Sunday, September 9, 2018
It was a pretty tough week.
We started the new Reading classes on Tuesday. At first glance, my students' lexile scores were a devastating disappointment.
I say devastating because I've worked with this group of children since they were first enrolled in kindergarten. The other reading specialists and I would pull tiny groups of the neediest students and work with them on their concepts of print, phonics and phonemic awareness skills. Some made some progress, others did not. We told ourselves that they just needed more time, and they would catch up. Now, they are in fourth grade. It is apparent that they never caught up. In fact, they stayed so far behind, that I am afraid they will be completely lost from sight in a year or two.
I don't understand what is going on. Why does our school continuously fail to produce proficient readers? Why do we continuously send more that 65% of our students to middle school reading significantly below grade level or not all? Some blame poor teaching. Many blame low, low socio-economics and lack of parent involvement. Most blame lack of student self-motivation, mental stamina and conviction. But what is the real reason? What is going on in the minds of our students? I have a feeling that they know, but are not able to verbalize why they have such a hard time reading.
Our fourth grade students receive 90 minutes of reading and writing instruction from either their home teacher or me, the reading specialist. Then most qualify for an additional 30 minutes of ELD instruction later in the morning. After lunch, a chosen group receives reading intervention from me. Small groups are set up so that students have quality time with a teacher and four or five peers that will provide support and modeling. A quarter of the fourth graders stay after school for an additional hour of ELA support from a classroom leader trained by NCOE and the Cool School after school program. I know for a fact that students enrolled in our Cool School program are receiving quality instruction because I evaluate classroom leader performance several times a year. Our Cool School classroom leaders write lesson plans that rival the plans written by veteran homeroom teachers.
So, with so much time allocated toward ELA instruction throughout the day, why are students failing?
We started the new Reading classes on Tuesday. At first glance, my students' lexile scores were a devastating disappointment.
I say devastating because I've worked with this group of children since they were first enrolled in kindergarten. The other reading specialists and I would pull tiny groups of the neediest students and work with them on their concepts of print, phonics and phonemic awareness skills. Some made some progress, others did not. We told ourselves that they just needed more time, and they would catch up. Now, they are in fourth grade. It is apparent that they never caught up. In fact, they stayed so far behind, that I am afraid they will be completely lost from sight in a year or two.
I don't understand what is going on. Why does our school continuously fail to produce proficient readers? Why do we continuously send more that 65% of our students to middle school reading significantly below grade level or not all? Some blame poor teaching. Many blame low, low socio-economics and lack of parent involvement. Most blame lack of student self-motivation, mental stamina and conviction. But what is the real reason? What is going on in the minds of our students? I have a feeling that they know, but are not able to verbalize why they have such a hard time reading.
Our fourth grade students receive 90 minutes of reading and writing instruction from either their home teacher or me, the reading specialist. Then most qualify for an additional 30 minutes of ELD instruction later in the morning. After lunch, a chosen group receives reading intervention from me. Small groups are set up so that students have quality time with a teacher and four or five peers that will provide support and modeling. A quarter of the fourth graders stay after school for an additional hour of ELA support from a classroom leader trained by NCOE and the Cool School after school program. I know for a fact that students enrolled in our Cool School program are receiving quality instruction because I evaluate classroom leader performance several times a year. Our Cool School classroom leaders write lesson plans that rival the plans written by veteran homeroom teachers.
So, with so much time allocated toward ELA instruction throughout the day, why are students failing?