Reading Groups--UPDATE

You may remember my post back at the end of November, describing the new reading plan for grade 2 and 3 students at our school (Differentiated Reading Groups).  Well, our first batch of results are in and they are phenomenal.  A recap:

• We are using PM benchmarks as our measurement tool to assess student reading and to assign students to the reading groups.
• We measured each student in early October and assigned them to a reading group.
• We brought in three non-enrolling teachers to help make the reading groups smaller, including myself, our LAT and our Teacher-Librarian.
• The students with the lowest PM benchmark scores were put into the smallest groups (6-7 students), and assigned to a classroom teacher.  Students with the highest PM benchmark scores were put into the largest groups (17-18 students), and assigned to our non-enrolling staff.
• Each group met 3 times per week for 1 hour sessions (3 hours per week).
• Each teacher designed a program that best suited the needs of the group.  For example, the weakest readers received very intense reading instruction, and the larger groups worked on more advanced skills such as novel studies, oral reading to an audience, vocabulary and character development, etc.
• We re-measured all of the benchmarks at the end of March.

I have just compiled the data and am very pleased to announce that the following information:

October Results

March Results

 We have gone from:

• 12.1% to 8.1% of our grade 2 and 3 students "Not Yet Meeting Expectations" in reading
• 29.7% to 14.9% of our grade 2 and 3 students "Approaching Expectations" in reading
• 16.2% to 21.6% of our grade 2 and 3 students "Meeting Expectations" in reading
• 41.9% to 43.2% of our grade 2 and 3 students "Exceeding Expectations" in reading

That means, we have shifted from 58.1% of our grade 2 and 3 students "Meeting or Exceeding Expectations" to 64.8% of our grade 2 and 3 students "Meeting or Exceeding Expectations" in reading.

More importantly, we have dropped from 41.8% of our grade 2 and 3 students "Not Yet Meeting or Approaching Expectations" to 23% of our grade 2 and 3 students "Not Yet Meeting or Approaching Expectations" in Reading.

Wow!

Our goal was to find a way to really reduce that "Approaching Group" so that they were meeting expectations with some support so that we could more efficiently disaggregate the "Not Yet Meeting" group.  The NYM group will always need supports, and most of the readers here have identified learning challenges that we support with very intense one-on-one and small group LAT and specialist support.

On a very personal level, I think that we can become overly fixed on data, its collection and analysis, and forget about why we are collecting data.  When we present this news to our School Planning Council on Monday, we will have a grade 2 student read to us.  This student started off the year in one of our small intense groups and was still reading at the late grade 1 level.  As of today, they are not only exceeding expectations for grade 2, but incredibly reading close to a grade 5 reading level!  This is tremendous growth, and it came from a wonderful combination of school and home support for reading.  We have taken a young student who was feeling frustrated and embarrassed at school, and helped them blossom into someone brimming with confidence and excited to learn.  We were able to collect and analyze data in a way that allowed us to put an appropriate response in place that made a huge difference for a student.

And that, exactly, is why we collect the data we do.