Coaching research, evidence-based data, and teacher surveys show that coaching cycles are the key coaching action that improves student learning. However, if you’re an instructional coach, you know all too well that we are often tasked with so many other responsibilities. These run the gamut from developing and leading traditional professional development sessions to collaborating with school teams, facilitating and organizing school-wide assessments, organizing learning walks and other forms of public teaching, and analyzing student achievement data.

Each of these activities can contribute to positive change in schools. The constant work that supporting these large-scale activities requires, though, oftentimes means that the one-on-one coaching cycle—the primary vehicle of instructional coaching—can all but disappear.

I’d like to make the case for why prioritizing coaching cycles over some other efforts will make a significant impact on student learning in your schools. In this post, I will explain how you can advocate for prioritizing coaching cycles to school leaders. I will also discuss a flexible structure for coaching cycles that makes them possible, despite the widely varying instructional coaching assignments and workloads each instructional coach may carry.

What is a coaching cycle?

There are many different models of coaching cycles used in education, but most can be boiled down to this simple definition: A coaching cycle is the process in which a teacher and instructional coach work collaboratively to set an instructional or student learning goal, make a plan for supporting the goal, monitor progress toward the goal, and then reflect on how well the plan supported the goal. Each cycle usually includes three phases: 

1. A goal-setting and planning pre-conference
2. Coaching actions for implementing and monitoring the plan
3. A reflection post-conference to assess impact

Coaching actions in the middle phase can vary based on the goal. They can include co-teaching, modeling, observation, co-planning, and the potential for other actions. The reflection post-conference is usually rooted in evidence to assess impact: student work, assessment data, video, student surveys, and/or an observation tool.

Why do coaching cycles matter?

Coaching cycles are an effective antidote to the knowing-doing gap When teachers engage in traditional professional learning, many of them still struggle with implementing new learning in their classrooms, despite their best intentions.

Simply holding workshops, sharing information, or engaging in role plays is not enough to transfer skills, but coaching is highly efficacious in transferring skills to the classroom, where teachers can impact students most. In 2002, Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers presented research showing that almost no learning based in theory and discussion, demonstration by a trainer, or role-playing with feedback transferred to classroom practice. However, coaching in the classroom resulted in 95% of learning transferring to classroom practice.

Instructional coaching is effective! The process of coaching is contextualized, and personalized professional learning is co-designed specifically to support the needs of teachers and their students. Teachers need ongoing collaboration and support while they implement what they have learned from professional development, and this is why following up professional learning with in-person coaching is recommended.

What is the evidence?

Many studies continue to support the efficacy of instructional coaching for supporting, improving, and elevating classroom instruction. Here are just a few samples:

• Linda Shidler’s research shows that well-defined coaching cycles, especially when aligned to school-wide goals, yield increased achievement on different measures of assessment compared to looser, more ambiguous instructional coaching activities. The “type and quality of the interactions,” she explains, matter more than the amount of time one is engaged in coaching.
• A study from Rebecca Frazier found that students in classrooms where teachers received coaching in the form of cycles outperformed students in non-coached teachers’ classrooms on MAP® Growth.
• Teachers have remarked that engaging in coaching cycles has improved student engagement in their classrooms. They have also said that they implemented more new literacy strategies with the support of coaches, according to a study by Kelly Feighan and Elizabeth Heeren.
• In Diane Sweeney’s research on the student-centered coaching cycle model, student proficiency on learning targets improved from an average of 5% in the coaching preconference to an average of 73% in the coaching post-conference.
• My own coaching feedback surveys with teachers revealed that teachers who engage in individual coaching cycles are more likely to say that coaching improved learning for their students and that they could sustain using new teaching practices in the classroom in the long term.

What should I do now?

If you’re an instructional coach, here are three ways you can prioritize coaching cycles:

1. Consider creating a coaching menu. The menu can focus on supporting a few school-wide goals. Use it to engage individual teachers in individual coaching cycles. I used a simple Google form that allowed teachers to share their goals for students and coaching actions they believed would help us collaborate well. If you want to learn more about creating your own coaching menu, check out “The digital coaching menu: Four reasons why you need one,” a post I wrote on the topic.
2. Audit your time. Record all your activities for a week and make a chart to see where you are spending your time. Strive to dedicate at least 50% of your time to coaching cycle work. Ask your supervisor for help if you need it.
3. Advocate for time to coach. Share this post with your administrator, direct supervisor, or team. Discuss how support for students and teachers in your school would be strengthened if your work were firmly centered in coaching cycles.

Coaching cycles are the bridge over the knowing-doing gap for many teachers. Instructional coaches are in a unique position to impact student learning based on their capacity to offer contextualized, ongoing professional learning for those they serve. Bringing coaching cycles to the focus of coaching work will have lasting benefits for students, educators, and the communities we serve.

To learn more about instructional coaching, download our eBook Supporting teachers with instructional coaching.

The post How to make coaching cycles the center of instructional coaching work appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Family time is learning time. Did you know that kids learn most of their vocabulary outside of school, through conversations with family and friends? Or that drawing pictures during play time lays the foundation for reading and writing, even for the youngest of learners?

Families have always been an active part of the teaching and learning process, and they became (and continue to be) even more crucial during the pandemic.

The following research-based ideas are intended to be manageable, interactive activities you and your child can engage in to help develop their reading and writing skills, motivation, and confidence. Some of these strategies target specific age groups or grade levels, while others apply to kids of all ages. You’ll see them categorized accordingly. Try out two or three of them and make them a part of your family’s other important routines, like brushing teeth.

General reading and writing improvement strategies that will help kids of all ages

No matter your kid’s age, several factors influence their reading and writing growth, including attitude, motivation, access, and exposure. Think of the following strategies as tips for developing internalized mindsets, behaviors, and habits.

Model good habits by reading and writing in front of your child

Adults’ attitudes toward reading and writing influence children’s perception of the value of these skills. Having your child observe you while reading a book or magazine and while writing a thank you note or email to a friend helps to establish a recognition that reading and writing are useful and positive parts of everyday life.

Be sure to explain why you are reading and writing to your child, for example, to learn about a topic you are interested in, entertain yourself with a funny story, or thank someone for their kindness. Kids need to understand the value and purpose of the actions of reading and writing; knowing the why helps them be more motivated to read and write themselves.

Make reading materials—ones they will truly care about—readily available for your child

Kids’ threshold for boredom has appeared to lower in recent decades, particularly with today’s access to social media and video streaming. If we want kids to engage in reading and writing, we need to make it the most attractive activity for them. Kids are more likely to read when they see the value in it, such as building their knowledge about something they find interesting.

Find out what your kid is interested in and get as many texts as possible related to that topic. These can be books, graphic novels, magazines, or online digital texts. You don’t need to spend a small fortune, either. Your local library or your child’s school library probably have plenty of options to choose from.

Remember, too, that while reading on grade level is important, so is reading a large volume of text and reading for pleasure. Some texts may be below grade level for your child, and that’s okay. Some might be above grade level. If a kid is interested in a topic, they’re more likely to engage with a challenging text on that topic. Plus, a text that’s above grade level provides a nice opportunity for joint reading with another member of the family.

Talk with your child…a lot

Children expand their vocabulary and understanding of sentence structures not only through reading but also through conversations with others.

Talk to your children about their day at school, about what they see in the neighborhood on a walk or drive, about their interests, about the movie you watched together, about the news, about anything, really. When possible, ask questions that will elicit more than a one-word response. A colleague loves asking about her children’s day using the popular Rose, Thorn, and Bud exercise, for example. Her kids share a rose, or a good thing about their day, then a thorn, a difficult thing. The bud prompt is for sharing something they’re looking forward to.

Give your child authentic writing tasks to help them find their voice and develop their sense of power

Kids are more motivated to write when they are writing for real purposes and real audiences and there is a potential for real impact.

Encourage your child to write for practical and useful purposes like helping create a grocery shopping list for the week; writing a get-well-soon card to a friend; writing an email to their teacher asking for clarification on an assignment; or writing a letter to an elected official calling for change. Heck, they can even follow the lead of adorable Dillon Helbig, an eight-year-old who wrote a book and self-published it by secretly stocking it on a shelf at his local library.

Writing can also have a huge psychological benefit for processing emotions. Encourage your child to keep a journal to work through and express their own thoughts and feelings. For young learners, this might be in the form of drawing pictures.

Literacy strategies for kids from birth through pre-K

Children in pre-K and younger are often called “preliterate.” This description is important because while they are not yet “literate,” they are engaging in many activities that establish a solid base for later independent reading and writing. Think of the following strategies as building blocks for future reading and writing success.

Read aloud to your child

Children’s understanding of language begins in the womb as they hear the rhythm of their mother’s speech. Infants mimic speech by making sounds, which are often effective communication tools to get them what they want. Toddlers start using words and pretty quickly they are stringing together complete sentences without ever having a single grammar lesson on sentence construction. By observing and interacting with adults and other kids, children learn to speak in full sentences before they can read individual words printed on the page.

Instill a bedtime story routine, maybe with those library books you got on your kid’s favorite topics. Read aloud environmental print, too, like store signs and street names. Through read alouds, children expand their vocabulary, their knowledge about a topic or idea, and their understanding of sentence structures.

Draw on the print-rich environment at home

Children aren’t born knowing what letters and words are. It’s a conceptual understanding (also known as print awareness) that they build over time with help from adults and more proficient readers.

