Every Mile is an Accomplishment

At Riverside Elementary School students have completed Math, Reading, and Writing universal screeners in the fall (end-of-August) and winter (early-to-mid-January). We will have one final round of universal screening in these three areas towards the end-of-April/beginning-of-May. The following slides are visual representations of how many of our students are scoring proficient on the fall tests, compared to how many of our students are scoring proficient on the winter tests.

This information helps us in determining how students are responding to instruction so that we can make necessary changes. Our students use their individualized information to set goals based off of these results, and then monitor the progress towards those goals by graphing their progress monitoring scores. 

What follows is a lot to be proud of and celebrate for and with our students, as well as the staff and family members that have assisted in these accomplishments!

The FAST (Formative Assessment System for Teachers) is our universal screener in the area of reading. This kindergarten composite score takes into account all four FAST scores that kindergarten students receive from the four different tests that they take during each testing period.

Correct words refers to how many correct words students can read in the one-minute FAST passages.
The score needed for students to meet proficiency on this graph increases from fall to winter.

Correct words, again, refers to how many correct words students can read in the one-minute FAST passages.
The score needed for students to meet proficiency on this graph remains constant from fall to winter to spring.

Accuracy refers to the amount of errors that students make when reading the one-minute FAST passages.
The score needed for students to meet proficiency on this graph remains constant (95%) for all grades and all testing periods.

The math computation probe consists of 25 problems representing year-long, grade-level math computation curriculum. Depending on the grade-level, students get three to four minutes to answer as many of the problems as they are able.
The score needed for students to meet proficiency on this graph remains constant from fall to winter to spring.

The math application probe consists of 18 to 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 six to eight minutes to answer as many of the problems as they are able.
The score needed for students to meet proficiency on this graph remains constant from fall to winter to spring.

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 score needed for students to meet proficiency on this graph remains constant from fall to winter to spring.

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 spelled correct and grammatically correct.
The score needed for students to meet proficiency on this graph remains constant from fall to winter to spring.

Runner's World magazine's Twitter account, +Runner's World Magazine, recently tweeted the following advice - 'Stop running comparathons. Every mile is an accomplishment.'

I love this statement. And I think that it definitely has implications for us as educators, as well as our students. Yes, we are pushing our students towards setting goals and then charting their progress towards those goals. However, we need to remember that all learning that takes place for our students is an achievement worth celebrating. It is my hope that our students won’t feel pressure to compare and/or compete ‘head-to-head’ with their classmates when tracking their progress compared to their goals. Instead, our students will be competing against themselves while pursuing their academic goals, they will come to the realization that progress and success are not linear achievements, and that all growth is an accomplishment. Each piece of learning that takes place is an accomplishment.

This same data is posted on display inside the glass case across the hall from the office at Riverside Elementary School. Also, be aware that individual child/student fall and winter data, as well as grade-level expectations for throughout the year, was sent home via Friday folders prior to conferences. If you did not receive these scores, please contact your child's classroom teacher.