School Members – Mary Jo Williams, Kelani Maughan, Deana Davis
Members Absent -
Parents
Jenny Smith
School Members
Guests
Parents- none
School Members- Shawna Blamires
Welcome
Kristin Hall welcomed members and opened the meeting.
Review of Prior Meeting's Minutes
Motion to approve last month’s meeting notes by Alicia Willoughby,seconded by Kristen Hall.
2021-2022 Trustland Plan
Review Budget Allocations
Carried over $195.61 from last year.
Chromebook Expenditure = $15,103.00
Aides Salaries to this date = $11.382.39
We were able to hire another Reading RTI aide to replace the one that quit.
Data Review with Shawna Blamires—ELA Learning Gaps 2021-2022
Information being implemented from the LTRS course. Already making our teachers better reading instructors.
Whole language learning only works for 40% of learners. Now we can close the gap for those that don’t learn just from natural literature exposure.
Accuracy is going up! Far fewer mistakes or children can fix their own mistakes ( input from Mrs. Maughan)
Redefining sight words as words kids can read on sight because they can decode words quickly. Every child will have a different set of sight words because each child learns differently.
Looking at the data (Color-coded graphs according to pod colors)
Phonological Awareness is playing with sounds (the ability to work with sounds in spoken language; sets stage for decoding and blending). Being used in Tier 1 and Tier 2 interventions. (Whole group and individual/small group).
Example: using Heggerty videos or the one-minute lists in later grades
Hoping to fill gaps. Some 1st-3rd graders not able to meet end of kindergarten benchmarks
Possibility of false negatives because the test and tasks were new to the kids
Ms. Blamires is able to discuss individual children's data with parents if requested.
Second graders doing better with 2nd grade Phonological Awareness benchmarks than the 3rd graders are (though both grades are low)
Partly on us, partly due to socio-economic factors (ex. Students hearing a different language at home), partly because of Covid-19 gaps
Older kids have been taught one way, so they must unlearn and relearn.
Ms. Blamires took us through a few sample tasks to show how this can be difficult.
K-3 assessed everybody. In 4th and 5th grades we only tested those who are at or below benchmark.
Phonics and Word Reading (actual relationship between letters and sounds—decoding is sounding out words using phonics)
Our brains are naturally wired for speech but not reading. Brains haven’t had time to evolve and make it natural.
Phonics includes naming letters, identifying blends, etc. Phonics part of the data looks better than the phonological awareness.
In a few of these graphs, second grade once again scored higher than third grade.
One example of a gap we’ve identified: Y is most often a vowel sound but students identify it mostly as a consonant
Some kids can do well with this in isolation but not in text
Mrs. Maag is was just selected to be a district LETRs trainer.
How do parents help train children do this at home?
“What was your Reading Horizons lesson on?”
Look for examples of those words in text and focus on those.
Read 20 minutes daily!
Data for ELA Benchmarks mastery (PAST & LETRS)
Teachers are glad to share any of this!
Additional Discussion Items
Possibility of offering some training on this for parents?
When? Literacy night?
Suggestion of monthly information for parents from teachers for grade-level specifics
Parents need to know a new vocabulary/terminology list for current learning techniques
Focus on foundation and understanding the process allows for natural absorption of algorithms
Send out kid-friendly standards (put the educator’s lingo in layman’s terms for parents)
How can we do this without putting extra work on the teachers and staff?
Some of this information is available if you know where to look for it!
How can we better communicate to parents what is going on within the classroom?
Parents need to utilize the time at the beginning of year to have individual conferences (Open House vs. Presentation Style? Are both needed? Would a link work better?)
Parents don’t know what questions to ask yet
Need better communication—encourage parents to ask their questions
Action Items
Begin Formulating the plan for 2022-2023. Needs to be submitted by March.
Meeting Dismissed:
5:05 pm - Alicia Willoughby motioned to adjourn, seconded by Monica Cameron.
Next Meeting
January 11, 2022 at 4:00 PM at Orchard Springs Elementary
