Delving into Data...Day One

So one of the tasks of the new Rice Lake High School literacy coaches is to benchmark all the "flagged" freshman, the kiddos we're worried about being our lowest readers. This is my 20th year at RLHS, and doing this benchmark instruction, is probably the best data to advance instruction that I've ever witnessed. Unfortunately, I am not the classroom teacher for most of these kids and need to pass these instructional notes on to the appropriate teachers. However, the key is that we are using focused data points to drive instructional practice. This is (unfortunately?) a newer concept. hmmmmm

Still - we're doing something! For example, after I listen to a student read aloud and answer a sequence of questions regarding a text, I can think of specific skills that need to be coached into a student. Some students need to correct their actual reading aloud skills. Others are clearly "glossing over" the words and not truly comprehending text. They need modeling, practice, and patience.

Now another data point has entered the equation. We have last week's MAPS results for the students as well. So, how is it that we have kids who were low on the benchmark and high on MAPS or vice versa? I know other data points need to be added as well- WKCE, current grade, etc.

These high school learners are complex, and what's even more intriguing is that some have developed complex coping strategies for finding success at school, in some arenas. I fear this is just going to make our "figuring out" of them even tougher.

But I keep returning to - at least we're trying something, which is more than we've done for some of these struggling readers in the past.

Delving into Data - Day Two...tomorrow!