Testing, testing, testing

MEAP testing has come and gone.  For those of you not in the know, it is the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, mandated by the Michigan Department of Education.  Yes I know this has nothing to do with RTI but it's my blog and I am going to vent my frustrations with this test.

For the past 2 weeks, 3rd and 4th graders accross Michigan have been "MEAPING".  One of the subjeccts the 4th graders were tested on  was  writing.  We tested children from 10:30 - 11:30 and again from 1:30 to 2:45.  Seriously.  Since I work with children with emotional impairments this can  be problematic.  Some of them have not developed the stamina to sit still and write for that length of time.  Actually I think it's a huge amount of time to ask any 4th grader to sustain in a testing situation but then the state officials obviously know better.  Like they knew better when they designed the first writing prompt...."Write about your special friend".  I read that and thought oh no seriously?  This is the writing prompt?  Oh yes....and you know what my EI children promptly said don't you?  I don't have any friends.  And it wasn't said sweetly or quietly either.  Now I have an angry kid yelling at me saying more than once I DO NOT HAVE ANY SPECIAL FRIENDS!  I DO NOT HAVE FRIENDS!  If you've ever worked with children who have EI you know that you can not reason with the child when they are in this mode so I said quietly, "I know you don't."  That is a tough thing to say to a child, but in this case he calmed down and I was able to talk to him about special people in his life and who he might write about.  All of this took quite a bit of time and I knew that we were most likely disturbing the other studtents but there was no help for it.  I was the proctor of the test and could not leave the room with this child and leave the rest alonne.   And all along running through my mind were the "rules" of MEAP say "No talking" during MEAP.  Hmmm.

This is a good measure of what our children know... how?

October is Test Month

For the past two weeks I have been busily testing many children in our school.  In Michigan we have the MEAP  Michigan Educational Assessment Program state test which is given to all the 3rd and 4th graders in our school/state.  We began last week and will finish with the majority tomorrow, aside from a few make up tests.  In our school we are also DIEBLEing,  giving SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory) doing running records along with PSI (Phonics Screener for Intervention) and PASI ( Phonological Awareness Screener for Intervention), not to mention Discovery Ed for reading and math.  Our children are being tested to death.

When I go into the Kindergarten or first grade classrooms and test a child I get mixed responses from them.  Some are totally trusting and come with me willingly, answer all my questions and leave me with a friendly wave goodbye.  Others look at me like I'm the devil in disguise, their eyes assessing my every movement and not one glimmer of trust.  I often wonder what they're thinking...who is this lady, why is she wanting to take me? Or what another test?  I wonder too if their distrust of me hampers their test results.  Do they already know as kindergartners that they should not give a wrong answer?  Some children watch every movement of my pen.  A couple are so bold as to ask what I'm writing or why the test is over so quickly ( I must stop testing on PSI and PASI when they make a mistake).  The 1st graders have been very aware that some kids return to the room quickly from my testing and some take much longer and they ask me why they're done so quickly.  So I ponder that question and wonder do I tell the truth?  We're done because you made a mistake.  No, I say well that's the end of your test, and thank you for helping me.

Tomorrow all my data and I will to go an RTI meeting with the teachers from K, 1st and 2nd.  We will talk data and groupings and who will take which group for interventions.  We will also discuss why or how 43% of our first graders did not pass skill level 4.2 and need to be retaught instead of having intervention groups.  We will discuss why so many kids have not passed this skill of onset and rime and how we can address it this year so that next year we do not yet again have 43% of first grade not knowing this skill.  It should be an interesting meeting.

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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.

If I never hear "I don't have time to do that", again (from a teacher) it will still be too soon!

     I have been observing and documenting much progress with my 1st grade group, some of it reading based, some of it social/emotional based. I'm not sure which one excites me more.

      The other day all three of them were bickering over who was going to sit in which chair. I said that I was pretty sure that 3 very smart kids could figure out how to work together as a team to solve this problem without such a noisy fuss. Surprisingly, they said yes they could and suggested rock, paper, scissors! Well, yea I thought and was quick to praise their solution. A few days later they were again debating (loudly) who would sit where, when one of them said we are not acting like a team, let's solve this with rock, paper scissors. Amazing. I told them I was proud and I was!