One of the most obvious ways to build print awareness is to install a bookshelf in your kid’s bedroom and keep it stocked with books from the library. However, print exists in other forms besides books. Post your shopping or to-do list on the refrigerator for them to see. Use sticky notes to place labels on items in the child’s room and around the house. Get them a set of magnetic letters to rearrange on the fridge.

Surrounding kids with examples of printed texts sets the foundation for understanding the alphabetic principle.

Engage in art projects

Through drawing and painting, young kids develop the motor skills and physical stamina they need to eventually write words, sentences, and paragraphs. Having your kid practice drawing individual letters helps to establish the brain connections they need to later map sounds to letters and letter patterns when they are learning to read.

Make sure your child has access to materials like paper, crayons, and finger paints. You can also get fun (and messy) by having them use their fingers to draw letters in salt or even pudding (the reward is pudding for dessert). Let your and their imaginations run wild!

Strategies for kids in kindergarten through grade 2

Kids in these grades are actively learning how to read. They are developing their understanding of  phonemic awareness (the individual sounds in words) and are learning to match those sounds with specific letters and letter patterns (also known as phonics) through the act of decoding. Here are some easy activities to try at home.

Take turns reading aloud to each other

Students in this age group are likely bringing home decodable texts from school, which use the specific letter patterns they are learning at the time. Create a positive attitude toward reading by asking them to read these texts to you and praising them accordingly.

Continue to read above-grade-level books aloud to them, too. While kids this age may not be ready to read chapter books on their own, you can still build their understanding of vocabulary and language structures as well as strengthen their comprehension by reading more complex texts aloud to them.

Ask them questions about what you read together

Asking questions serves not only to measure kids’ understanding of a text but also to deepen their understanding by helping them think more carefully about what they are reading (or listening to).

Ask kids questions that start with “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “how,” and “why.” Ask them to predict what will happen next and what in the text makes them think that. These questions help kids become active readers who are able to make connections in a text.

Play word games

Kids this age are doing a lot of word study at school. They’re learning to isolate the individual sounds in words and to blend individual sounds to form new words. They are learning how base (root) words, prefixes, and suffixes can help them understand the meaning of unfamiliar words.

You can play rhyming games to support their learning of the connections between sounds and letters. You can have them dissect words for their different parts and associated meanings. You can introduce word construction games like Zingo Word Builder or sight word bingo.

Strategies for kids in grades 3 and above

For kids in this group, authenticity matters. They need to find real value in the reading and writing activities they’re engaging in. Also, if your kid is showing struggles with reading or writing, it’s important to reach out and stay in close contact with their teacher. They may need additional and targeted support with developing certain skills.

Listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks together

While we might appreciate music, podcasts, and audiobooks through our sense of hearing, these formats all require a writer or team of writers to brainstorm, draft, and polish ideas in writing before hitting the record button. Share that information with your child, and enjoy these types of storytelling together.

Discuss and analyze the lyrics to some of their favorite songs. Songwriters make interesting word choices and use inventive sentence structures. These provide ripe opportunity to discuss how language can be used for stylistic effect and to build vocabulary.

It seems like there is a podcast for every area of interest. Listening to podcasts builds listening comprehension and oral language skills. It also might spark students to create their own podcasts, which involves a lot of reading and writing. Scroll down to my last tip for useful links on creating podcasts.

If students struggle with reading fluently, it can be helpful for them to follow along with a book while listening to the audio version.

Practice digital citizenship by evaluating the credibility of online information

In today’s world, readers are bombarded with misinformation, but it can be difficult to determine what information is credible. The organization Common Sense has a curated list of websites and apps that help kids develop their media literacy skills as responsible consumers and producers of content. News Literacy Project also offers resources for families.

Younger kids will often start with identifying the text genre (for example, fiction or poetry) and relating it to the author’s purpose (for example, to persuade, inform, or entertain) before moving on to distinguishing fact from opinion by examining key clues (for example, the use of “loaded” phrases). With ongoing instruction and practice, older kids become more skilled at evaluating sources.

If your child has a social media account, help them understand that they are participating in an authentic media environment and that their posts are examples of real writing that can have a real influence on others. Asking them to evaluate their own posts or reposts through the same critical lens as other online sources can help reinforce this understanding.

Encourage them to use digital tools to create new texts

“Real-world” writing today is digital writing. People use keyboards, computers, and other digital devices to translate their thoughts into sentences for an internet-connected audience to read. Your kids might already be using Google Docs on a regular basis to collaborate with their classmates. Technology also allows writers to embed multimodal elements to enhance their ideas, such as graphics, images, videos, audio clips, animation, and hyperlinks to other sources.

Ask your child to compose texts with digital tools so they can be better prepared for real-world writing and have the opportunity to geek out with technology they are drawn to. Check out this list of free multimedia tools your kid can tinker around with as they create new texts. Common Sense has another two lists of recommended websites and apps (with free and paid options), one specifically for making videos and animations and another for podcasting. Kids’ creative potential is truly limitless here. And they can “publish” these texts for real audiences. For example, NPR runs a yearly student podcast challenge with real prize money!

Putting these strategies into action

Reading and writing don’t take place only at school. They are essential activities in everyday life. And they involve skills that we develop over time with purposeful support from teachers.

Your official job title might not say “teacher,” but you are a huge influence in your child’s life—and that makes you a teacher. These family strategies for reading and writing don’t require special training, only that you and your child spend some quality time talking, reading, and writing together. You’ve got this!

To learn more, download How to support reading at home: A guide for families and visit our archive of articles on supporting families.

The post Parent strategies for improving their child’s reading and writing appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Children know a lot about language before they even learn to read. From the moment they are born, kids are exposed to all kinds of spoken language that helps them understand and make connections to written language years later. All that language—spoken to them, sung to them, read to them—becomes deposits in their language bank that they can use as they grow.

My daughter is a great example of how children bank language. She loved to have stories read to her before she learned to read. Her dad and I started reading to her not long after we brought her home from the hospital. After several years of picture books, we also began to read her our favorite chapter books, such as Winnie-the-Pooh and Charlotte’s Web, for as long as she would sit still and was interested. Sometimes we read just five or 10 minutes, but other times, during exciting parts, she would sit for an entire chapter.

I knew my daughter understood these longer stories because she would ask questions about the characters. It was clear she was taking the ideas we read to her and creating the stories in her mind. One day in particular, after something in her four-year-old life had not gone right for her, she came to me upset and said, “Will you comfort me?” I was so surprised to hear her ask for a hug that way, in such an unusual but completely appropriate way. It reminded me of a book we had been reading together. She had taken language she had heard and applied it to solve a problem she was experiencing. And of course, she got a hug!

My daughter was exhibiting language comprehension, something you may have heard your child’s teachers talk about. Although it may seem like a simple concept on the surface, I’d like to explore it and why it is important for reading more deeply. I’ll begin by defining the term and close with some tips on how you can support language comprehension at home.

What is language comprehension?

Language comprehension is the ability to understand the different elements of spoken or written language, like the meaning of words and how words are put together to form sentences. Language comprehension is one of the building blocks of reading comprehension.

Why is language comprehension important for reading?

Imagine that a child’s language bank is full of vocabulary, knowledge of how words make sentences, and information about the world. When the child begins to read, they will be better able to connect the words on the page to all these things.

Imagine the ability to read as a pyramid, as illustrated below. Reading comprehension, or being able to understand what you read, is the topmost block, and language comprehension is one of the blocks underneath it that supports reading comprehension. Decoding is the other block that supports reading comprehension. Together, reading comprehension, language comprehension, and decoding make up the Simple View of Reading.

The simple view of reading

Without language comprehension and decoding, reading comprehension is more difficult.

When do kids start developing language comprehension?

From birth to about age six, children are considered prereaders. They are learning sounds, letters, words, phrases, and what all those things mean. They begin to learn about books, too: how to hold one the right way and how to turn the pages. They go places with adults and experience new things. Even commonplace things, such as shopping or taking the bus, provide new experiences for children, especially if the adults talk with the children about what is going on. For example, talking about what you have to do to take the bus, the colors of the packages at the store, or how you pay for something provides new information for children to deposit in their language bank.

By listening, children also learn about grammar, or how to put words together correctly into sentences, and vocabulary. They then bring what they know about the world, including topics like science or history, and use that information to make connections and understand what they read.

What does language comprehension look like in action?

Let’s say that a child, Anna, has been learning English as a first or additional language. One day, when she is in first grade, her older sister reads these sentences to Anna, which are at a grade 3–5 level: “The sky lit up with color as the sun descended below the horizon. A soft breeze drifted through the trees as day turned to night. The four friends were ready to embark on a new adventure.”

Although these sentences might have been written for an older student to read independently, Anna can understand their meaning when her sister reads them to her. Anna knows about sunsets because she and her grandfather like to watch the sky change colors when the sun sets. That experience helps Anna understand that the first sentence is talking about a sunset, and she might guess that the word “descended” means that the sun is sinking below the skyline. In other words, Anna’s knowledge helps her make meaning of the story and of new vocabulary she hears. The more knowledge and vocabulary students like Anna gain through interacting with adults and the world around them, the stronger the building blocks they have for reading.

Listening to these sentences also helps Anna understand how sentences work. Each sentence has a subject (“sky,” “breeze,” “friends”) followed by an action (“lit up,” “drifted,” “were ready”). Even though young readers might not be able to independently read long or hard sentences, they are developing the building blocks they need to do that eventually by listening to others and matching those sentence structures when speaking themselves. Even toddlers pick up on this sentence structure when they say things like “No, I don’t want that.”

What can I do to support reading at home? 

Here are three simple things you can do to support your child in developing language comprehension.

1. Interact with your child—about everything

Just as Anna’s grandfather helped her learn about sunsets, you are a great source of knowledge and language for your children. Find opportunities to interact with them and use language together every day. Read to them. Talk to them about what you do during the day or how your favorite sports teams are doing. Go for a walk around your neighborhood and talk about what you see. Take them on your errands and explain what you are doing and why.

You have so much experience to share, and kids have so much to learn about everything.

2. Help children find books they are interested in

Talk to your children, at any age, about what they are interested in and help them find books to read or be read to about those topics. Not sure where to start your book search? Try the Yale University Haskins Global Literacy Hub curated book list for suggestions on high-quality books you can look for at your local library. This website makes it easy to find books by age group. Read “7 websites with free audiobooks for kids (and where to start)” for information on getting free audiobooks.

3. Do language comprehension activities with your children

The following sites from Haskins can help you find activities to help your child with language comprehension: “Building vocabulary knowledge” and “Building background knowledge.” The Institute of Education Sciences also has a helpful handout titled “Talking and writing in the kitchen.”

Learn more

Just the fact that you are looking for ways to help your children improve their reading is important. Remember that helping your child improve their language comprehension is as easy as talking with them.

To learn more, download How to support reading at home: A guide for families and visit our archive of articles on supporting families.

The post All about language comprehension: What it is and how it can help your child read appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

When it comes to academic test performance, NWEA takes a similar view. It’s all about context. While a student’s score on an interim assessment like MAP® Growth is an important data point, the real value comes in knowing how that student is growing over time. That’s the insight teachers need to know how best to support their students on their individual learning journeys.

With student growth in mind, NWEA built MAP Growth on the RIT scale—a measurement scale designed to provide stability and trustworthy insights from season to season and year to year. The RIT scale:

• Measures achievement and growth independent of a student’s age or grade, providing a common language for discussing student learning across schools and districts
• Gives educators the consistent information they need to support every student, whether they’re working on, above, or below grade level
• Allows educators to track student growth from year to year and across a student’s entire learning journey

In this article, we’ll look under the hood of the RIT scale and see how it works in practice.

Five fast facts about the RIT scale

Let’s begin with five facts about the RIT scale:

1. “RIT” stands for Rasch UnIT and was named after Georg William Rasch, a Danish mathematician, statistician, and psychometrician.
2. The RIT scale ranges from 100 to 350 and helps educators track growth across a student’s entire educational career.
3. The RIT scale is an equal-interval scale, which means it measures student learning equally across the entire scale. The amount of learning growth that occurs between 150 and 151 RIT, for example, is the same amount of learning that occurs between 250 and 251 RIT.
4. The RIT scale is grade-level independent, which means that it measures achievement and growth in a manner that is not informed or biased by a student’s age or grade. As a result, all students of all ages with all kinds of RIT scores can be compared using the same RIT scale.
5. The RIT scale measures both students and test items on the same scale, from lower achievement to higher achievement (students) and less difficulty to more difficulty (test items).

Unpacking “equal-interval”

Now let’s take a closer look at the equal-interval aspect of the RIT scale. Again, equal interval means that the difference between the scores is the same regardless of whether the student is at the top, middle, or bottom of the RIT scale. Consider the illustration below. Just as the difference between one and two inches on a ruler represents the same distance as the difference between six and seven inches…

…the difference between 120 and 130 on the RIT scale represents the same growth as the difference between 210 and 220.

If a student’s RIT score changes over time, you can be sure that the academic growth of that individual student is the only factor influencing the score. A student can change grades, schools, districts, or even states, and their RIT score will mean the same thing no matter where they are. No one is “moving the goalposts” with MAP Growth scores, so the RIT score remains highly dependable and illuminating.

How do students get their RIT score?

Let’s take a student who’s new to MAP Growth. We’ll call him Javier.

When Javier and his classmates first sit down to take the MAP Growth assessment, the test looks the same to all of them, but their experiences soon diverge. From the first test item, the system begins adjusting, giving Javier progressively harder items to see where the edge of his achievement level is. The test is trying to identify the sweet spot where Javier is equally likely to get an item right as wrong.

As the difficulty of test items continues to adjust up or down based on each student’s performance, Javier and his friends increasingly see their own unique version of the test. These slight adjustments continue, turning in an easier direction following a wrong answer and a more challenging direction following a correct one. This is what makes MAP Growth such an efficient and useful assessment; the test isn’t wasting time on items that are far too easy or far too hard for the kids taking it.

And here’s where the RIT score comes in. Throughout the assessment process, the brain behind MAP Growth is looking for an answer to one overarching question: What is the difficulty level of questions that Javier answers correctly about 50% of the time?

I mentioned earlier that RIT scores apply to test items as well as students. As an example, take a RIT score of 200. A student with this score answers 50% of items at this level of difficulty correctly, and a test item with this score is answered correctly by 50% of students at this achievement level. By examining this 50% sweet spot, we can find the edge of each student’s ability, which tells us much more about growth than simply looking at all the questions students got right and the ones they got wrong.

A final note about how students get their RIT score: It’s not just about number crunching. Student engagement is a key part of the process. We need Javier’s full, active participation in MAP Growth to feel confident in the accuracy of the score. That’s why the test is designed to check for any signs of disengagement, such as rapid guessing, in which case the test will flag the issue and give the student a friendly reminder to slow down.

How do teachers use RIT scores?

There’s strength in numbers. Teachers can use a student’s RIT score to advance a whole range of instructional and planning activities, including the following:

• Identifying common opportunity areas across an entire class
• Providing a starting point for high-quality formative assessment
• Informing instructional planning
• Helping to guide decisions about appropriate scaffolding strategies
• Tracking longitudinal growth over a student’s entire academic career
• Setting growth goals with students
• Connecting to instructional resources aligned to student RIT scores

Learn more

Want to learn more about RIT scores? Here are a few steps you can take to advance your knowledge:

• Watch MAP Growth: RIT 101, an explainer video by NWEA researcher Karyn Lewis
• Put RIT scores to their optimal use with the MAP Growth Goal Explorer
• Learn more about how NWEA uses normative data and RIT scores

The post How the MAP Growth RIT scale offers valuable insights into student growth  appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Supporting your child in developing their math skills at home can feel overwhelming, especially if it’s been a while since you relied on your own math skills. We’re here to help.

In this article, you’ll see several suggestions for ways to practice math at home. We encourage you to choose a small handful, so the effort remains manageable, and to turn to them often. They are intended to help increase your child’s understanding of math skills and to develop confidence in learning.

General mathematics improvement strategies

• Provide activities that enrich and relate mathematics to daily life:
  • Talk about how many bowls to put out for dinner
  • Fold napkins in different shapes
  • Have your child count similar items as you put away groceries
  • Have your child help measure ingredients for recipes
  • Give your child change to count out to pay for small purchases at the store; have older children calculate the change
  • Ask your child to compare prices of items by asking things like, “Which can of beans costs more?”
  • Allow your child to weigh the fresh produce; have older children calculate the price by multiplying the price per pound by the number of pounds
  • Read the days and dates on a calendar, talk about the number of days in the month, the number of days remaining until a special event, etc.
  • Draw a scale map of your home and determine the best escape route in case of an emergency
  • When traveling, write numbers on a grid and have your child color in the box as they see the numbers on signs or license plates
• Check your child’s assignment list daily
• Monitor daily work and be aware of the content being studied
• Use computer software or online games or apps to practice math skills at home
• Provide some math activities at home:
  • Each person rolls the dice and adds, subtracts, or multiplies the numbers
  • Each person rolls a die and gets the number of pennies as dots shown; when someone gets five pennies, they trade them in for a nickel, dime, and so forth, until they’re trading for a dollar
  • For two people, give each person 13 cards from a deck of cards, have each person flip a card, then have your child decide whose card has the higher value to determine who wins the set of cards; play until one person has all the cards in the deck
  • Find numbers in print and cut them out, then glue them in the correct order onto a larger sheet of paper
  • Keep empty containers, write different prices on them, then play store by using a calculator to add up the prices for different purchases

Computation

• Count orally by twos, fives, or tens
• Complete connect-the-dot pictures
• Have your child make a number book that contains a page for each numeral from one to ten. On each page, have your child glue clippings from newspapers and magazines illustrating that number concept (two dogs, three ducks, or four horses). As your child progresses with number recognition, they can add to the book and add numerical figures used in various ways
• Count and pair objects found around the house and determine whether there’s an odd or even number of items
• Review math facts at home, in the car, waiting in line, or during other downtime
• Provide your child with verbal math problems. “Take the number five. Add six. Multiply by three. Subtract three. Divide by five. What’s your answer?” Speak slowly at first until your child gets better at solving these mental problems
• Help your child identify percentages in signs, newspapers, and magazines
• Encourage your child to read nutrition labels, and have them calculate the percent of a specific nutrient in each item

Geometry

• Fold a sheet of paper in half and have your child draw a shape along the fold; cut out the shape and unfold the paper to create a symmetrical shape
• Look around the house for different geometric shapes, such as triangles, squares, circles, and rectangles
• Use common household items, such as toothpicks, marshmallows, empty toilet paper rolls, twist ties, sticks, and paper, to construct shapes
• Help your child recognize and identify real-world examples of right angles (e.g., the corner of a book) and parallel lines (e.g., railroad tracks)
• While driving together, direct your child to look for objects with the same size and shape

Measurement

• Teach your child how to set the kitchen timer when you’re cooking
• Draw an analog clock face with the hour and minute hands showing eight o’clock. Ask your child to write the time shown
• Arrange various objects (e.g., books, boxes, and cans) by various size and measurement (e.g., length, weight, and volume) attributes. Talk with your child about how they are arranged using comparison words like “taller,” “shorter,” “narrower,” “wider,” “heaviest,” “lightest,” “more,” “less,” “about,” and “same”
• Use a standard measuring tool to measure objects located in your home
• Gather a tape measure, yardstick, ruler, cup, gallon container, and scale, then discuss the various things you can measure with each
• Review equivalent names for measurements, for example, “How many cups are in a pint?”
• Encourage your child to incorporate terms such as “whole,” “halves,” “thirds,” and “fourths” into their everyday life

Statistics, probability, graphing

• Open a pack of Skittles or M&Ms and make a bar graph showing the number of each color found inside the pack
• Look through a science textbook or website and find three examples of different types of graphs
• Find the coordinates of places on a map
• Watch the weather report for a week, write down the temperatures for each day, and then graph the temperatures
• Track the scores of games played by your favorite team, then graph them over a period of several weeks
• Have your child make a list of things that could never happen, things that might happen, and things that are sure to happen

Problem solving

• Encourage your child to figure out answers to real-life situations: “We have one can of tuna and we need five. How many more do we need to buy?”
• Ask questions that involve equal sharing, for example, “Seven children share 49 baseball cards. How many cards does each child get?”
• Help your child look up the population and land area of the state and city in which you live and compare these facts with those of other states and cities
• Visit the website for the U.S. Census Bureau and have your child write down three interesting pieces of information that they learned

Algebraic concepts

• Encourage your child to count and recognize patterns in the environment by discussing what they see:
  • What is the number on the house across the street?
  • How many objects are left on the table if I take one away?
  • How many exits are there from the school building?
  • How many swings are on the playground?
• Have your child look for patterns on buildings, rugs, floors, and clothing
• Ask your child how many different ways they can show a specific number, say, 18 (they might say 16 + 2, 19 – 1, 10 + 7 + 1, that sort of thing)

Families play an integral role in education, and these tips can help move your student along in their learning. For more tips on supporting your child’s learning at home, visit our archive of posts on supporting families here on Teach. Learn. Grow.

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Imagine Sam, a junior, who is excited to return to school to meet with her team as they prepare for their upcoming championship basketball game. Picture Tom, a senior, who eagerly looks forward to rehearsals for the school play. Alyssia, a middle school student, is thrilled about her role in her school’s mariachi spring concert.

Each of these students is ready to begin the second half of their academic year. What excites them varies according to their unique interests. However, one thing they have in common is their engagement in these interests outside the school setting. While each student attends practice or a designated class for their extracurricular activities, they also carve out time throughout the week to practice and refine their skills. Tom enjoys running lines with his dad after dinner. Sam practices basketball and works on her three-pointers with her little sister every night. Alyssia is always rehearsing her guitar, working on her music from the time she gets home until just before bed. Each of these students has found something to dedicate themselves to, something they aspire to improve upon, and something they are committed to mastering.

As each semester begins, students are not only returning to their extracurricular activities but many are also preparing for their MAP® Growth midyear benchmark assessments in reading, math, and science. Could these students discover a unique skill, strength, or focus within these subjects that enables them to take ownership and apply their practice, just as they do in sports, theatre, and music? How could they interpret their assessment data as a valuable aspect of their academic growth and strive for deeper understanding and development, as they do when preparing for the spring tournament, opening night, or recital?

Assessment data isn’t just for teachers; it’s a powerful tool for students to take charge of their learning. With the belief that “practice makes perfect,” educators can consider three key strategies for helping students actively engage with their assessment data regularly, thus fostering a sense of agency and accountability. This engagement helps students understand their strengths, identify areas for improvement, and set meaningful goals.

1. Help students interpret their assessment data

Before Alyssia could join her school’s mariachi band, she first had to learn how to play the guitar. She needed to practice holding her instrument, reading the music, and plucking specific strings to produce the right sound. She needed to grasp many components, practice each one, and feel confident enough to pick up the instrument and try.

Much like when playing an instrument, students must comprehend what their assessment data signifies to make it actionable. Providing context and clarity allows them to view the data as a tool rather than a judgment.

Learning how to play her instrument required Alyssia to explore several aspects of music. Similarly, after completing her science benchmark assessment, she noticed she had specific scores in four distinct instructional areas and an overall science score. Just like when she took her first step toward becoming a musician, she had the chance to break down her assessment data in a way that helped her understand and act on her science skills.

How can her teacher, or “science coach,” assist her in understanding her data? Granting Alyssia access to her data in various formats will help her genuinely grasp her science skills. Making data accessible through visuals (e.g., charts, graphs) can simplify assessment results, making them easier for students to interpret. Educators can also support students by teaching data literacy. Helping students understand key metrics (e.g., proficiency levels, growth scores, specific skill breakdowns) allows them to organize their learning and approach their studies with a clear path forward. All of this can be accomplished by sharing the Student Profile report with students.

Additionally, students need to feel safe to practice, try new things, and take risks in their learning. Assist them with this by creating a safe space. A supportive learning environment fosters a non-judgmental atmosphere where students feel comfortable discussing their performance.

2. Encourage goal-setting and self-monitoring

Before Sam could become a star basketball player, she worked with her coach to set clear goals for her performance and her areas of focus moving forward. Whether it was by improving her three-point shots, increasing her stamina, or learning new plays, she was able to approach her development with specific targets in mind. Sam could have just practiced randomly; however, her coach helped her concentrate on her objectives, allowing her to work intentionally on her game. By setting goals that were measurable and achievable, Sam could track her progress over time and feel more confident in her skills.

Sam and students like her can easily apply the same level of focus to their academic goals with the support of their teachers. When students receive their test scores and other data, they benefit from identifying specific areas for improvement and working toward their own goals to master key concepts.

Engaging students in establishing their own goals based on their assessment data gives them a sense of ownership and purpose, making the learning process personal and meaningful. You can make goal setting attainable by assisting your students in creating SMART goals, an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, Sam might set a goal to increase her operations and algebraic thinking score by 10%. She knows that the end-of-year benchmark is in May, giving her a focused goal and a clear sense of when she will be able to track her overall progress.

Setting a goal is only one piece of the puzzle. Educators can also enhance student ownership by providing opportunities for students to track their progress and reflect on their learning experiences. Tools like learning journals, goal trackers, or progress charts help students feel a sense of accomplishment. Reflection opportunities encourage students to brainstorm what’s working and where they need to adjust.

To learn more about goal setting and how you can use MAP Growth to inform it, read “Everything you need to know about goal setting for students.”

3. Involve students in decision-making about their learning

Tom loves being on stage and performing as part of an ensemble. While he enjoys the spotlight, he also derives great satisfaction from his ability to contribute to the overall production of each play. He helps influence the set design, work out the blocking of scenes, and bounce ideas off his fellow cast members. This deeper sense of connection comes from his active involvement in decisions.

When students are given the opportunity to co-create their academic learning experiences, they are more motivated and invested in their growth. Empowering students to contribute their ideas to their learning journey encourages them to take more responsibility for their progress, which in turn fosters intrinsic motivation for their overall academic growth.

How can you help create an environment where students have a decision-making role in their own learning? Providing them with the chance to choose specific strategies or resources that they find beneficial for their growth allows them to contribute to the toolkit for their own success. For example, Tom might opt to rehearse with a vocal coach for the upcoming musical while also collaborating with a group on character development. Both are specific skills he decided to work on with guidance from his theatre teacher. When working on academic goals, students could choose between peer tutoring sessions, using online tools, or individual workshop sessions with a teacher.

You can collaborate with students to help create an individualized plan rooted in their unique data. Giving students the opportunity to feel their voice is heard deepens their appreciation for their growth goals and is likely to increase their commitment to achieving them.

Key considerations

Considering the individual needs of each student, based on their unique data, raises several questions for us as educators. When we think about how to support our students on their individual learning journeys, we need to consider how we, as educators, can help them interpret their data, set goals, and engage in decision-making about their learning. Here are some questions to think about:

• How can I present data in a way that is clear and engaging for students?
• How do I ensure students feel supported and not judged when reviewing their data?
• Are my students setting actionable goals aligned with their assessment data?
• How can I help students create routines for monitoring their progress and adjusting their strategies?
• How can I involve students in crafting their learning plans based on their assessment data?
• What opportunities can I create for students to evaluate their own and their peers’ progress?

In closing

Involving students with their assessment data extends beyond just examining numbers and transcends a defined assessment period; it entails fostering a growth mindset and enabling students to view themselves as active participants in their learning.

You can assist your students in interpreting their data, establishing meaningful goals, and taking initiative in their learning journey, which fosters a significant and enduring connection for learners. Sam, Tom, and Alyssia exemplify how students engage with interests beyond the classroom, and their commitment to becoming active participants in their skill development offers a clear framework for applying this approach to enhance commitment to academic growth goals.

To learn more about how to put assessment data to work in your classroom, visit the archive of posts on assessment and MAP Growth here on Teach. Learn. Grow.

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As we dove deeper into the partnership, Schiller Park became a laboratory of sorts. We studied the behaviors and results, which yielded our guide detailing ten transformative teaching strategies for those wishing to replicate its success.

