It's all learning! For grownups too!

Well..... another staff meeting I survived. We went over how to look at our testing data on the national testing service provider we use. I had been looking at my data a lot. The bad news is most teachers do not know how to read statistics. (Including me). I keep looking at it until I have some understanding. The good news is only four students did not make gains in all subject areas. There are a lot of things going on there. The bad news is I have many students way below grade level. It is frustrating. Looking at the data recently I realized  that they needed more practice reading a text and answering questions about it. Daily practice referring back to the text to find answers. I have a few with major reading issues. However, the majority will benefit from  practicing referring back to the text to find answers. I also realized they needed more practice reading charts and graphs. A few of the areas in math they needed work on were areas we have not studied yet.

If your child is a struggling reader and things are not improving by second grade. Start simple get their eyes checked. So many reading issues are related to vision problems. If that does not help them then discuss more with the teacher. I have had so many students this year that just needed glasses! They are behind in reading but are making progress very quickly because they can now see the words clearly. Vision changes can occur quickly in children so maybe they don't have issues one year, but the next year they do.  This is a great article on vision in school aged children. 

Another frustration I have and I have talked with parents both in and out of the school setting is math fact fluency. If your child isn't speedy it does not mean they are not fluent mathematically. Thinking deeply about math and seeing patterns, relationships, and other strategies is way more important than quickly know how to add all of my plus 4's. Time limits are okay as long as they are reasonable. If it takes them 4 minutes to complete a 2 minute test are they less fluent? I would say not. However, if it took them an hour I'd say we have some issues there. Here is an article to support this idea that fast isn't necessarily evidence of fluency.