Hi friends! This blog is for teachers and families- all for the sheer joy of literacy. When we are enthusiastic about reading and writing our students and our own kids become excited to read and write. I hope that we all can be models for those in our care- how did you show your passion for reading, writing, learning, language, or words today?? It's in those small, daily moments that we teach kids to love literacy.
I have been holed up all day giving reading assessments. We're finishing Cycle 2 of our RtI Interventions, and after spring break we head into Cycle 3. I have 2 helpful interventionists Dibeling away, so I began DRAing my 30 intervention students. I'll join in with DIBELing as soon as I'm done DRAing (don't ya love these reading assessments turning into verbs!)
There was a lot of growth to be exciting about today! Some kiddos are working their tails off and made leaps and bounds. While a few, didn't make such stellar progress. It's interesting to think about the kids that aren't making progress- we will make an action plan to better support their learning going into Cycle 3.
Today I had a teacher remark, "This is the exciting thing about RtI!" One of her students moved from a DRA 4 (Kinder level) at the beginning of the year to a 16 (end of 1st grade level) mid-year. What awesome progress! And with the RtI model, he'll be exited from pull-out intervention and back into the class full-time (the goal!!). I'm glad to see folks positive about RtI- we had a lot of negative push back at for a while.
So for the next couple of weeks I'll be assessing away- wish me luck!
Hey Friends! Since I mentioned I am using this 100s grid for all of my running records each year, I'd thought I'd share it here. Take it, use it, share it, change it.
WOW this simple, stripped-down grid saves me a lot of time. Instead of taking the time to calculate a percentage for a student's reading accuracy (which you have to do when a child reads more/less than 100 words), I can use this sheet quickly to find an accuracy rate sans calculator. Brilliant time saver! This is especially important when you do 5-8 of these running records per day or when you're a busy teacher (hint: that's you!).
I use this exactly as I would a blank running record sheet. Don't know what a running record is? See my other post about running records here.
I also do miscue analysis on each of my running records, but I do this on the computer only, not by hand. I want to easily share the information about the student's reading with their classroom teacher. I can post the template I use for that soon.
I don't print out page two, but I use these comprehension prompts, to have consistency.
The boxes at the bottom of page one are a space for me to write notes about what the student is doing well (+) and what the students didn't do well (-), and needs more instruction on. I titled the boxes based off of what I tend to work with kids on- comprehension, fluency/accuracy, and the student's use (or lack thereof) of reading strategies.
I record the student % accuracy and circle if this is their independent, instructional, or frustrational level. For me, 97-100% is independent, 90-96% is instructional, and 89% or below is frustrational.
I have a space at the top for instructional focus. I like to give the student a focus before the begin reading- I use Running Records to coach/instruct my students, and not just to assess them.
I keep all my running records in a fat binder. I start a new binder at the beginning or each year. The running records are ordered alphabetically by students' first names.
Before I put the running records in the binder I analyze the miscues on a different template (using Microsoft's OneNote). I send an email to their classroom teacher with this analysis, so they can also use the information to also guide their instruction.
Today my colleague (thanks Sarah!) introduced me to these short videos available through the RtI Action Network.
I love these videos because Janette Klinger addresses many of the issues our school is currently dealing with. Our school is 95%+ ELL, so implementing RtI, teaching all students in the general ed classrooms, and qualifying and identifying ELL students for Special Ed look should be tweaked accordingly to support our population.
Klinger voices many of the concerns I had going into RtI implementation at our school. Like she mentions, many teachers have a hard time distinguishing between students in the process of language acquisition and students with learning disabilities. It takes training to be able to tease out the underlying issues that is affecting student performance.
Check out out these videos:
Janette Klingner: Realizing the Potential of RTI: Considerations When Implementing RTI with English Language Learners
Janette Klingner: Response to Intervention With English Language Learners
If you're a teacher, how do you differentiate your lessons to support your ELL students?
So, it's that time again! The end of the school year is in sight! I have less than 2 weeks left, which means...there's a lot of work to get done, and most of that work, for a Reading Specialist, entails end of the year assessments. I've been at it for a few weeks now, and I'm so ready to be done assessing. Honestly, I miss working with students. Assessing is essential to guide instruction, but sometimes it's pretty draining.
