Strategies Kids Can Use to Increase Reading Test Scores

March 03, 2022 Post a Comment

How accept some Chicago schools improved student reading performance? Leadership is essential -- leadership and xiii applied strategies to nurture concrete, measurable gains in reading! This week, Education World tells what principals and teachers exercise in some of Chicago'due south most successful schools and how they do it!

"If primary teachers don't know phonics, I just won't hire them!" said Anthony Jelinek, principal of Chicago'due south Hibbard Simple School. The Chicago Schools Academic Accountability Quango designated Hibbard 1 of the city'southward "near improved schools."

Xxx-nine of about 490 Chicago unproblematic schools (including pre-K through 4, pre-K through eight, and middle schoolhouse) earned "most improved" commendations because of students' superior performance in reading and math on the Iowa Examination of Basic Skills (ITBS). All are urban schools whose students face the kinds of challenges, such as poverty and English equally a second language, that can often hinder student achievement. These schools accept beaten the odds, though, and helped students do well co-ordinate to objective operation measures.

The report "Exit No Child Behind: An Examination of Chicago'southward Most Improved Schools and the Leadership Strategies Backside Them" is the issue of a two-twelvemonth study by the Bookish Accountability Council. Principals in the participating schools used 13 common strategies that showed dramatic improvements in reading. Those strategies include a zealous commitment to a focused reading program, teacher accountability and support, artistic investment in educatee learning, and increased time on task.

"Students tin acquire, regardless of their racial or ethnic background or their family income, in schools that apply thirteen key strategies," said an announcement of the report'south release. "Researchers plant that principals and teachers in these most-improved schools used certain common strategies and engaged in like activities." The first strategy cited in the written report is "Create a consistent reading program."

"Nosotros emphasize phonics in the primary grades because that addresses the specific needs of our student population," primary Jelinek told Pedagogy World. "More 50 pct of our students take English as a second linguistic communication. We have students who speak Spanish, Cambodian, Standard arabic, 4 dialects from India, Vietnamese, and many other languages."

"Our school isn't located in Cherubsville, Suburbia," said Jelinek, whose schoolhouse encompasses kindergarten through eighth grade. "We use a basal series considering information technology more direct addresses comprehension and discussion attack skills, which is what our students need. The whole-language approach tends to presuppose a sophisticated ability with language that many of our students simply don't have when they begin here."

According to Jelinek, a basal serial provides students with needed continuity of instruction from 1 class level to another, enables students to judge their own progress, and allows teachers and administrators to measure students' reading progress. Jelinek as well thinks the back up basal series workbooks offering is of critical importance in developing students' skills.

In Hibbard's classes, students read both fiction and nonfiction. "This year, our bulldoze is to enhance students' vocabulary, non just with lists just as well with using the new words," Jelinek explained. "Nosotros introduce and have students utilize new terms from social studies and scientific discipline. We also focus on the diverse meanings of one give-and-take. To students who utilize English language as a second language, words with several different meanings are particularly confusing. For example, we might look at the word railroad train. To one person, a train is a choo-choo. Someone else might use the word as in 'training' someone for a chore. The discussion can also mean the railroad train on a wedding dress.

"No i approach to reading and language works for everybody," Jelinek affirmed. "What'due south of import is to know your student population and tailor your reading program to fit information technology."

Dr. Rollie O. Jones, master at Kellman Corporate Community Schoolhouse, said schools must exist "consistent and organized for success. Our resources teacher and grade-level teams work together to align curriculum."

A coordinated curriculum is vital considering it enables teachers to programme lessons incoming students will have the skills to acquire. With vertical and horizontal coherence in the curriculum, teachers also know what adjacent yr'due south teachers will expect from their students.

"We have a vision, a mission to provide a coordinated curriculum," Dr. Jones told Teaching World. "We accept a cross-section of teachers, some young, some seasoned, some in-between, but they all must buy into our vision. I wait for teachers who volition brand that delivery to a coordinated curriculum and become role of our 'family' here in the schoolhouse."

Among the strategies Kellman, a pre-K through 8 school, uses is an extensive mentoring and tutoring program. "Nosotros have mentors come into the schoolhouse once a week, successful adults to human action as role models for our students," Dr. Jones said. "Some young men, college graduates, are rappers, some take the earring in the ear, but they are all fine young people. Our students can relate to them and larn from them."

Kellman also attracts student tutors from an area high schoolhouse and from DePaul University. The tutors spend time at the school in one case a calendar week. They utilise reading and math materials teachers provide to help students develop specific skills.

"Our mentoring and tutorial programs attain several goals," Dr. Jones explained. "They provide interaction with our community, showing students sources that enter the school from the outside, and they enable students to develop more than acceptable behaviors and get one-on-ane instruction in reading and math."

The "Go out No Kid Behind" study notes that principals in schools whose students succeed have a can-exercise attitude focused on student achievement. They clearly communicate to anybody that outcomes matter, support is available, and progress is monitored closely

The thirteen strategies identified equally essential to progress in the 39 schools cited as near improved follow, along with recommendations on how to implement them.