While in a webinar with Schiller Park district leaders, I also heard an anecdote that, as a math teacher, was impossible to ignore. Born from the need to differentiate to many varying math levels in the classroom, Schiller Park teachers devised a self-paced math classroom that allows students to truly work at their own pace. Questions exploded in my mind. How long does this process take? How many students can be supported at a time? What are the challenges? And, most importantly, how do I do it?

I was lucky enough to sit down with the district’s leadership team and two math teachers at the district’s Lincoln Middle School to talk through the nitty gritty specifics—and no wonder these schools are seeing high growth. Did they find the eleventh transformative teaching strategy?!

One teacher’s summer project

As most things in schools do, it began with a truly passionate educator.

Faced with the challenge of meeting a wide range of student abilities in a single classroom, Alison spent her summer crafting a bold new plan: a classroom where every student could learn at their own pace. Armed with a deep understanding of her students’ needs and a commitment to making math accessible, she created the first iteration of the program. What started with paper worksheets quickly evolved into a tech-enabled model, thanks to district support and the creativity of her colleagues. Over time, the program expanded, becoming a cornerstone of Schiller Park’s success story.

Now, Alison and Bill, sixth- and eighth-grade math teachers, spearhead Schiller Park’s self-paced math classrooms with a loving (if slightly exhausted!) dedication inherent to teachers who love their jobs. They take each new school year as an opportunity to iterate, perfecting the process from Alison’s “summer dream” to a very real success story.

How it works

Schiller Park’s self-paced math classrooms combine thoughtful planning, educational technology, and a focus on student ownership. Here’s how they do it:

• Power standards and spiraling skills. Teachers identify essential skills, or “power standards,” for each unit and break them into spiraled “tasks” that build on one another. These tasks are numbered and sequential.
• Task design. Each task includes an instructional video (often created by teachers or via platforms like Edpuzzle) and a corresponding work set to practice the skill.
• Diagnostics and placement. Every unit starts with a diagnostic test to determine each student’s starting point. Students with prior knowledge can skip ahead to higher-level tasks.
• Flexible pacing. Students work through tasks at their own pace. Fast movers can complete the unit early and take the summative test ahead of schedule, while others have time to catch up with additional support.
• Engagement and collaboration. Teachers encourage peer collaboration and small-group work while maintaining structured guidelines. This approach creates a dynamic and engaging classroom environment.
• Technology integration. Digital tools like iPads and automated grading systems streamline the process, freeing up teachers to focus on instruction rather than paperwork.

Initial obstacles

No innovation comes without its hurdles, especially without a playbook. Schiller Park teachers reported that grading overload was initially a big obstacle. Teachers spent hours grading different tasks so that students, no matter where they were on their task list, could move ahead. Automation has since reduced their workload; teachers are piloting Classkick this year, which enables them to pre-program correct answers and return them automatically to students.

Teachers also have to frontload a rich volume of tasks for high-achieving students to complete. Students who work quickly or arrive with prior knowledge require a vast library of challenges, which the team continues to build.

And, of course, monitoring many different students as they tackle tasks on their own schedule means a teacher has to be the chef of a very busy kitchen, filling different orders. Teachers must monitor students’ asynchronous journeys through tasks, answering a question about Task #4 in the same breath as a question about Task #11.

The benefits and iterations

Even amidst Alison and Bill’s constant iteration in the face of challenges, the results have been transformative for both students and teachers. Math classes at Schiller Park provide unmatched differentiation, as students of all levels thrive in a classroom designed to meet their unique needs. Meanwhile, empowered educators have more time for meaningful one-on-one interactions with students, including revolving small groups and partnered students.

Inside these small group settings, Schiller Park has noted significant blossoming of English language learners, as they are more comfortable sharing answers and asking questions. All students are reporting newfound excitement about math, which is rendered in their MAP® Growth scores; Schiller Park educators are seeing impressive growth scores across the board, especially among high fliers.

As Schiller Park’s math department has learned more over years of this experiment, they have made some changes:

• They moved from paper activities (where students went to folders to get a new worksheet) to video-based work set tasks on tablets, organized through Google Classroom.
• They incorporated existing videos as pre-watch content, which allows students to receive asynchronous mini-lessons. If teachers couldn’t find an existing video they wanted to assign, they began making videos themselves and built up a library.
• They advocated for leveling their math classes, so that high-achieving students weren’t so significantly outpacing their peers who needed extra support. Within more remedial classrooms, they change the formula a bit: there is often a whole-group mini-lesson before students take off on their own journeys.
• They took advantage of an after-school learning center, requiring students who are behind in their tasks to report to this teacher-staffed section to complete their work.

Ready to try it?

Here’s how you can get started with self-paced math in your classroom:

• Start small. Choose one unit or a two-week period to pilot the program. It’s just an experiment!
• Focus on power standards. Identify the most critical skills for your students. These are your power standards and will inspire the list of tasks.
• Create spiraled tasks. Design tasks that build upon one another, and integrate videos and practice sets. Lean on existing tools like Khan Academy and EdPuzzle first, and don’t be shy about making a few videos yourself.
• Set clear expectations. Explain the process to students. Set the summative test date, offer a suggested pacing guide, and emphasize accountability and the benefits of working at their own pace.
• Provide support. While some students are working independently, use small-group instruction to address misconceptions and challenge high achievers.
• Embrace the chaos. Your room may feel more like a choose-your-own-adventure studio than a classroom. That’s the point!

No more math hiding

What do Alison and Bill report as the best part? With their math journey out in the open, students can no longer hide. And that means real results, with real student ownership.

In a self-paced math classroom, every student’s journey is visible, and no one gets left behind. The result? Stronger growth, deeper understanding, and students who feel an individual connection to math.

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MAP® Growth assessment results are an important piece of information to help teachers determine where students are in their learning. It can answer the all-important question, “What is the relative achievement of the students in my class and how will that impact my instructional planning?” Understanding each student’s achievement can help us consider where our students are when compared to students across the country and help educators support growth for high-achieving students.

Educators come to us with the following question: “How does the MAP Growth assessment show growth for students already at 99th percentile?” Explaining this to family members of high-achieving students can be challenging. One may assume these students can’t grow because they are already at the 99th percentile, or it might appear that there is little or no growth when they are already scoring so high. Let’s be clear: the 99th percentile doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to learn.

Important considerations

There are six things to consider whenever we educators have a conversation about growth for high-achieving studentswith a parent or guardian:

1. The MAP Growth “growth projection” for high achievers is possible because their growth is based on students like them, that is, students who are also performing exceptionally well
2. When students meet their growth projection, they maintain their achievement status
3. Sometimes, small increments of growth (for example, a growth projection of two points) are good growth
4. Students don’t have to always meet growth projections to grow over time
5. High-achieving students are having learning growth and benefit from just right instruction as much as their peers do
6. To contextualize next steps for learning, teachers can use the MAP Growth Class Profile and Student Profile reports to support instructional decisions and flexible grouping

How to support growth for high-achieving students

An additional question we need to ask about students in the 99th percentile is “Have students been brought into the conversation about their growth?”

When a student is finding content easy and they are getting everything right, they can get bored. If we don’t engage them with instruction that has appropriate complexity and difficulty, we may implicitly be sending them a message that they are doing well enough because they find current content and learning easy. But we want every student exposed to appropriate learning challenges. This allows them to work in their zone of proximal development, or ZPD, which is critical if we want students to love learning and grow.

In my work as a professional learning consultant, I often ask teachers to reflect on how often they provide learning experiences that are aligned with students’ high achievement. Are they designing learning aligned with the full scope of their grade-level standards in mind? We should avoid the assumption that we must add a program or immediately develop a personalized learning plan.

One way to think about this is through the lens of formative instructional practice. Once a student shows they are secure on current content, we should look carefully at the depth of knowledge opportunities within grade-level standards prior to shifting to new content. Providing these opportunities at the right time—and in the right measure—gives the high-performing student some of the challenge to learn that many of their peers experience. This is essential to their future learning because, at some point, they will be challenged by a concept or skill.

On the same page

Once all those involved in learning growth—the student, their family support system, and their teacher—understand that high-achieving students can grow both on and, potentially, beyond grade level, and once they realize that together they can identify some specific concepts and skills to work on in and outside of class, the growth conversation becomes relatively easy and actionable. We have seen in different high-achieving groups that students who are provided the opportunity to have goal-setting conversations regularly—with specific learning outcomes connected to their achievement—get growth results that maintain their achievement level over time.

Growth for high-achieving students is, indeed, possible. When students are blessed with academic gifts, we should pay close attention to the assessments we administer at each grade level and the resources we use to help them grow. Offering high-performing students the support and instruction they need to grow takes commitment from the entire learning community. Consider the following discussion questions as you begin to think more deeply about this.

Questions for teachers

• What are some things to consider before having a conversation with families about the growth of their high-achieving student?
• In what ways do you partner with your students in conversations about their growth?
• How can you involve students in growth conversations more?
• In what ways do you already provide learning experiences that are aligned with high achievement?
• What else could you do to provide more learning experiences that are aligned with high achievement?

Questions for leaders

• In what ways do you support teachers in their communication to students and families about high achievement and growth?
• How can you support teachers in their communication about growth for high-achieving students more?
• In what ways do you foster a culture where students and teachers regularly have conversations about growth?
• In what ways do your teachers already support high achievement?
• What is one specific step your school or district can take to help high-achieving kids understand growth—and achieve it?

