Reading Comprehension Progress Monitoring

A big part of being a Special Educator is identifying specific areas for student growth, designating annual goals for those growth areas and then monitoring student progress throughout the year.  

One of the big challenges for me as I start this year is figuring out how to monitor student's progress in a way that doesn't take them away from the regular educational progress in the classroom. In a typical Special Education-only setting, we would do weekly monitoring with quick assessments. I haven't figured out a great way to do this without interrupting their time in the Gen Ed classroom or really calling "them" (the Special Ed students) out as different.  All along, I've been delivering additional  or supplemental instruction to small groups but this hasn't been only for Special Ed students.  

My co-teacher and I decided that we would just monitor all the students.  We have a large percentage of students (about 50%) who didn't pass their grade level reading assessment at the start of the year.  This means we are providing additional reading comprehension instruction to the whole class and would like to see more students passing at the end of the year.  (Reading fluency instruction has been harder to deliver and is an area I need to develop and QUICKLY!)

So, Friday, I instructed the students in 2 test-taking / reading comprehension strategies and gave them all a below-grade level reading passage with multiple choice questions.   I told them we'd be working on these weekly as "test prep" (similarly, we do weekly analogy practice).   The steps they were to follow were:  1) Read the questions.  2) Read the passage.  3) Eliminate any wrong answers.  4) Choose the best answer.  Pretty basic stuff, but we're just getting started.

These 7th graders have done some pretty high-level reading already this year ~ and have The Odyssey in store for later in the year!  So, I was expecting someone to say, "This is so easy!" But no one did, thank you, kids! I think the results will yield good information for many students.  

As the year progresses, I plan to provide additional strategy instruction that we can use in other reading settings, not just "test prep." Also, I will eventually level the passages based on how students are doing.  

Success story:  One non-Special Ed student rushed through and was the first one done.  I checked in with him and asked if he'd followed the steps I'd showed them.  Nope.  I reviewed the steps with him and gave him a fresh sheet.  His was the only assessment I scored on the spot.  After he finished his 2nd try I let him know his results:  1st try:  0% correct.  2nd try:  86%. Wow, what a difference actually reading the passage makes!  I hope that sticks with him!!

Personal Goal Check

I started this blog with several goals in mind.  I am checking in to let you know how I'm doing.

1)  Reflective writing more often, perhaps every day?  Well, daily reflective writing hasn't happened for me.  I haven't journalled daily (school-wise or other-wise) but I did just update my hiking journal from August through today!  When I started this blog,  I really hoped I'd be able to scratch out some kind of entry each day but I haven't done that either. 

2)  Steer my practice based on reflection.   While I haven't written every day, what I HAVE done is talk openly with my co-teacher Mr. B about our plans and my concerns.  I think the accountability of my (imaginary) legions of readers has helped me be more active in taking steps to make improvements as soon as I notice a problem or need something to change. 

3)  Share the ups & downs of co-teaching.  I hope this has been successful so far. One thing I've learned already through this process is that every co-teaching story is different. Whether mine sounds similar or totally foreign, I hope my thoughts and stories are helpful to someone else.

4)  Connect with fellow educators.  My (imaginary) legions of readers keep mostly to themselves but I realize that knowing I am writing for the public has, I think, encouraged me to be more open with my fellow teachers in my new district.  I love meeting new teachers and sharing ideas!  A few weeks ago, I asked my principal to connect me with an experienced co-teacher at another school.  Meeting with her was quite helpful ~ in part because she acknowledged that her school's first year with co-teaching was rocky! Whether it's thanks to the blog or just thanks to a new school year starting, I'm feeling more confident than ever before in communicating with colleagues.

Reflective Blogging Challenge

While I was cultivating the idea of starting a blog, this Reflective Teaching: A 30 Day Blogging Challenge for Teachers came through my Pinterest feed.  (Actually, I have a group of educators who all pin to the same "Teachery" board together and a friend pinned this.  I highly recommend following your friends and having a shared board.  Seeing what others are interested in at that moment or passing along ideas can be so inspiring!)

I was, in fact, inspired.  Since I want to get into a regular habit of writing, reflecting and blogging, and since I didn't think I could actually write about co-teaching each day, I plan to use their suggestions as posts occasionally, too.  Here goes.

Day 1:  Write your goals for the school year.  Be as specific or abstract as you'd like to be!

Well, I did just meet with one of my grade level teams and our goal is:  "Between September and February, students will improve their ability to state a claim and support it by citing text-based evidence as measured by district Common Assessments and other teacher measures. Blah blah blah."  OK, for some of us this makes some sense but for non-educators that probably sounds pretty boring and bizarre.  Luckily, I have some other goals.

 Reflection.  This blog is part of that.  My plan is to write more, think back and look for patterns.  Also, I will need to use this reflection as a basis for discussion, clarification and adjustment with my co-teachers.

Integration.  I wrote this a few weeks ago thinking about integrating myself into my new school home.  I signed up for a committee and am trying my best to reach out & connect to my coworkers.  This year, integration is easier than typical as I'm not only part of the Special Ed team, but also 2 different grade level teams.  Of course, being a co-teacher means I'm also facilitating the greater integration of Special Ed students into the Gen Ed setting!

Questioning & Discussion.  I'm working on upping my game as far as group discussion and student questions go.  My attempts to move out of fact-based questions have sometimes stopped short right around, "And what do you think about that?"  My goal would be moving toward more analysis, connection between topics and capitalizing on student curiosity, letting them develop questions .

I'll let you know how I do with my goals through the year!  What are your goals for this year?  

Oh, hello.

Welcome to my reflections on teaching!

I've created this blog with a few intentions in mind:

I'm in my 5th year of teaching and have sporadically used reflective journal-writing to assess my practice, diagnose problems and celebrate (usually mini) triumphs. With this blog, I'd like to write reflectively MORE FREQUENTLY.  Perhaps everyday?

Journal-writing-on-the-bus-selfie.

Additionally, I'd like to make better use of my reflection.  Sometimes journal-writing is just blabbing out my thoughts.  This in itself can be incredibly helpful for me to work through emotions, see a situation from a different perspective and let some things go.  That is great.  What I'd like to do with this blog, is develop some of those "blabbings" into more coherent thoughts that might encapsulate my feelings or philosophy on a certain topic or a refined impression of an experience that hopefully produces a response or connection from others.  In addition to making my thoughts more readable for others, my hope is that through spending more time with my thoughts, I will be better able to use my reflective writing to actually STEER MY PRACTICE based on experience.

This year I am CO-TEACHING for the first time!  Co-teaching means 2 teachers (typically a General Education teacher and a Special Education) in one classroom sharing the planning and instruction responsibilities for the class.  This can be done in a variety of ways and this year I am co-teaching 2 different grade levels with 2 different teachers.  I did a bit of reading and research this summer trying to get ready for this new endeavor and thought the opportunity to read a teacher's thoughts on co-teaching from the beginning of their experience could be so informative.  So, another goal for this blog is to track my experience with co-teaching from that first conversation with my principal, to meeting and planning with my co-teachers, the ups and downs, (the occasional boredom for me at the side of the class...) and the successes of a good two-teacher flow in a classroom.

Lastly, I have a number of amazing educators in my life and the saddest part about that is that we don't get to sit down and discuss education nearly enough!  I hope that this blog with at minimum, be a place for others to know me as an educator better and, ideally, a place where a community of us will be free to share our ideas, explore our philosophy and ultimately improve the work we do with children!

I look forward to hearing from fellow educators!!