We've already conquered the ominous CSTs (California State Testing) as a school! Yeah for us! But now, with our spiffy new RtI intervention model, we are giving DIBELS, DRA, Words Their Way Spelling, and CORE Reading Vocabulary to the entire school. These reading assessments will help gauge student reading growth over this school year, and will help us to help us plan for the first round of interventions at the beginning of next year.
The teachers and students are eagerly awaiting vacation (it's a little disheartening that in bloglandia I keep hearing that folks are already out of school- what's up with that?). At least the weather is cold and unwelcoming, which makes it easier to focus on all the work that still needs to get done before school's out for summer.
I'm wondering, if you're a teacher, what kind of assessments does your school do every year? Is your list similar?
Our school started to tackle Response to Intervention (RtI) this year. As the RtI coordinator I started the year with a very basic understanding of RtI. Trying to find a way to make it work well at out school site has taken a lot of communication, trial and error, and some more communication...and we still have several kinks to work out. It seems like many schools are ahead of us in this figuring-it-out process, and it also seems like RtI looks completely different from school-to-school, district-to-district.
The teachers and staff have been more than gracious in this learning process, and have often given really constructive feedback on how RtI can work better for them, their students, and the school. At the beginning of the year, we added a whole lot of paperwork and meetings to teachers workload, and that wasn't sustainable (or even necessary). After looking at RtI models at other schools, we decided to weave RtI paperwork, meetings, and consultations, into our staff time weekly. This seems to work out well, but again, I think our RtI team needs to make sure we communicate more so teachers understand how to use this 30 minute time slot weekly. Teachers still seem a little unsure of the RtI process, and that is partly due to lack of communication. So that's the goal for next year- communicate! communicate! communicate!
Personally, I really like the idea of RtI and I think, once we have everything smoothed out, it will make us a lot more efficient and effective with our intervention services. I already see that teachers are responding to assessment and regrouping students or creating new groups, if necessary. Many of our teachers were doing this already, but now there is more of a process to recognize and track all the effort they were putting into differentiating work for their students. And having this support documented will help students and their teachers as they move from class to class, and grade to grade.
It also feels like student intervention placements are more meaningful now, we base placements on several data points, along with teacher/parent recommendations, rather than just using one data point at the beginning of the year. When students made progress in their reading, then can exit intervention. Before RtI, we didn't have intervention as systematized. Many students were unmotivated to make progress because regardless of their growth they remained in intervention for the entire year. Kids are now encouraged (especially 4th and 5th graders) to improve their reading- because they will be exited out of intervention when they reach their reading goals. Exiting intervention is the perfect incentive for many older readers.
One major component of RtI is progress monitoring- or assessing students' progress at frequent intervals. In addition to benchmark tests, the state test, and informal assessing, our teachers do the DRA (Diagnostic Reading Assessments) a couple of times a year on each of their students (a lot of assessing!!!). The DRA gives the teacher a complete picture of a student's reading abilities, and helps him/her to focus his/her instruction to meet each student's needs.
I really liked this video from Reading Rockets on progress monitoring. It explains how often students should be assessed. This video makes is quite clear on how often progress monitoring to be done. We still need to systematize progress monitoring at out school...that will be one more part of RtI that we need to hash out. Maybe next year? Maybe later down the road? We shall see...
I'd love to hear any of your insights into RtI. What makes RtI work well at your school/district? What would you change about RtI at your school?
I've learned the most about RtI through collaboration with other teachers that have tried RtI at their school sites. I'm eager to hear any of your thoughts and ideas, so that we can make this process even more meaningful for teacher, students, interventionists, and families at my school.
My aunt and uncle are literacy heroes (woot, woot) as they have been investing a great deal of their personal time tutoring reading to kids and adults in their local community. I thought it may be helpful for them (and to any other reading tutors out there) to share some tips and links on reading tutoring.
The tutoring experience can be really rewarding to both parties involved. And to make the most it, here some of my ideas:
1) Learn about your student's background. This will help to motivate your student to be engaged in your time together. It may be fairly obvious- but knowing your students interests will help you to know what type of books or reading material to expose them to. Get your student excited about reading and help them find the books that are just right for them!!
2) Learn your student's reading needs. This will help you target your tutoring support to meet your student's needs. While you probably won't give a formal reading assessment on your student, you can tell a lot about someones reading just by having them read to you. Have this checklist in your head as you read with your student (some of this list has been taken from Hopelink) and take stock of his/her biggest areas of need:
