Part Two...Great Growth

The following four slides are visual representations of our students' growth from the Math and Writing benchmark assessments that students have taken in the fall (end-of-August) and winter (mid-January). They compare how many of our students have met their year-end benchmark goals for proficiency in the fall, versus how many of our students have met those same year-end benchmark goals in the winter. This is worth sharing and celebrating, and it is a testament to everyone's hard work. We are very excited with these results, and very proud of the efforts that contributed to this growth.

The math computation probe consists of 25 problems representing year-long, grade-level math computation curriculum. Depending on the grade-level, students get between three and four minutes to answer as many of the problems as they are able.

The math application probe consists of 18-25 problems representing the year-long, grade-level math concepts and applications curriculum. Each test is three-pages long. Depending on the grade-level, students get between six and eight minutes to answer as many of the problems as they are able.

Students are given a writing probe; they have one-minute to think of a response, and then three-minutes to write a response. Total words written is a count of how many words students were able to write within the three-minutes

The same writing probe that was used to score total words written is used to score correct word sequence. To receive credit for correct word sequence, writing must be correctly spelled and grammatically correct.

This information helps us in determining how students are responding to instruction so that we can make necessary changes. The following pictures represent some of the ways that we are monitoring progress in-between benchmark assessments. Students are setting goals, and students are keeping track of their own progress compared to those goals. These are things that are having a positive impact with our students.

All of our up-to-date benchmark assessment data (Reading, Math, and Writing) is on display inside the glass case across the hall from the office at Riverside Elementary School. I encourage you to check it out the next time that you come into our school. Also, for individual child/student fall and winter data, as well as grade-level expectations for throughout the year, please be on the lookout for a note coming home on Friday, February 14th that will provide those specific results.