to provide the higher level of education. However, in “The Literacy Education for All, Results for the Nation (LEARN) Act”, Senator Patty Murray states, “Research also shows that low income children are less likely to have access to high quality, literacy rich environments. These same children perform 40% lower on assessments of literacy achievement even before they start kindergarten.” (Murray) So, whose responsibility is it to ensure the success of the upcoming generations? Will the Federal Government step in to create a better system for the generations to come? There are quite a few solutions which have been used by Teachers, but with such an “old” system in place the issues of diversity, financial demand, inflexibility of the curriculum to assist individual students, classroom sizes increasing on a yearly basis, pressure to achieve sp...
According to Thompson, Madhuri, & Taylor (2008), educators across the nation have longed for the magic bullet that transforms struggling and reluctant students into high performing and motivated readers. This preoccupation has been debated throughout time (approximately how long?), and still continues today (Chall, 1967; Goodman, 1996; Honig, 2000; McQuillan, 1998). The first wave of AR users began in the late 1990s, just prior to the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In 2001, the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act promised to bring hope to the nation by ensuring that updated mandates would enable all students to be ready for the academic demands of the future. Along with the NCLB came tremendous pressure for schools to increase the standardized achievement scores of students across diverse groups. In order to satisfy the law’s demands,
If there is one general consensus among those who analyze America’s system of education, it is that we are lacking somewhere. Whether it’s in our inner-city schools, or rural districts, there is a distinct literacy dilemma that has yet to be resolved in our schools. Not only are we gravely behind other nations in our literacy rate and mathematics abilities, but there is also an increasing void within our schools. A method of segregation known as “ability grouping” has been a commonly used practice throughout the 90’s, and has changed the way in which primary and secondary school students are educated.
For my community involvement project, I volunteered at Memminger Elementary School for a program called “Reading Partners.” The program focuses on helping children build strong literacy skills to carry with them into their academic careers. It requires the tutor to read to the student that has been assigned, and in turn, the student reads to the tutor. The program assists in teaching the students valuable reading skills. Being able to read is critical to a child’s educational success.
Growing up, I contemplated a future in the education field; I enjoyed my experiences volunteering with children and I have always been intrinsically motivated to learn. When I started college, I decided to delve into the social sciences, but I never forgot about my interest in education. The summer of my freshman year, I joined the education team through the University of Arkansas’ community development program in Belize. I worked with my co-teacher (a senior education major), and education and literature professors to create creative writing lesson plans and methods to improve literacy for underperforming children. In Belize, my co-teacher and I facilitated daily literacy skill small groups for 2nd and 3rd graders and taught creative writing lessons with 4th and 5th graders. This experience not only strengthened my desire to work in education, but also awakened my awareness of how different levels of educational privileges affect students. I recognized, however, that while I was energized by this experience, I still lacked the skills and training that would allow me to most efficiently help
An effective school leader possesses skills to create, implement, evaluate, improve and share a staff development plan. I met with Ben Rhodes, Sandy Creek Middle School’s principal, to interview him on the specific elements of his yearly staff development plan. We began with the design process focusing on the district and school goals. District goals include improving literacy across the content areas in reading and writing, Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum (GVC). Guaranteed and Viable Technology (GVT), and Closing the Achievement Gap (Equity in Excellence). Using a variety of assessments to focus on specific needs, Ben Rhodes and Mary Sonya, our Pupil Achievement Specialist, examined CSAP, Explore, MAP, and RAD data. They use the Colorado Growth Model to help guide them to determine if students have made adequate yearly progress. Together, they created the plan that included the district goals mentioned above as well as continuing to include new technology skills, information on special education changes with Response to Intervention (RTI), maintaining current staff implementation of literacy goals and a new goal of raising achievement in math.
The Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT) is the statewide test that measures the academic achievement of public school students towards meeting the Sunshine State Standards benchmarks. The quarterly Reading and Mathematics Benchmark Assessment exams gauge student achievement on individual strands based on these Sunshine State Standards, which school districts require schools to administer to students within the appropriate content area. Teachers and administrators pour over the information at the conclusion of the exam and the data mining gets underway. The data is analyzed and scrutinized and teachers present their interpretation of the data to the administration to determine what modifications need to take place within their classrooms. The teachers, principal and school district utilize the data obtained from the Benchmark Assessments to determine the level of student achievement within the classroom and create a strategy that will target those benchmarks in which student performance was low. The vital issue with the data driven classroom is the effectiveness of the teachers and administrators at interpreting the data from these high stakes tests and constructing a successful plan that guides instruction based on the needs of the classroom, which continuously change.
First, when an educator makes grouping flexible, all students have the opportunity to reach benchmarks. While Oscar was not exactly at the level of his peers, through cognitive partnership, peers are capable of advancing each other’s learning. Second, encouraging students to perform higher-order thinking extends children’s learning. Although Oscar mentioned that the story was about helping a friend, by asking the right question, students made real-life connections. Third, by making personal connections and text-to-text connections, students experience learning that is meaningful, relevant, and coherent. Finally, educators should always have the mindset to “teach up.” I appreciate that Ms. Durkin did not underestimate her students’ abilities to learn the word empathy. As an abstract noun, she related the reading passage to the idea and quality of being a compassionate friend. Ms. Durkin truly aims high with learning and makes sure she scaffolds her students to reach those
In the article: Effects of Small-Group Reading Instruction and Curriculum Differences for Students Most at Risk in Kindergarten by Debra Kamps, Mary Abbott, Charles Greenwood Howard Wills, Mary Veerkamp, and ,Jorun Kaufman they argue that the implementation of small group reading intervention done on the three-tier model of prevention and intervention were beneficial to students. The study was conducted using 83 at risk (reading failure) students during the winter of kindergarten. It was an evidence-based curriculum done in groups of one to six. They concluded that students in the small interven...
In the 1980’s a report called “A Nation At Risk” stated that American children had fallen behind in such subjects as math and science. Thus came the advent of education’s increased focus on literacy and numeracy, accountability and academic standards. These high standards, according to Dumas (2000), are the most significant trend in schools today.
Authentic assessment, though sometimes referred to as performance-based assessment is not a new idea, in fact its history dates back to the 1950’s. With more than half a century of debate on the subject in varying branches of thought, this paper will focus on a few of the key concepts of authentic assessment as seen through the lens of an artist. An investigation of the literature begins with a brief look at the historical concept of mastery as was practiced through the ancient system of patronage, workshops, and guilds. The discussion that follows will examine the theoretical thought on authentic assessment and the implications for practice.