Monthly Updates

January - February 2008 Uniontown Area School District Baby New Year took the Uniontown schools by storm (literally) and brought his Palm Pilot for data collection with him!  Winter benchmarking happened in a flash at each school in mid January with the support of our colleagues at Step By Step Learning to make sure that all technology worked effectively and media problems were solved easily.  Unfortunately, although the data collection process was quick and efficient, the inclement weather resulted in school cancelations and delays, which made the data analysis process slow and difficult.  After much anticipation and creative scheduling, the school DDMTs convened to review the data, analyze student growth, and establish new intervention groups.  All were thrilled to see significant improvement in first and second grade DIBELS and Maze scores.  In fact, the first grade students at Lafayette improved so much that an entire Intensive intervention group was eliminated as students moved from Intensive to Strategic and Strategic to Benchmark tiers.  Congratulations! Progress was less dramatic but still notable in third and fourth grades across all schools.  Given this pattern, teachers carefully examined 4Sight results including item level analysis reports to better inform intervention grouping.  DDMT discussion focused on how teachers can fine tune and adjust intervention instruction to more fully address comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency at the upper elementary grades.  It was a pleasure to engage in such data-focused, instructionally driven conversation with the teachers, principals, and administrators on the teams!  We were also excited to facilitate discussions about implementing instructional level progress monitoring for students in Intensive groups.  Some teachers were hesitant to make the change and required much reassurance that instructional level monitoring is a sound research-based strategy rather than MP³’s way of “padding” students’ scores.  Overall, the teachers were enthusiastic to try it to see how it might positively impact students’ growth and self confidence. Similar discussion occurred at the grade level data review meetings as teachers prepared to change groups and ramp up instruction.  While all were excited to see student growth and were looking forward to a new round of intervention, many expressed great concern and strong anxiety about looming PSSA pressure.  They shared that they were worried not only about community and school pressure to focus more on test preparation than skill intervention, but also about upcoming assessment schedules that would result in canceling interventions.  Project staff validated these concerns but assured them to forge ahead. (Systematic skill intervention is much more effective than blitz test prep in impacting students’ long-term reading growth!)  We also worked with staff to review schedules and personnel resources to keep intervention disruption to a minimum.  These steps helped to ease some of the teachers’ anxiety but the pressure surrounding the PSSAs continued to be palpable and extended downward into first and second grade creating a stressful instructional environment for all. Old Man Winter reared his icy head again in February and tossed intervention schedules into turmoil resulting in more lost instructional time and inconsistency for students.  Daily core reading instruction plus daily intervention did not occur until mid month.  Those delays meant incomplete data sets for many students which made decision-making for the month very difficult.  Despite these set backs, however, teachers tried to increase the rigor and challenge of their instruction by working closely with Project staff, reading intervention teachers, and literacy coaches on the planning and execution of lessons.  We will all breathe easier once Spring has sprung and schedules become more predictable! Amanda Kloo, Ph.D. - Project Coordinator, University of Pittsburgh Back to Monthly Updates Main Page