      And so the learning continues but not always in the way you'd predict. I guess the sad part of the story for me was when I shared the story with the general ed teachers, they were not impressed. These three kids are all at risk for behavior issues, they just figured out how to solve a problem and you're not impressed? All right then ...

      Last week was the end of this session and my three had some nice growth. Two of the three now know what the five short vowel sounds are. I know the focus of this session was blends but I simply found not teach blends withou teaching short vowels. No, they're not proficient yet but they are moving in the right direction and they're learning. Good for them.

It's been an interesting March thus far.

 I have a new 1st grade group of three, 2 boys and one girl, all three with lots of energy.  All three have the need to monitor and correct each other's actions, no matter what.  I can be right in the middle of teaching and one will interrupt loudly, totally ignoring me and the lesson at hand to either: A, tell me what the other person is doing wrong or B, tell the other person what they're doing wrong.    Usually they choose option B which then lead to an argument between two of the three students and learning stops while I settle the dispute.

I'm struggling with this group for a lot of reasons beyond behavior and inattention.  Mostly, I am questioning the logic of moving on to teaching blends when clearly these 3 are still not confident with their knowledge of short vowels, vcv patterns or consonants.  They often do not differentiate between consonants and vowels, nor do they understand that every word has to have a vowel.  I find myself  trying to insert skills pertaining to vowels and consonants while trying to teach blends.  I'm frustrated.

I have been gathering data from our RTI 4th graders for a meeting with the staff from the 5/6 building.  I am also questioning some of that data and our responses.  I discovered that 5 or 6 of our students are currently performing at grade level.  I have more than one data piece to supports this.  So I ask myself, why are we still pulling these kids out for interventions?  Who makes that decision, who says STOP and move on to the next needy student?  I think we are lacking in our reporting/monitoring process.  Who monitors the interventionists?  Should the interventionists be reporting to someone (who?) that their student has been reading proficiently for the past x amount of time?  I think we need to revisit this problem.

One of the reasons this distresses me is because I know of other students in the school who are on a waiting list for intervention.  We do not have enough people, or possibly we have the people but the interventionists do not the time, because of budget constraints, to service all in need.   It's all a balancing act, that's for sure.

One of the dilemmas that I am currently  facing  is what to say to fellow teachers when they tell me they simply do not have the time to reteach a skill, even though half of the class is not understanding it.  I want to ask how can you not reteach it, but they are already moving on to how little time is left in the school year with so much curriculum left to teach.  How can you argue with that, yet how can you not argue that the data says half of your class does not have this skill and it needs to be retaught.  Is this a fault in the curriculum?  Is there not enough time devoted to this particular skill or is it the make up of the class or the presentation of the materials?  Who decided these issues?   I don't view that decision making as mine, yet whose is it?

Likewise, when I speak to another staff member about  possibly backing up a bit with one particular student and making sure that student has the basic skills needed for reading and being told no that student is just fine.  I have assessed that student and no, he/she is not just fine and yes they do need to back up and hit that skill.  What do you say then?  Well, the data shows.....and it does but my fellow staff member is not buying what I'm saying.  Frustration!

Well, 4th grade has completed another chapter math assessment and it shakes out that many kids still need more intervention with long division.  However, it seems that the root of the division problems actually is the fact that they do not have their multiplication facts memorized.  So we are working on memorizing math facts and practicing long division.

Another group of 4th graders are needing interventions centering around angles.  We found a great YouTube video that presents the names of the angles through song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yptZt9hwrzU

First grade RTI kids have moved on to blends.  I am very conflicted by this because they are by no means proficient in the short e skill and the next skill packet 2.6 is checked out.   So I am forced to skip to blends when we should be moving on to short vowel u whether I like it or not.

After working with my 2 new guys in the 1st grade RTI group for a few days, it has become apparent that these two are not at the same skill level.  I think we will need to readjust the RTI groups.  Luckily that is allowed and we will do it.

4th graders are still struggling with the concept of long division and may actually, finally see the need to memorize multiplication facts.

Last week 4th grade had a unit math test which contained division problems.  One boy from the RTI group aced the test.  He found me after school and waving his math test in my face exclaimed I got 100% Mrs. Mac! Priceless!

This week was strange. No RTI for first grade. Lots of needy kids in fourth grade. We are focusing on one skill and one skill alone in fourth grade, long division! Long division has turned many of our fourth grader's world upside down. These kids would find long division much easier if they knew all of the multiplication facts from memory. Sadly, they do not.