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For many communities across America, a school calendar with four-day weeks is unheard of. And in many of these communities, such a proposal would garner little support. Indeed, there isn’t a single urban district that has adopted the schedule, and it’s rare to find a suburban district that has made the switch. But the story is very different in parts of rural America, where four-day school weeks are well-liked and gaining traction.

A survey taken during the 2018–2019 school year found that 650 districts, or about 1,600 schools, in 24 states had adopted a four-day schedule. That’s up significantly from two decades ago, and those numbers appear to be climbing. Communities backing the trend cite benefits for teacher recruitment and retention, cost savings, community support for the schedule, and more.

This topic has since attracted the attention of education researchers. We recently conducted the most representative student-level analysis to date using MAP® Growth data to examine the impact.

How is the schedule different from a typical five-day week?

Most districts that adopt a four-day week close on Fridays, though some opt to have Mondays off. The districts then redistribute the time from the day they are closed to the rest of the week, starting school earlier and ending school later than their five-day week counterparts. How much earlier they start and how much later they end varies, but on average they add about 50 minutes to each school day.

An extra 50 minutes in a day could equate to adding 10 minutes to five different classes. So, in theory, it’s not impossible that students could be receiving the same amount of seat time in five subjects (e.g., math, English, social studies, science, and an elective) on a four-day week.

But the differences between a four-day and five-day week are not as simple as a choice between four 50-minute classes per week in each subject versus five 40-minute classes. Students may benefit from non-core academic time at school each day, such as morning meetings, recess, passing time between classes, advisory periods, and lunch. And they’d get less of that in a four-day week since, overall, districts with four-day weeks have 31 fewer days of school than other schools: typically, they’re open 148 days a year, compared to 179.

Because they spend less time at school, students on a four-day week schedule have more free time outside of school. Students tend to spend their extra time on a variety of activities, but they also spend substantially more time on chores and work (for their family or at a job) over the course of a week than students at similar five-day week districts, according to research by the RAND Corporation.

Where and why do districts switch to four-day weeks?

Four-day weeks have generally been most popular in rural areas in states west of the Mississippi River. The approach is particularly growing in Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas. However, some policymakers are pushing back against the trend. In Oklahoma, for example, lawmakers have made it harder for districts to operate four-day weeks, establishing challenging accountability standards and requiring districts to apply for a calendar waiver.

About 90 percent of districts operating four-day weeks are located in rural areas. Leaders in those communities cite teacher recruitment and retention, cost savings, and community support among the reasons they’ve opted for the shortened week.

Childcare is often raised as a concern related to four-day weeks. However, families and school leaders at the school districts that have adopted the schedule have said that childcare is not an issue for the majority of the community. In some cases, this is because the school district is a major employer in the community, so many adults have the day off when schools are closed. In other cases, rural adults work from home in farming or ranching, and the extra day off school allows younger children to both be cared for and engage in those family responsibilities. It is also common to have multi-generational and extended family networks in the community who might help provide childcare support when needed.  

What are the impacts?

The research is mixed on the impact of four-day weeks on student achievement, but most studies find small to medium negative impacts on achievement on average. These negative effects are roughly equivalent to a student being two to seven weeks behind where they would have been if they had stayed on a five-day week.

But local context and implementation matter a lot. Notably, in one recent multi-state study, researchers found that the negative impacts were concentrated among districts with the shortest school days on the four-day schedule. In particular, districts operating with fewer than 30 hours per week drove the negative effects in the study, whereas there were no significant impacts of the schedule on student achievement at districts operating 32 hours or more per week.

The existing research also shares the impacts of the schedule on cost savings, student behavior, and attendance. Cost savings, despite being a primary motivation for adopting the schedule in many districts, are only about two percent, on average. Some district leaders maintain that these small savings, equivalent to about $57,000 per district, are meaningful in their district. Others acknowledge that the schedule saves them less than they originally anticipated, but they continued to use a four-day week schedule for other reasons.  

Proponents of the schedule claim that it improves school climate and student behavior, but the evidence is mixed. In support of the claim, research shows the four-day week significantly reduces high school bullying and fighting incident rates and increases the amount of sleep elementary students get. However, surveys of four-day week and five-day week students and families found no differences in their ratings of school climate.

Another argument for four-day school weeks is that they improve attendance, allowing students to travel for appointments and extracurricular activities that can be far away on their day off. But the evidence provides little support for that argument, as studies have not found any effect of four-day weeks on attendance rates.

Despite this mixed evidence on the schedule’s effects, communities’ satisfaction with the schedule is clear. Survey data shows 84 percent of families and 95 percent of students in four-day week districts would continue to choose a four-day week over a five-day week. Families noted a range of reasons they preferred the four-day week, with some of the most common reasons being increased time with family, reduced stress, and flexibility for appointments.

More research is needed to investigate the impacts of the schedule on other important outcomes, such as teacher recruitment and retention, efficiency of class time, rates of food insecurity, student safety and mental health, and family income and resources.

Policies to consider

For any community thinking about switching to or continuing on a four-day week, it’s important to consider the benefits and drawbacks of the schedule. The local context and proposed implementation of the schedule are critical components of the decision.

For districts using the schedule, there are policies education leaders can adopt to minimize any negative impacts. Among the most important is ensuring schools maintain or increase the total time spent on academic learning.

School and system leaders should closely audit instructional minutes to see how the change is impacting teaching and learning. For example, students and teachers may have 50-minute class blocks on the four-day schedule instead of 40-minute blocks. School leaders should collaborate with and support educators to restructure curriculum and lesson plans as needed to ensure students get the instruction they need and educators have the time to teach all the required material.

Another important policy decision is what, if any, services the district provides on the day off. Additional time at home is of particular concern for students whose lives outside of school are unsafe or for those lacking access to resources, such as food or a caring adult. School leaders considering a four-day week need to be particularly thoughtful about how to design the schedule and provide wraparound supports (e.g., backpack lunch programs, enrichment opportunities on the day off) for these students and families.

Monitoring and evaluating the policy

The use of data is essential for monitoring and evaluating this kind of complex change. Schools need to closely monitor students’ academic growth, teacher recruitment and retention, and other metrics, before and after the transition, and compare their own progress to that of similar five-day week schools.

To learn more about our research and how we’re dedicated to supporting the work of educators nationwide, visit our website.

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“Why do so many of our students meet their growth projections on MAP® Growth but fail to ‘meet standards’ on the state test?”

Educators from NWEA partner school districts send versions of this question to me and my fellow researchers often enough that it’s clear there’s a need for better explanations for what we mean by normative growth versus necessary growth when setting growth goals for students.

“Normative growth” and “necessary growth” defined

Normative growth refers to growth projections based on NWEA norms. They show how much growth is average for students over time.

Necessary growth refers to the amount of improvement a student needs to make to reach a desired benchmark, such as “meeting standards” on a state test.

For some students, especially those who begin the year performing below grade level, having normative growth alone won’t be enough. For example, the NWEA 2020 norms document tells us that a sixth-grader with a fall math score of 212 is performing at about the 43rd percentile, relative to other US sixth-graders at that point in the school year. The document also tells us that sixth-graders with fall math scores of 212 show about eight points of growth between fall and spring, on average. Given that knowledge, we can estimate that a sixth-grader with a fall math score of 212, if they show average (or normative) growth, will score at about a 220 in the spring. Eight points is the growth projection, but whether that is sufficient to “meet standards” depends on the standard.

How we partner with states and support teachers

Every state department of education establishes standards or benchmarks on their state tests that define whether a student meets grade-level expectations. NWEA regularly conducts, publishes, and updates state linking studies that provide estimates of the MAP Growth cut scores predicting proficient performance on state tests. We can use these cut scores to predict which students are likely already meeting standards, which students (assuming normative growth) are currently on track to meet standards, and which students must show above-average growth to meet standards.

This excerpt of Table 3.6 from the New York state linking study, for example, shows the spring math proficiency cut score at 227, corresponding to 59th percentile achievement:

If our hypothetical sixth-grader with the fall math score of 212 resided in New York, they would need to demonstrate 15 points of growth by spring to be on track to meet standards. For them, normative growth (so, eight points) would not be sufficient to meet that goal. The student would need to make far-above-average growth, or her teachers would need to allow much more time to get there. These kinds of calculations are done automatically in the MAP Growth Projected Proficiency Summary report, and customized growth goals can also be set for individual students using the MAP Growth Student Profile report growth goals module.

Data designed to help

We provide references to both normative and necessary growth to help educators get the most from their MAP Growth data. Both are important when setting goals for students to ensure that their successes are meaningful and that their aspirations are realistic. 

For more guidance on setting effective goals with students, refer to the infographic below and visit our archive of posts about goal setting. To learn more about using MAP Growth in your school or district, contact our sales team.

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It was mid-January, and my daughter’s class had taken the winter MAP® Growth math assessment that day. Her teacher was aware that I worked for NWEA and that I had used MAP Growth data in my own classroom when I was teaching. She’d even come to me in the fall with some questions about understanding and utilizing her class summary data. This time, however, the question she had was about an individual student whose score had dropped between fall and winter testing: my daughter.

Digging deeper

I’ve addressed the question about what it means when scores go down with many parents, guardians, and educators. I’ll admit, however, that it felt a little strange to be explaining it as the parent, to the teacher, instead of the other way around.

My daughter’s score had gone down four RIT points, the email said. Four points is not too much greater than the standard error of measure, so I wasn’t all that alarmed. But I still wanted to know more about what happened.