Create a Consistent Reading Program: A consistent, coherent, focused literacy plan
- Implement a coherent reading programme at every level.
- Emphasize phonics and decoding in early grades.
- Read aloud to students at all levels.
- Maintain a literature-based approach, balancing fictional and nonfictional materials.
- Focus on fluency and comprehension.
- Teach reading across the curriculum -- for case, how to read science.
- Use writing for a variety of purposes across the curriculum.
- Use daily oral language exercises (DOL) to teach grammar.
- Develop vocabulary through planned experiences and projects.
Set Clear Goals and Standards: Clear standards and high expectations focus on results
- Create a culture of achievement past setting high expectations.
- Set clear performance expectations for students.
- Gear up clear, broadly understood functioning expectations for staff.
- Focus on results, not inputs, for evaluation and development processes.
Coordinate Curriculum: Coordinated curriculum has vertical and horizontal coherence, alignment and accountability structures throughout
- Implement a curriculum with vertical and horizontal coherence.
- Align school curriculum to local and state standards and assessments.
- Ensure quality command.
- Facilitate inter- and intra-course communication.
- Serve as a resources for staff.
Build Strong Team Kinesthesia: Superior teachers: defended, resourceful, self-evaluative, and mutually supportive
- Recruit and retain superior staff.
- Establish a mutually supportive surround and team philosophy.
- Encourage joint planning and problem solving.
- Expect professionals to share ideas and resources.
- Create a civilisation that encourages learning, thinking, reflection, and self-assay.
- Create an environment in which the staff is respected and everyone is expected to contribute.
- Counsel out or remove staff members who do not purchase into the philosophy of the school or run into expectations.
Concord Teachers Accountable: Principals hold teachers accountable for improving educatee achievement
- Brand no excuses!
- Have principals and peers hold teachers answerable for student achievement.
- Use student performance data as part of the evaluation process.
- Expect teachers to gain skills in areas where pupil performance is weak.
Monitor Both Students and Teachers: What is measured gets achieved!
Specific techniques for monitoring include the following:
- Collect, read, and comment on teachers' lesson plans on a weekly basis.
- Require weekly parent newsletter.
- Collect a writing sample each calendar week from children in each class.
Recommendations for monitoring students and teachers include the post-obit:
- Constantly monitor and use a variety of formal and informal methods.
- Utilize student data for instructional decision making.
- Come across regularly with teachers and grade-level teams to review student progress and solve issues.
- Make parents official partners in the process.
- Be visible and visit classrooms regularly.
- Pace instruction carefully.
- Place high value on early detection and remediation of student learning problems.
- Implement an individualized learning plan for every educatee performing below class level.
- Begin assessment and monitoring in kindergarten.
- Make certain no kid falls through the cracks.
Foster Individual Teacher Support: Designate a betoken person to support and coordinate instruction
- Support teachers to ensure success.
- Designate a point person to coordinate instruction and support staff improvement.
- Utilize coaching and mentoring as back up processes.
- Implement a mentoring/induction process for new staff.
Encourage Professional Development: Encourage and support staff to update and refine their skills regularly
- Give teachers time and opportunity to refine and improve skills.
- Tie professional development to school priorities and staff needs.
- Value and use teacher expertise.
- Program high-level professional development topics: reading and writing strategies, curriculum alignment, standards and assessment, technology, and data-driven instructional decision making.
- Fix the expectation that staff members share what they acquire and provide enough fourth dimension for them to do and then.
Ensure Philosophical Consistency: Schools that improve accept a common vision and mission and are philosophically consistent.
- Hire principals who exemplify the vision and philosophy of the schoolhouse and "walk their talk."
- Match staff philosophy, attitudes, knowledge, and skills to schoolhouse needs.
- Work to ensure an beyond the board "buy-in."
- Hire teachers who support the school's mission, vision, and philosophy.
- Counsel out or remove staff members who are not a skilful match for the schoolhouse!
Invest in Performance: Invest resources wisely to support achievement
- Invest resource beyond per-pupil allocations to enhance pupil accomplishment.
- Monitor results carefully; fine tune upkeep when investments do not yield results.
Instill a Love of Learning Through Reading: Everyone is a learner! Everyone is a reader!
- Assistance students learn to love reading so they volition beloved learning!
- Make sure everyone in the school is a learner and a reader!
- Value learning and brand information technology fun!
Work Together: Parents, community, teachers, students, and administrators work together
- Expect everyone in the school customs to piece of work together; practise not compartmentalize.
- Create a culture of accomplishment that depends on everyone's contribution.
- Develop and implement "robust" communication strategies between and among staff, families, and the community.
Increment Fourth dimension on Job: Be artistic and find more than fourth dimension for learning!
- Increase reading fourth dimension during the school twenty-four hour period and make good use of time.
- Provide smaller grade sizes or tutors to requite extra time-on-task during the school day.
- Provide opportunities before and after school to increase learning time.
- Increase the school day for all students by using discretionary resources.
- Increment the school year by using discretionary resources.
- Focus, focus, focus!!!"

"It is our hope that the "baker's dozen" strategies we have identified will get a design for every schoolhouse looking toward greater achievement," explained Dr. Karen Carlson, executive managing director of the Academic Accountability Council and primary author of the report.

"The most successful elementary schools ensure that all students have a reading-enriched curriculum, start in the first form, where there is a strong emphasis on phonetics," said Carlson, who is a former Chicago Public Schools principal. "This is complemented by consistent monitoring to ensure that no child falls through the cracks."

"Leadership...specifically, the primary'due south leadership is what we are seeing here," said Leon Jackson, chairman of the Bookish Accountability Council, in reference to how schools implement the 13 strategies. "In each of the schools that are improving, we see a successful direction team that is goal-oriented, well-organized, well-supported and, about important, well-led. These are principals and schools from whom all can learn."

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