South Fayette Township School District Literacy Proficiency for All - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

South Fayette Township School District

Literacy Proficiency for All Students Partnership with the Avonworth School District

Partner Leaders

South Fayette Township School District

• Dr. Bille Rondinelli, Superintendent
• Dr. Michael Loughead, Assistant Superintendent

Laurie Gray, Elementary School Principal Avonworth School District

• Dr. Tom Ralston, Superintendent
• Dr. Darlene Tartaglione, Elementary School Principal

Demographics – South Fayette

• Located about 20 minutes outside of Pittsburgh in

Southwestern PA

• Growing school district
• One elementary school K-2 with an enrollment of

699 students

• One intermediate school 3-5 with an enrollment
• f 749 students
• District on one campus
• Free-reduced lunch – 13.6% in the elementary
• Free-reduced lunch – 12% in the intermediate

Research Indicates

If a child is not reading on level by grade 3, and there is no intervention, the child has only a 1 in 8 chance of ever becoming a proficient reader!

Board Resolution

In 2002, the South Fayette Board

• f School Directors passed a

resolution that by age 10, all students would be reading on grade level.

Brutal Facts of 2002!

• In elementary school, we spent the most

instructional time in reading (about ½ of the day)

• We spent the most money on reading each

year including all Title I funds

• We had the most support staff for

reading

• Most referrals were because of a child’s

lack of reading achievement

Reading PSSA 2003

• 78% of the 3rd grade students scored

proficient or advanced on the reading PSSA

Goal - Increase Student Achievement – HOW?

• All faculty members who teach reading will

implement explicit, research based reading instruction

• Focus on the grade level eligible content
• Use data to drive instruction
• Meet weekly in grade level teams to focus
• n reading achievement

K-3 Reading Initiative 2002-2003 School Year

Building a Foundation

• 80 hours on-line modules that

taught research based reading strategies

• Teachers did this before and

after school

• 20 elementary teachers and the

building principal participated

Time and Money Commitment 2003-2007

• Reading Specialists received

intensive reading training through the AIU Reading Achievement Center (RAC)

• Focused on research based

techniques for teaching reading

• Reading Specialists became our

trainers

Time and Money Commitment 2003-2007

(continued)

• Monthly two hour delay days for

staff development with a focus on reading instruction

• Weekly team meetings
• Ongoing assessment and progress

monitoring of all students

Improved Our Language Arts Program

• Revised language arts curriculum
• Adopted new materials
• Changed the sequence of skills
• Rewrote assessments
• Ongoing, focused training for faculty
• Implemented Reading Achievement
• Classrooms

2008 Reading PSSA

Significant Growth!

• 95% of 3rd grade students scored

proficient or advanced on the reading PSSA

• 96% of 4th grade students scored

proficient or advanced on the reading PSSA.

• 4th grade 1st in reading in the state

and Allegheny County.

• * 5th grade was part of the
• middle school

Best Practice - Reading Instruction

• Move students to independence as

soon as possible

• Engage kindergarten students in

academic activities that facilitate early reading

• Decoding instruction is essential

Best Practice – Reading Instruction

(continued)

• Comprehension should be addressed

along with decoding

• Students should have opportunities

to read a lot of meaningful texts in rich, literate classrooms

Phonemic Awareness

• Understanding that the sounds of

spoken language work together to make words.

• Ability to hear, identify, and

manipulate individual sounds in words.

• Can be done in the dark (auditory not

visual)

A Phonics Program Should Include:

• Explicit instruction

– Sounds are produced in isolation and connected with printed letters – Teach the rules

• Systematic instruction

– Research shows that letters and sounds should be introduced according to a definite sequence

A Phonics Program Should Include:

(continued)

• Strategies that require decoding

from the beginning through the end

• f the word
• Use of decodable texts to reinforce

decoding

Purpose of Word Building

• Supports decoding
• Students attend to letter – sound

correspondence and focus attention on every letter

• Students cumulative blend words
• Sequences are developed to discriminate

between vowels

Word Building Activity

• Build and read the words (decoding)
• Speed round (decoding)
• Silly questions (decoding)
• Dictation (encoding)
• Reinforce by reading decodable text

Vocabulary

• Vocabulary knowledge refers to the

range and depth of word meanings known and recognized in print

• Vocabulary knowledge is highly

correlated with reading comprehension

The Goal of Vocabulary Instruction

• Expose students to words that:

– Are sophisticated and otherwise unknown – Are vigorously expressive – Are conceptually universal – Enhance the thematic and conceptual understanding of the text

Vocabulary Instruction

• Choose words that are above, not

below the students

• Use imagery
• Give multiple examples
• Provide many different contexts
• Model enthusiasm and passion for

rich words

Fluency

• Ability to read smoothly, easily, and

readily with freedom from word recognition problems.

