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Work toward improving literacy at the kindergarten through third-grade levels in the Warren County School District has been successful.
Prior to the 2016/2017 school year, Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Rhonda Decker said the school board tasked the district with improving reading outcomes with students at the early elementary range.
One of the research methods used to do that, Decker said, was to visit other districts and see what systems they had the most success with. Time and again, administrators, reading specialists, and classroom teachers sang the praises of Fundations, a curriculum developed by Wilson.
Fundations was introduced to educators during 2014/2015, Decker said, and then rolled out to kindergarten classrooms at each elementary center and the virtual academy starting in the 2015/2016 year. Students were assessed at the beginning, middle, and end of that year.
The assessment the district uses, DIBELS, breaks student scores in First Sound Fluency (FSF) and Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) into three categories: Intensive, meaning that a student is at great risk of under-performing in literacy, strategic, meaning a student is at moderate risk, and core, meaning that a student is a low risk.
Sheffield Elementary kindergartners started this year with 55 percent of students at the core level.
Now, at the halfway mark, their students are at 71 percent core. Those numbers are not anomalies. Eisenhower Elementary kindergartners started this year at 42 percent core and are currently at 65 percent, Youngsville Elementary kindergartners were 39 percent core and are currently at 65 percent, and Warren Area Elementary Center kindergartners started this year off with 53 percent of students at core and are currently at 70 percent core.
All kindergarten classes in the district, according to Decker, are well on track to being at their goal of 80 percent of students at the core level by the end of this school year.
So what do these numbers mean? What does an intensive, strategic, or core student look like?
Three Warren Area Elementary Center kindergarten teachers gave the story of their most successful students this year.
Rachel McClellan says, "this particular student was performing at the lowest level within the classroom with a composite (score) of 4 (intensive). After receiving two daily sessions of Fundations throughout the first semester, this student is now performing in line with the majority of the class with a composite (score) of 133 (core)."
Katie Keeports writes "this student made significant gains throughout the first semester. The student has made a 128 point gain in her composite score since the beginning of the year, moving from intensive level to core levels on all parts of the test in just five months."
Karen Greto writes, "this student has progressed consistently. He began the year unable to identify any sounds and only one letter. On the mid-year benchmark, he had grown to knowing 28 sounds (strategic level) and 50 letter names. Given these combined scores, he moved from a composite score of 1 (intensive) to 123 (core)."
Fundations, Decker said, can be used with similar, frankly amazing, results whether students are in special or regular education. It is taught using an intensive professional development training, and the very scripted lessons are taught "with fidelity" across classrooms district-wide, said Academic Teacher Coach and Reading Specialist Medina Reynolds. Teachers are also able, after receiving the training, to coach other teachers on the curriculum≥ The focus on providing the same lesson, with the same language through the use of the same tools regardless of what classroom a student is in, Decker and Reynolds said, allows for the consistent and predictable instruction that is at the heart of the significant growth the district has seen as a result of its introduction.
Mrs. Keeports, at Monday night's school board meeting, related that one student who had transferred to her class from another elementary center within the district was able to enter the classroom without the interruption of having to learn a new teaching style. The curriculum, said Decker, adapts to all teaching styles, meaning that all teachers within the district are seeing the same positive results regardless of individual differences.
Individual differences in students, said Decker, can mean that some students in the district get a "double dose" of the program -- an extra 30-minute lesson in addition to the daily 30 minute lessons provided to each classroom as a whole. That, said Decker, is simply additional exposure that brings students struggling with the curriculum up to speed with the rest of the class, and such struggles, she said, are to be expected from student to student. No student has been unable to engage with the curriculum.
All three teachers thanked the board for investing in Fundations and expressed hope that it would continue to do so. Fundations is set to be rolled out to first-grade students as well as kindergarten at the beginning of the 2017/2018 school year and by 2018/2019, Decker said, will be expanded to second grade as well.
The curriculum builds as students advance through grades, she said.
"We're just really excited to see the success of this program through the growth" of skills students are showing, said Decker. "They're excited about the program. They're excited about learning and reading. I'm excited to see who these students become as they grow," said Decker.