I asked the same questions I ask whenever I see that a student’s winter test scores have gone down:

• Did the student take much less time on the winter test than in the fall?
• Did the student seem distracted or was there anything going on that day or during testing that may have made it hard for them to do a good job?
• How did the student feel about how they did?
• Is the student learning? That is, does the teacher see evidence in class that they are making progress on the skills they need?

1. Did the student take much less time on the winter test than in the fall?

Often, when winter test scores drop, the test duration time helps tell the story.

Maybe the student took 45 minutes to complete the test in the fall but rushed through the winter test and finished in 20 minutes. Or perhaps there’s evidence of rapid guessing, which can contribute to how long it takes a student to complete an assessment. In either case, the drop in the score was likely because a student was not necessarily trying their best.

In my daughter’s case, the MAP Growth reports showed that she had actually taken longer on the second test than she had on the first.

2. Did the student seem distracted or was there anything going on that day or during testing that may have made it hard for them to do a good job?

For my sweet, creative, social, and often scatterbrained child, I knew this was a distinct possibility. I would not have been surprised to find out that she’d been whispering with a friend or drawing pictures of animals on scratch paper during the assessment. This time, however, her teacher said the opposite was true: in the fall, she’d been off task a lot, but for the winter test, the proctor reported that my daughter had been “not very wiggly” or off task.

I was certainly glad to hear it, even if it didn’t help explain the test score.

3. How did the student feel about how they did?

I taught upper grade students (grades 5–8), and when I talked with my own students about their test scores, I’d often start by asking how they felt about how they did—no matter what their scores were. Hearing their perspective was often very informative.

I remember one student who seemed unhappy when we sat down to talk about his score. He said that the test had seemed really hard and that he’d struggled. He didn’t think he had done well at all. Looking at his scores, however, it turned out that he had grown several RIT points beyond his growth projection. The test felt harder because it was harder! As the student began to get more difficult questions correct, MAP Growth adapted the difficulty level to better match his new skills and he had gotten into some higher-level questions. He’d actually done exceptionally well! He left that conference with me with a huge smile on his face.

In my daughter’s situation, she’d been smiling, too. Her teacher said my daughter was very proud of how she had done on the test. And her teacher was proud of her effort and focus, regardless of how the score turned out. So, finally, I asked the most important question:

4. Is the student learning? That is, does the teacher see evidence in class that they are making progress on the skills they need?

The teacher assured me that my daughter was learning, that she had shown a lot of progress in class since the fall. The teacher mentioned some specific concepts they’d been working on and some class assignments that had been recently completed. We decided that we would keep an eye on her but otherwise not worry too much about the drop. We were eager to see if her score went back up in the spring.

In closing

Why, exactly, did my daughter’s winter test scores go down? It’s hard to know for sure, but investigating possible causes can help teachers plan for differentiating instruction and serving the needs of all the kids in their classroom.

As a classroom teacher, I relied heavily on MAP Growth data as a starting point when planning instruction for my students. To learn more about getting the most from the assessment, visit our archive of posts about MAP Growth.

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The results of assessment—whether you’re using formative assessment strategies or an interim assessment like MAP® Growth—can empower teachers and school leaders to inform instructional decisions. 

Assessing students well is key to ensuring instruction is empowering. To ensure you’re assessing students well, the processes, tools, and information provided by assessments can help you accurately and fairly understand where students are in their learning. But first, you must ask yourself what your goal is.

Why are you assessing?

The first thing to do before assessing students is ask yourself, what are you hoping to accomplish? Here are examples of questions assessments can help you answer:

• As a teacher, how can I adjust my instruction to meet students’ needs? How will I know what kind of progress they’re making?
• As a school principal, how can I ensure that the students in my school are tracking toward key milestones? How can I offer the best professional development to support teachers?
• As a district administrator, how can I evaluate our district’s programs for improvement planning? What’s working best, and what should we stop doing?
• As a family member, how do I know my child is receiving instruction that will extend their current knowledge and skills?
• As a student, how does my learning connect with my goals?

What to do with assessment data

Once you know your purpose, you’re ready to assess. Assessments that deliver data that can be used in real time to make a difference in education provide priceless opportunities for teachers and school leaders. 

Here are some examples of what educators can do with actionable assessment information:

1. Differentiate instruction by student readiness

Sound interim assessment data lets teachers know exactly where each student is compared to their classmates and peers nationwide. It allows a teacher to meet students within their zone of proximal development (ZPD), the optimal spot where instruction is most beneficial for each student and just beyond their current level of independent capability. 

MAP Growth uses a grade-independent RIT score that measures academic growth much like a yardstick might measure physical growth. Starting from this score, teachers can begin providing tailored instruction to meet student needs. They can then use ongoing formative assessment strategies to update their understanding of student knowledge over time.

2. Set academic goals

Effective student goals should be both ambitious and realistic, balancing what a student can reasonably achieve with the ambition that helps them make substantial growth.  

Using tools like our MAP Growth Goal Explorer, teachers can identify MAP Growth learning targets that are reasonable between assessment periods. These conversations can help a teacher and student set a learning path together, where short-term goals provide the incremental progress necessary for a student to hit their MAP Growth target. 

Over time, students should progress to setting their own goals, focusing on the benefits of learning itself rather than competing with other students or pleasing their teachers or family members. 

3. Evaluate programs and target professional development

School and district leaders can use data to evaluate curricula and intervention programs, inform changes in instructional practice, and target professional development. Status and growth data in NWEA assessments can help identify what’s working and point to successful programs that can be scaled up, for example. It helps answer questions like, did the students in our new math program experience higher rates of growth than other students? Where do our teachers need to focus instructionally? What kind of professional development will assist our district in targeting areas of concern?

If your teachers need further development, our professional learning team can help. We offer workshops on using MAP Growth data, responsive teaching and learning, and many other topics.

Learn more

Using student growth data to inform instruction can be a valuable and efficient tool for driving students’ academic gains. MAP Growth provides the reliable and valid data you need to understand where each student sits on a pathway of learning. The assessment can also help you start a conversation with students and their families about learning that supports growth, motivation, and agency. 

To learn more, download our guide Jump-start high growth instructional strategies with MAP Growth and visit our archives of posts on assessment and MAP Growth here on Teach. Learn. Grow. Contact our sales team to learn more about using MAP assessments in your school or district.   

The post 3 ways to put assessment data to work in the classroom appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Get ready to flex your literacy muscles as Tiffany offers simulations of dyslexia, helpful metaphors, and essential myth-busting. At the end of this comprehensive hour, she spends time answering questions from the chat—which was hopping! I sat down with Tiffany after the webinar and (re-)asked her nine of the most common questions because, hey, the learning process includes unlearning and relearning, too.

1. What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is when a student has greater difficulty with learning to read words than their peers. A dyslexia diagnosis observes the three-criteria approach and occurs when A, B, and C are present:

1. Difficulty reading words accurately and/or fluently
2. A comparative lack of improvement amongst their peers when provided with generally effective support in these areas
3. The difficulty is not accounted for by something else, like an intellectual disability or the need for glasses

Quite simply, “dys” means “difficult,” and “lexia” means “word.” If a student has trouble reading the words off a page or spelling them, the scientific name for this is dyslexia.

2. What is dyslexia NOT?

Dyslexia is not a visual difficulty or disability. Dyslexia does not mean that a student’s eyes perceive words or letters backward or flipped. (In fact, many strong readers initially flip their letters!) Eye doctors cannot identify dyslexia. Colored lenses or overlays, eye-tracking exercises, or special fonts are not proven to help with dyslexia.

When we believe the misconception that dyslexia is a visual disability, we will fail our students as we treat it ineffectively. Read more about dyslexia myths in Tiffany’s article “Unraveling dyslexia: Dispelling myths and understanding early intervention.”

3. Why should dyslexia be identified in schools, rather than by outside specialists?

Because of the second criteria (low response to generally effective intervention), dyslexia is identifiable only in context of the lack of growth in targeted areas even though the intervention is generally effective for other students with similar difficulties. An outside specialist does not have the context over time that is needed to evaluate if a student has received targeted intervention and is still not showing the same growth as other students. Dyslexia doesn’t show up in an eye exam or a brain scan; it is a comparative diagnosis and needs more context than an outsider can provide.

Imagine this: Safi’s parents are worried he isn’t reading on grade level, so they take him to a specialist. The specialist agrees that, indeed, Safi cannot read the third-grade text provided. However, what the specialist doesn’t know is that Safi wasn’t provided with much explicit phonics instruction in the early grades, and he hasn’t been provided any additional instruction or targeted support yet because he just switched schools and the teacher has just noticed Safi is behind. Safi may not have dyslexia; he may simply need some extra help!

4. Can dyslexia show up later in students?

Not really, but it can be caught later. Because dyslexia is a difference in the brain, it’s likely present for a student’s entire life. Having it “show up later” most likely means that a student wasn’t identified as having dyslexia. This can be due to changing schools, educators having an incomplete reporting system to rely on, or any other factors that may have disenfranchised a student.

5. Conversely, can a student “overcome” dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a neurological difference in the brain that affects how information is processed and, thus, cannot be “cured” in the typical sense. However, dyslexia can be managed and skills improved with the right intervention and supports. Students can be supported in stocking their toolbox with reading strategies that will allow them to succeed academically.