 I will begin work with only two first grade students tomorrow. We will be focusing on short e. These two kiddos scored at the bottom of the class.  The pressure is on for me to get the up to grade level.

How do you weigh the needs of one vs many?  That is the question I've been asking myself for the past few days.  Lately I've been questioning if what I am doing is enough.  I feel like there is not enough time in the day/week/year to meet the extreme educational needs that I deal with on a daily basis.

I give the 4th grade RTI students a pre-test on the skills that we will be working during our morning sessions.  I give a post test...and see that some kids are still confused.  So now these kids have had direct instruction in a general ed classroom and struggled with the concept.  They have been pulled into small group learning, taught the skill/concept with much more hands on and visuals and they're still confused.  Now what?  Hit it again or move on? Of course we will hit it again and the clock keeps ticking.

I have just completed the first week of short a interventions with my 1st grade group.  There are to be 5 students in my group, 2 boys and 3 girls.  One girl was absent all week, one girl was absent Thursday and Friday.  I wonder how often these 2 girls will be absent.  2 of these students are currently in the STEP process of the Child Study Team.  

I have to admit I felt totally out of my comfort zone while working with my group this week.  It is nothing that I haven't done before...it is just that I am not familiar with the way the RTI group suggests you teach the interventions.  I am so hoping to become much more comfortable with the pace of teaching the group as well as the materials themselves.  

Each level of intervention is to last 7 consecutive days.  I am wondering if I can move more quickly with the short a sound since the kids who have been there do seem to be able to identify short a patterns in the CVC words as well as the sound.

It was a bit unnerving last week when I asked one student what the consonant g said and the student did not know.  Of course my radar went up and I was wondering what the heck I was going to do about the lack of that skill along with the lack of knowledge of short vowels.


The 4th grade math RTI groups have also undergone a bit of a change with the addition of my student teacher.  We are now able to meet with 2 groups, six students in each group, on M.W and Thurs instead of twice a week as we did before break.  We are going to begin each day with a multiplication timed facts test because these kids still do not know their multiplication facts automatically and then move on to the identified skills for remediation.

Interestingly, after school on the first day of the new groupings, an irate parent called and demanded that her child no longer attend the group because it was in the EI (emotionally impaired) classroom.  Her child is NOT EI and should not have to go down to that classroom.  Mom does not understand that RTI is a regular ed initiative, that focuses on skills missed in the general education classroom and has nothing what so ever to do with special education besides the fact that I am one of the interventionists and I am also a special ed teacher.

Today the first grade, our reading consultant, school counselor, principal and myself met to go over the results of the last PSI assessment for the first graders on short vowels.  Since this is only our 4th month into the RTI journey. it was decided that we need to slow down a bit and spend another month focusing on short vowels.  Once again I will be working with the lowest scoring 5 children in 1st grade.  This will require me to learn more new materials which I will check out during Christmas break. 

Today I gave the PASI to the little guys in my group.  It's so exciting to be able to show growth and mark progress for all three.  It was very interesting to find out that my predictions on who was learning the most and who was struggling the most to be totally wrong.   The child I thought to be struggling the most, the one who was the most wiggly and seeming to be off task the most was the one who scored the highest of the three.  An argument for data collection if I ever saw one.

Progress

My first grade RTI group currently consists of three very wiggly and active boys.  They also scored the lowest of all first graders on the PASI.  Yesterday we were learning onset and rime.  My most impaired little guy said with great confidence, "Hey, I know this.  These words rhyme!"  The look on his face said it all.

Did you ever have a time when the answer was there in front of you all the time but you just didn't or couldn't see it?  Well, that's exactly how I feel about RTI and the 4th grade kids I'm working with.  After three weeks of  looking at test scores and seeing the areas that need remediation, it hit me!  What these students need is an intervention for math vocabulary.  We assume that the kids understand the vocabulary because we use it all the time, we give examples on the board, we have them do math boxes in which we speak the vocabulary to them.  But in reality, they're just pretending to understand. They're not willing to take the risk to say I don't get it in front of their peers, and so they say nothing at all.  They take the math test and fail woefully and we wonder why.

