Local schools are heading into their big test season, this time on computers with the new PARCC test. But any more, test season is pretty much ongoing.
Bayfield Elementary School Principal Diane Sallinger and Assistant Principal Bill Hesford reported at the Feb. 24 school board meeting on fall and winter math and reading test results for grades 1-5.
These tests are for in-house use, versus the PARCC test, which will lead to state performance ratings for districts and individual schools. It stands for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.
The STAR test of math skills showed better performance in all five grades from the fall test to the winter test. This is strictly listing the percentage of kids scoring as proficient, Hesford said. For instance, first graders went from 63 percent of them proficient in math on the first test to 86 percent on the winter test.
Most of the discussion was about K-5 results from the DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) reading test. While kindergartners went from 66 percent scoring proficient up to 90 percent, and 1st and 5th graders also showed significant improvement, grades 2, 3, and 4 showed little or no improvement from fall to winter.
Hesford said one or two kids per grade scored worse on the second test. But he noted the bar gets higher on successive tests in each grade.
Sallinger said, "When these (results) came out right after Christmas, the DIBELS, I spent whole days digging in to what we could do to really get reading going."
In January they focused on the kids who were reading below or seriously below where they should be. The ones struggling the most are getting three doses of reading each day, using the Read Well intervention program. There is a core reading time, a half hour with a reading specialist, and another intervention called Burst.
Special ed and Title I teachers were trained in how to use the Read Well materials and assess the kids for the level they are reading at. A five-member team started working with about 90 kids who were reading below or seriously below where they should be, Sallinger said. They were grouped by reading level.
Then the district hired and trained reading intervention specialist Billie Thorpe, who has been a substitute teacher at BES. And teachers were directed to expect that every child will be reading at home.
Sallinger cited key recommendations from an article by a reading expert: every day the child reads something chosen by the child; the child can read accurately and with understanding; the child writes about something that is personally meaningful; the child can talk with other kids and with an adult.
"Somehow in the midst of the standards (imposed on schools), they've gone down the pike... I feel like a lot of this was lost, less joy in teaching reading, and less joy in reading," she said.
To try to change that, the school had a one week incentive program called "Get Caught Reading."
Sallinger described that as, "For one week, do all those things we used to do that were so much fun."
For the last week of February, every team was to come up with fun ideas. Varying by grade, those included poetry, narrative writing, a readers' theater, guest readers, reading on tablet devices, letters to a favorite author, a reading beach party, and favorite character dress-up day. The first week of March focussed on Dr. Seuss, whose birthday is celebrated on March 2.
"While all these are going on, everyone will be taking pictures to put on the bulletin board," Sallinger said. "We aren't rewarding kids with things. We're just trying to get them excited again."
The efforts will continue into May, she said.
Board member Danielle Hillyer commented, "I've seen a huge difference with my son. He's on his fifth book."
