The following provides an update on curriculum issues and assessment/screening issues in the district.
Reading
The Reading Committee will meet on January 24, 2011 to continue working on the Reading Academic Vocabulary Project. The completed project will enable teachers to implement a common instructional approach to teaching academic vocabulary throughout the district. The committee will review the 2010-2011 Winter Benchmark Triangles; schedule dates for AIMWEB benchmark testing during the 2011-2012 school year, and continue updating the Reading Instruction Model.
Mathematics
The next meeting is scheduled for February 15, 2011 at 3:15 PM.
Science
The Science committee continues as they prepare to update staff and the Board on their work. They continue to examine the curriculum and are seeking parent input. They have sent out a parent survey through the AlertNow system. The link for parents to complete a survey on science education is:
http://teachersites.schoolworld.com/webpages/jpolasek/forms.cfm?myForm=14477
Report Card Committee
The Report Card Committee met on January 13, 2011 to share input from the research packet, further define the current system of evaluation, and develop plans for moving forward with updating the assessment process. A subcommittee was formed to look more closely at how we can work to better report a child’s progress to parents in the future. The subcommittee will be developing a prototype instrument to share with the committee at the next meeting in March.
The subcommittee will be meeting on January 20th and the full committee will be meeting on March 10, 2011. Both meeting will begin at 3:15 pm.
Response to Intervention (RtI)
This month I am including information from each Building Principal on the work within their buildings.
Eisenhower Junior High School
RTI has made great strides at EJH this year. Karen Ochoa is the committee chairperson for our Building wide RTI committee. The committee meets on all SIP and Institute days enabling our committee to grow and represent all grade levels and most departments this year. The committee set yearlong goals as follows:
- Increase understanding of RTI
- Use of Data- (identify data that informs us of Reading and Homework baseline and progress)
- Build Tier 1 Reading and Homework- (identify strategies/curriculum that can be taught to teachers and used in general ed. classrooms and core curriculum to reach all students)
- Build Tier 3 Reading and Homework (identify students with the Most severe needs as well as evidence based programs for intervention to close the gap)
As a building, we have implemented a Tier 1 homework strategy of teaching students to properly and consistently use their planners. We have analyzed grade date to try to pinpoint problem areas and help us build on the supports for students we already have in place. We have changed our after school staff meetings to "learning meetings" in order to increase the time available for professional development.
Lace School
Lace teachers are examining individual students who did not meet state standards on a growth model to see if progress is being made over an extended period of time. These students, both IEP and academically at-risk, are being progress monitored on a regular basis.
Betty Faron and Kim Schultz (Reading Specialists) provided an in-service program focusing on information obtained through The DIBELs Reading Fluency (Aimsweb 2011/2012) assessment. This in-service gives teachers a better understanding of areas of weakness for individual students.
All Lace teachers have implemented a guided reading program. This leveled program also includes small group skill development for students who need reinforcement in reading. Teachers continue to work with Kathy Bruni, and Regional Office of Education (ROE) reading consultant, on the implementation of effective guided reading programs. In addition, Emily Becker, a third grade teacher, has organized a guided reading resource guide for her peers. Finally, Jen Reyes, a third grade teacher, has created a DVD of a guided reading lesson that is available to all Lace teachers to view.
Amy Brundage, Lace School Asst. Principal, is working with the school wide RTI committee to evaluate the current Primetime Intervention program. This evaluation will solicit input from teachers and analyze data to measure effectiveness. They will also be making recommendations for improvements in the Primetime program to be implemented during the 2011/2012 school year.
The RTI classes (grades 4 and 5) continue to provide support for targeted students. The organization of the class allows teachers to provide more personalized instruction for academically at-risk and ELL students.
Teachers are using the CRT data system to help organize and consolidate student data for individual students. Having this information in a central location should prove beneficial to teachers.
An after school reading assistance program has been implemented. The two-day per week program targets those students who need assistance in skill development and practice on ISAT testing. In addition, an after school student mentoring program began in November, 2010. This mentoring program, under the direction of Mr. Chris Nolen, fifth grade teacher, focuses on students who need organizational and homework assistance. The mentoring program meets one day per week with volunteer teachers serving as mentors.
DeLay School
Our RtI committee meets periodically (about every other month) to review our past practices, look for new suggestions and ideas, and plan for the future. We have utilized an RtI coach from the LaGrange Area Department of Special Education (LADSE) this year to help us continue our implementation of RtI. At the beginning of the year, our coach presented an overview of RtI for all teachers, so that everyone would have the same background information. From there we split into grade level groups for further discussion and on-going planning.
This year our RtI (Response to Intervention) time is called W.I.N. (“What I Need”) and will focus on literacy related activities.
All kindergarten -2nd grade students participate in W.I.N. They will meet at a designated time during the day, 3-4 times a week for about 25 minutes each session to work on “What I Need”. During W.I.N., we are making the best use of our resources to help meet the diverse needs of our students. Some students need extra practice and support, while other students are right on target, and some students need additional enrichment to help expand the concepts being taught. During W.I.N. time, all the students move to an assigned room or space in the building to get the instruction that they need. Many staff members participate in order to try and keep the ratio of student to teacher as low as possible, especially in the groups that need the most support. Some of the following staff members will be working with our students during W.I.N.: Classroom teachers, Reading specialists, Resource teachers, ELL teachers, Speech teachers, Enrichment specialist, Aides.
The focus of the teaching depends on the results of the universal benchmarking completed at the beginning of the year, January and May. Students needing more support will be progress monitored more often in between the benchmark sessions. The results of the benchmarks and progress monitoring will be discussed at grade level meetings or more often if necessary. At these times, students’ needs are re-evaluated and changes to groups and/or content are made. Some of the areas of need that we will be addressing are:
Letter naming, Letter sound relationships, Vowels, Fluency, Phonemic Awareness, Oral Language and listening concepts, Sight words, Reading and Comprehension Strategies.
We will use a variety of materials to help us reach the students’ goals. Many of the interventions are research-based programs, while other groups may be using research-based strategies. Here is a sample of some of the material we will be using this year:
Michael Heggerty, Jolly Phonics, Leveled Library Books, A-Z Reading, Explode the Code, Road to the Code, LiPS, Great Leaps, SMARTBoards, Reader’s Theater, Poetry, Repeated Readings.
With this extra time designated for students to be working on skills at their level, we are hoping to see great gains in many literacy areas!
Our school psychologist continues to help us better understand the benchmark data by converting it into triangular graphs by grade level and individual teachers. We use this data to help us decide what to teach next and if we need to change our instruction to better serve the needs of our students. Many of our SIP Days are devoted to analyzing data and regrouping students for our WIN groups.
Notes went home at the beginning of the year in order for our parents to have a better understanding of RtI, WIN groups and our assessment/screening processes.
