Federal Programs Review
September 2022: Title I, McKinney Vento, Title IIa
Title Ia
What data/evaluation criteria illustrates the effectiveness of this area?
Title I students are held accountable for progress toward meeting the same rigorous English Language Arts performance standards as their peers. Close contact and collaboration between reading and classroom teachers is consistently maintained. When the student shows competence in reading according to assessments and observations by the reading specialist, the student may be released from the program. Students may also be released upon parent request.
Student progress is evaluated through progress monitoring with appropriate assessments based on Missouri Learning Standards. Evaluations include letter/sound recognition checks, sight word checks, anecdotal observations, spelling inventories, and running records. Benchmark assessments are given throughout the year in accordance with the district and state dyslexia mandate. They include the Primary Spelling Inventory, Developmental Reading Assessment, 2nd Edition (DRA2), Rapid Automatic Naming, sight word fluency, letter naming fluency, iReady, and the Reading Recovery Observation Survey.
Reading Recovery is an integral part of our Title I program and is a Tier III intervention. This is a research-based program in which students are seen individually for daily intensive intervention. The chart below shows the number of first grade Reading Recovery students and the accelerated progress they made in the 9-22 weeks of their individualized programs. Of the 99 students that received Title I services during the 2021-2022 school year, 25 were served in the Reading Recovery program.
The above chart shows the Primary School not only meeting the 90% benchmark goal, but exceeding it in a pandemic situation. Our classroom teachers and the Title I team worked incredibly hard to have 84% of students reading on grade level. In the State of Missouri, the average school has less than half of students reading on grade level at third grade (DESE, 2019). Ninety-six percent of our students grew a year (as defined in appendix A) or met the grade level benchmark. Never before has the Primary had this successful of a year.
iReady is a computer program that assesses students' reading skills and provides lessons targeted to that student’s deficit area. Teachers use this data to make data-driven decisions that inform and guide their instruction in the classroom. Also, iReady lessons scaffold instruction to meet the needs of that particular student. Students at the Primary are provided daily time to practice their reading skills by completing iReady lessons. Below is a graph of the school-wide growth from the beginning of the year diagnostic assessment to the end of the year diagnostic.
The success of the Title I reading program is also shown by the results of parent surveys which were returned prior to the end of the school year. All of the Title I surveys that were returned in May of 2022 showed unanimous support of the Title I Reading program. All parents were in agreement that they saw improvements in their child’s reading. A sampling of the comments follow (names have been redacted):
“We kept on reading and reading at home, but weren’t seeing any improvement until my son was placed in the Reading Recovery program.”
“It gave him the confidence he needed. He came out of his shell!”
“It increased my son’s desire to read substantially! Improvement in writing was also very noticeable.”
“Overall, a great experience. Excellent reading materials and communication from (his teacher). I am so thankful for this program, seeing the progress he has made has been amazing. I am so proud of him and reading together is one of our favorite things to do together.”
“If given the opportunity, I would 100% recommend participating in the program. It not only helped my son, but helped me as a mother understand how I could better support him on his reading journey.”
What has changed since the last program evaluation?
Beginning in the 2021-22 school year, the Title I teaching staff consists of Jessica Bach, Mandy Catlin, Lori Condron, and Erin Sappington. Liz Austin is the instructional coach.
Stop the Summer Slide is a new program that was implemented since the last program evaluation. When children are first learning to read, it is often difficult for parents to find books of interest on a low reading level to read at home. Stop the Summer Slide (SSS) is a program we offer to parents and students to encourage volumes of reading at home during the summer. Families can come to the Primary School on scheduled days to check out books on their child’s reading level and then return them on another SSS night. This program allows students to feel successful reading at home because the books are ‘easy’ for them to read. It allows parents to be involved in their child’s education by reading together. This past year we had over 110 families participate in the Stop the Summer Slide program.
What next steps would better serve our students?
What next steps would better serve our students?
Implementing A Different Assessment That Aligns with Our Current Reading Program
For the 2022-2023 school year, our K-2 teachers will be switching from the DRA-2 to the Next Steps in Guided Reading Assessment. These assessments are similar in rigor and in their focus: accuracy in reading, retelling, fluency, and comprehension. This new assessment will better align with the way Tier I reading instruction is taught. In order to achieve fidelity with this new assessment, we will have training at the beginning of the year and throughout the year.
Continued and Additional Professional Development
Professional development opportunities are key to keeping abreast of research and best practices in the area of literacy. Interaction with other colleagues and experts in our field is essential for professional growth. As Title I teachers, we have appreciated the opportunities that have been provided in the past. It is vital that we continue to have these opportunities in the future to best serve our students.
We would like to request additional training on a systematic phonics program like Wilson’s, LETRS, or an Orton-Gillingham-based program so that we can offer instruction in a different way for students who are not showing growth using our current interventions.
We would also like to be trained in Fundations when the classroom teachers are trained next year. This would prepare us for Tier II Fundations interventions as well as provide continuity with the language used in the program.
Materials Needed
As students use and reuse the little books used to teach guided reading, it will be necessary to soon replace some of their favorite titles. We would like to create a line item in the budget where we can replace and update titles on a yearly basis. We also may want to consider purchasing some decodable-text books for the students who are not making progress toward grade level goals to use in conjunction with an Orton-Gillingham-based program.
Additional Reading Interventionists
At Southern Boone Primary, our goal is to ensure student success. As our school continues to grow in number of students, it may become necessary that our Title I team grow as well to ensure adequate, consistent student progress. Depending on our student population growth, it might be necessary to add another reading teacher, or another part time instructional coach to our team in the near future.
Deeper Understanding of Running Records
Next year, we plan to continue our professional development book study on Next Steps in Running Records. The goal of this book study is to improve the early identification of struggling readers and look at their next steps to help them become a successful reader. The reading team would like to meet with individual teachers to talk about individual student running records as well as begin to include running record discussions in our Tier III meetings.
Response to Intervention Model Change
Because of the global pandemic, our teachers and staff had to change our ‘What I Need’ (WIN) intervention for the past two years to reduce group size and limit contact between classes. Looking ahead, with the pandemic seemingly under control, we would like to reinstate WIN time. Our plans include restructuring the intervention model and focusing the way we look at data during PLCs to simplify the overall management of the WIN process.
Ease of Tier II and Tier III Referral Process
The reading team is helping to revamp the documents for our Tier II and Tier III students. What we currently use is working, but it could be improved upon to increase efficiency and the flow of moving students between the Tiered system. Our goal is to streamline the referral process and make the data collection user-friendly.
Continued Support from Community and Stakeholders
This year has proved to be a challenge for most educators, the Southern Boone Reading team included. Having a community that supports our school and our teachers is incredibly important. For a few months we were unsure if we had parents' support. As the community rallied together to show Southern Boone Teachers that a few loud voices were not as prominent as the many quiet voices, we as teachers felt supported. We are encouraged that our future is bright here at the Southern Boone Primary.