New Year, New Responsibilities

A new school year has begun and along with that came many changes.  The biggest change for me was the elimination of our reading consultants.  Gone with a slash in a round of budget cuts.  Go figure.  Now that we are sans reading consultants the rest of the staff has begun to realize just how much our fantastic reading consultant did for us all.  Funny how it takes many of us to do the job one previously did.

So I am doing my part to replace our consultant as well and of course my part has to do with RTI and thus begins the learning curve yet again.  Since my 3 year goal revolves around learning RTI (response to instruction) it seems logical that I am learning how to test our K and 1st graders with the PASI and our 2nd graders with the PSI.  Since I actually gave the PSI last year, I only have to learn the PASI.  It's a pretty simple test to administer and also quick which is in my advantage because I have to find time in my day to include this testing.  Luckily I do not have to do every child in each grade, just the students who fall below benchmark on DIBELS ( Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills).

It was pretty exciting to identify only 14 students in 2nd grade who need interventions at this time.  Kudos to our last year's 1st grade teachers for a job well done!

I am in the middle of testing K and 1st so I do not have all the data complied yet but I'll be interested to see what the results of 1st grade.