Upon analyzing the test questions that are most often missed in this group of kids it suddenly became apparent that everything they miss is vocabulary based.  These few kids need more time to process the new vocabulary words, try them out for size, see how they work and how they interrelate with the math terms they already know.  It is my job to make it more user friendly for them.

Thank goodness for You Tube.  I have found some wonderful resources on You Tube that I can take and mold into appropriate activities for my groups, which by the way are mostly boys.

I found a very cute video with kids singing a song for perpendicular and parallel lines.  I realized that my boys would NOT go for that so my aide and I changed it into a chant, along with some arm movements and they love it.  Here is the chant (minus the arm movements)

Perpendicular
Parallel
These are the lines we know so well.
Intersecting lines
They cross
Know this and you won't get lost.
Lines have two ends
Rays have one
Line segments have two
Now you're done!

The kids like it, we do it every day for now...and soon we'll be moving on to "I Am A Parallelogram"  You can see on YouTube.

In the process of learning RTI, I have begun to learn how to use The Phonological Awareness Screener for Intervention™ (PASI™) and Phonics Screener for Intervention™ (PSI™) .  These two diagnostic screeners pinpoint specific skill deficits and facilitate teachers’ grouping of students for focused intervention based on the screener results..  I have been practicing giving these tests to the students in my classroom with some eye openings results. 

Yesterday I gave the PASI to one of my 3rd grade students who has many decoding skills but a very low fluency rate of 25 WPM.  I discovered she is not able to remember a three word phrase and repeat it back to me with any accuracy.  She is able to repeat and retain two word phrases but not three words or more.  She also has difficulties in substituting one letter or syllable in a word for another letter or syllable.   For example say cupcake.  Change cup to pan.  What's the new word?  She said cuppan.   Finally she is struggling with segmentation.  She is able to do some basic segmenting such as /m/ /a/  /p/ for map but she is not able to segment blends at the beginning or end of a word.  These are skills that should be mastered in kindergarten, first grade at the latest.  

I love that I can take these screeners and pinpoint exactly where I need to step in and add focused instruction to help her become a more fluent reader. 

After studying the picture the 95% Group sent us, I proceeded to organize my kit in a like manner only to discover that I do not have enough dividers to replicate their picture.  My kit has 12 dividers...their kit appears to have about 30....humm.  So did they forget to stick some dividers into my kit or what?

The top picture shows how we finally decided to arrange the phonics awareness manipulative kits.

However, one of my co-workers sent an email to the 95% Group asking them exactly how people arranged the kit and they sent us the photo on the left.

Interesting how a group of people can look at  the same exact items and organize them in a totally different manner.  Clearly we could not visualize the best way to do organize all our materials. Notice in the top picture we only have 20 separate boxes  with much less materials in that box.  The bottom box has every item that needs to be in the box - in the box!  We didn't know what to do with the sets we couldn't fit into our storage box, so we put them into zip lock bags and then stored them in another plastic tote.  We knew it wasn't efficient or correct but we were stumped.  Thank goodness for digital photography and email!

The 4th grade RTI math groups are really enjoying working with markers and small white boards.  We are re-teaching lines, line segments, rays, parallel lines and congruent lines.  The kids are motivated and engaged!  It's exciting to see them being successful.

Today I was trying to assemble one of the RTI kits we got from the 95% Group.  It seemed like a relatively simple job, separate the perforated pieces, sort them and put them into a storage box. I also have to assemble the storage box and add sticky labels for each lesson.

The first thing I wondered was where exactly do I put the labels?  The dividers have ridges like corrugated cardboard with no window in which to apply the sticker.  If I place the label in the bottom I will obviously be unable to read which skill level is in the box.  There is no other obvious place to put the label.  I also have to decide where exactly to place the divider.  Thus far I haven't a clue.  Everywhere I have placed them has been wrong, I've moved them more than once, and I'm pretty certain they're still not in the correct place.

One would think that sorting the cards would be easy since each card clearly has a skill level on it as well as a set number.  Except, when you sort them and think that you have all of one set, you discover, nope you don't.  There are so many different shapes and sizes of manipulatives it is hard to know how to sort them and where to put them.

Even more frustrating, or perhaps more comforting, is the fact that I am not alone in this endeavor....2 other staff members are also trying to figure out how to organize these materials and they're having no more better luck than I am.  Hopefully we will get it figured out soon.