• Decoding print accurately and

effortlessly enables students to read for meaning.

Fluency

(continued)

• Fluent readers focus their attention
• n making connections among ideas in

text.

• Less fluent readers must focus their

attention on decoding and assessing the meaning of individual words.

Ways to Develop Fluency

• Model fluent reading
• Choral reading
• Echo reading
• Repeated readings of text
• Tracking
• Fluency builders and fluency phrases

Fluency Benchmarks

Fluency rates at the end of the year

• First grade

70 wpm

• Second grade

90 wpm

• Third Grade

120 wpm

• Fourth Grade

150 wpm

Comprehension

• There is a high correlation between

words known and comprehension success

• Children must be fluent readers to

comprehend

• Many students have difficulty

constructing meaning from text

Understanding Involves

• Making connections between and among

ideas

• Deciding what is important and what isn’t
• Infer what the author is doing and why
• Paraphrase and summarize
• Reconciling prior knowledge to what is

newly learned

Better Questioning

• What’s the author trying to say?
• What’s this all about?
• How does that connect to what we already

know?

• What does the author want us to know

from this?

• What do we know about the character,

place, time, etc.?

Curriculum

• Phonemic Awareness (K-2)
• Decoding (K-5)
• Spelling (K-5)
• Vocabulary (K-5)
• Fluency (1-5)
• Comprehension (K-5)

Resources & Strategies

• HM Harcourt Journeys
• Created word building sequences
• Created syllaseach sequences
• Wrote additional decodable text
• Robust vocabulary PowerPoints

implementing Isabel Beck’s strategies

• Text Talk
• Questioning the Author

• Scrolling
• Leveled readers
• Accelerated Reader Program
• Read Naturally & fluency builders
• Literature circles
• Think Aloud
• Reading response journals
• Text-based writing & process writing

Assessments

• Selection tests & theme tests
• Cold reads
• Weekly progress monitoring
• Study Island Benchmark Tests
• Text dependents analysis
• Spelling tests

Interventions

Kindergarten Express

– 2 classes of 15 children (AM and PM) – Reading Specialist and paraeducator – Students receive intensive literacy instruction in groups of 5 students – Incorporates RAC strategies with a focus on word building, Text Talk, robust vocabulary, writing, and phonemic awareness activities

Reading Achievement Classrooms 1st Grade – 5th Grade

Structure of the Reading Achievement Classrooms

• 18 students divided into three groups
• f 6 students
• 40 minute rotations
• Receive intensive reading instruction

for the entire language arts block

• Same curriculum and pacing as the

grade level

Instruction

• Phonics – word lines, word building &

syllasearch

• Fluency – HM Harcourt fluency

builders, Intervention Readers, and Read Naturally

• Vocabulary – HM Harcourt Journeys,

skills PowerPoint, & tier 2 words

Instruction

(continued)

• Comprehension – students are taught

comprehension strategies through various fiction and nonfiction text

• Grammar
• Writing – reading prompts, text

dependent analysis, informational, personal narratives, and expository

Three Groups

• Classroom teacher – vocabulary, comprehension,

leveled readers, writing, & grammar

• Reading Specialist – phonemic awareness, phonics,

decoding, spelling, & fluency

• Independent Group or Paraeducator – independent

practice, decodable text, fluency, spelling, vocabulary, and Study Island

• Whole Group – writing and grammar

2014 Reading PSSA

• 94% of 3rd grade students scored

proficient or advanced on the reading PSSA

• 97% of 4th grade students scored

proficient or advanced on the reading PSSA

• 91% of 5th grade students scored

proficient or advanced on the reading PSSA

Partnership Plan

• January through May
• Schedule two monthly dates for staff

development (K-2 primary teachers and 3- 5 elementary teachers)

• Alternate training locations between

Avonworth School District and South Fayette Township School District

Partnership Plan

(continued)

• Staff development provided by Sari

Brecosky, Reading Achievement Center

• Staff development provided by regional

reading consultants

• Videotape teachers implementing

strategies and post on the SAS website

• Share staff development reading modules

with Avonworth School District

Partnership Plan

(continued)

• Schedule classroom visits between

both schools, so teachers can

• bserve other teachers implementing

best practices

• Key instructional leaders from both

districts will be involved throughout the entire process

Our Future

• We need to stick with what we have

learned about reading instruction to get results!

• Progress is not just about moving forward,

it is about growing and evolving

• Remember that no matter how dramatic

the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happen in one fell swoop….

• Celebrate milestones

Questions