6. What do we do with older students who we suspect of having dyslexia but were never formally diagnosed?

Unfortunately, many components can cause a late dyslexia diagnosis in an older student. Identification of dyslexia, more commonly referred to as an SLD (specific learning disability) in basic reading skills within public schools, will help them get the extra support they need to catch up to their peers.

Remember, a dyslexia diagnosis consists of three criteria: difficulty with reading and spelling, low response to intervention compared to their peers, and the consideration of exclusionary factors. It may be that this older student does need support, but if offered focused, targeted intervention, would recover quickly and thus evade a dyslexia identification.

If an older student does have dyslexia, the same interventions apply as in younger students.

7. What do I do about spelling tests and students with dyslexia?

Dyslexia is any difficulty in word-level reading difficulties. This includes phonics, spelling, and reading fluently. Students with this difficulty need both intervention and accommodations when it comes to reading words fluently and spelling, consistent with their school’s MTSS.

Since spelling (encoding) is the reciprocal of reading words (decoding), spelling will also be a challenge for students with dyslexia. For spelling tests in general, teachers should use that data to plan instruction formatively for the next week. Gone are the days of giving students a list of words on Monday and quizzing them Friday! The best practice is to teach students a specific phonics and spelling skill and use words Friday that include that skill to see if students have mastered the pattern. If so, move to the next skill with those students and hold them accountable for using this skill in their future writing. If not, ensure students continue to receive practice on that skill along with the next skill. In their writing, remind them and provide scaffolds for sounding out and spelling words. For older students, ensure they can show what they know on writing assignments without counting off for spelling patterns they are still working on mastering. Some students can also benefit from an accommodation, like speech to text, to help them show their skills in writing without spelling becoming a barrier.

8. What are the differences between dyslexia, dysgraphia, and developmental language disorder (DLD)?

Dyslexia and dysgraphia are both learning difficulties, but they affect different skills. Dyslexia is a difficulty that affects a student’s ability to read and decode words. Dysgraphia is a difficulty that impacts handwriting. Students can have both conditions, but one does not cause the other.

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is difficulty with understanding and using language. DLD can influence how a person comprehends what they hear and read. People with DLD might have trouble finding the right words, expressing themselves, understanding directions, engaging in conversation, organizing thoughts in writing, or answering questions. In the Simple View of Reading, DLD describes a difficulty with the language comprehension part of the equation while dyslexia describes a difficulty in the word recognition part of the equation.

It’s possible for a student to have dyslexia, dysgraphia, and DLD.

9. How does dyslexia manifest with ELL students and what are some steps I can take?

Dyslexia in multilingual learners (MLLs) is identified in the same way as for other students: greater difficulty learning to read and spell compared to peers with similar skill levels and language proficiency who receive the same interventions. This would manifest as a slower pace in learning to read and spell in both languages, if students are learning to read in both English and Spanish, for example. Differences in sound-spelling patterns, like the letter Arepresenting different sounds in Spanish and English, can add to the challenge and cause initial confusion.

To support MLLs with dyslexia:

• Provide explicit instruction in sound-spelling patterns with extensive opportunities to respond with positive and corrective feedback
• Incorporate visuals, gestures, and examples connecting English concepts to their home language
• Monitor progress with assessments in both languages, when possible, and evaluate growth compared to peers with similar language proficiency, intensifying the intervention dosage as needed
• Celebrate and integrate their cultural and linguistic background knowledge and point out similarities and differences with their home language

Dyslexia and assessment

If you’re interested in assessing early readers while also screening for dyslexia, MAP® Reading Fluency can help. Visit our website to learn more. You can also read the archive of posts about getting the most out of MAP Reading Fluency here on Teach. Learn. Grow.

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Let’s consider a day in the life of a language arts teacher we’ll call Ms. Harper. In Ms. Harper’s classroom, for at least a half hour every week, her students use MAP® Reading Fluency with Coach to get personalized reading instruction. The kids sit down with their tablets, log on, and say hello to Maya, their AI-powered reading tutor.

In previous articles, I shared how Maya works behind the scenes to help students along their literacy journey, listening to them read, noticing errors, and providing scaffolded reading instruction at the word, phrase, and story level. MAP Reading Fluency with Coach helps each student get the reading practice that’s right for them, but it’s up to Ms. Harper to keep a close eye on their progress and adapt her instruction accordingly. How can she be sure she knows where each student stands, how they’re growing over time, and how they’re doing relative to their peers at school and across the county?

To help Ms. Harper answer these and other questions, NWEA built robust reports into MAP Reading Fluency with Coach that make large amounts of data accessible, revealing trends, successes, and red flags. These reports fall under two categories: MAP Reading Fluency assessment reporting and specific Coach reports. Taken together, these reports offer insights into performance and progress at the student, class, grade, school, and district levels.

Today I’d like to look at the Coach reports specifically. By looking at how Ms. Harper uses these reports to answer her own questions, I hope to help you get the most out of these reports so you know how to turn those data-driven insights into your own actionable classroom strategies. It all starts with asking the right questions.

Are my students on track with their tutoring progress?

Ms. Harper’s first point of reference is the Tracking report, which is updated weekly and enables at-a-glance management of the tutoring process. Big picture, she can see how many minutes each student has spent on practice in a given week, so she’ll know right away if her students are meeting the 30-minute recommendation from NWEA. Red, yellow, and green color-coding makes it easy to spot who’s on track and who might be falling behind. But Ms. Harper can also dig deeper and find a number of other details, including:

• Stories read this week. As the name suggests, this tells Ms. Harper how many stories her students have read this week. A dark red “scaffolding” icon next to a student’s name indicates that they’ve been assigned to Early Reader Skills Scaffold practice, while a lighter red icon indicates assignment to bilingual practice. Ms. Harper can easily drill down for a more detailed view of each story her students have read.
• Assessment status. This feature shows the status of each student’s most recent MAP Reading Fluency assessment, including the date of completion. If Ms. Harper sees “unassessed” next to any student’s name, she can assign assessments within the MAP Reading Fluency platform.
• Language. Ms. Harper can assign English only or bilingual practice.

How are my students progressing over time?

With the Progress report, Ms. Harper can see not only each student’s performance over time but also a future projection of expected performance tied to key metrics. Each practice session is visible as an individual data point, while a dashed blue line represents each student’s overall trajectory, allowing Ms. Harper to analyze her students’ performance, track their growth, and set ambitious but realistic goals. A handy “score configuration” sidebar lets her change the display for different metrics, score types, scales, and benchmarking norms.

Below each student’s progress graph, there’s a table listing up to 600 activities completed in MAP Reading Fluency with Coach in the current school year. Ms. Harper can click through to view the data for any one of these reading activities—and she can even listen to a student’s recording and rescore the reading if appropriate. Maya is a smart observer, but Ms. Harper gets to make the final call.

The Progress report is also where Ms. Harper can find her students’ percentile rank, based on national norms, with their practice session scores shown against a backdrop of green (75th percentile and above), yellow (25–75th percentile), or red (below 25th percentile).

How is my whole class doing with the various reading skills?

To see the status of her entire class in every reading skill, Ms. Harper consults the Skills Status report. Each student has a color-coded box for each reading skill that shows their mastery level (green = mastered, yellow = developing, red = not developed). Essentially, this report takes all the data Coach gathers on students while they read and hands it directly to the user. The report is informed by Hollis Scarborough’s Strand Model of Skilled Reading (a.k.a. the Reading Rope) and organized into strands, including decoding, phonological awareness, high-frequency words, background knowledge, and vocabulary.

Ms. Harper can interact with the report to find exactly the level of detail she needs. For example, she can click on the “decoding” strand and then hover over a particular skill box, where she’ll find a description of the skill, a tally of the number of times a student has encountered this skill, and the number of errors they’ve made. Drilling further down, Ms. Harper can view instructional resource recommendations for each skill. She can also drag and drop to organize students into helpful orders, such as their assigned reading groups.

OK, but how can I see skill data for each student?

While the Skills Status report gives Ms. Harper a whole-class view of reading skill achievement and progress, she can use the Skills Diagnostic report to look at a student’s mastery holistically, through the prism of time. Like the Skills Status report, this report is informed by Scarborough’s Reading Rope. It shows the learning progression ordered by skill area. Skill areas are ordered by their typical age of acquisition and are arranged in time, on a continuum from kindergarten to fifth grade. Essentially, the report shows when a student “ought” to acquire skills during their journey to reading mastery.

As Ms. Harper moves her mouse over the different skills, information about each skill appears in a flyover box to provide more context. The red-yellow-green color system represents a student’s familiarity and proficiency with specific skills, taking into consideration two main factors: number of exposures to the skill, which refers to how many times a student has encountered or practiced a particular skill; and error rate percentage, which is determined by the observations made by Coach. Importantly, clicking on each skill produces a pop-up window where Ms. Harper can drill down into the subskills to view aligned resource recommendations.

Last but not least, how can I celebrate my students’ milestones and keep track of them?

As her students travel further down their own individualized reading paths, Ms. Harper wants to make sure that their victories and hard work get the recognition they deserve. But with so many students working on their own skills in their own practice sessions, it’s a lot to keep track of. That’s where the Badging report comes in.

Like the Tracking report, the Badging report displays the number of stories read and the total reading minutes for each student in the selected week. Ms. Harper can also see a class total of the minutes and stories read for each week. There are five ways for students to earn badges automatically with Coach, and Ms. Harper can also create her own badges and certificates in addition to the following:

• Total Sessions
• Minutes This Week
• New WCPM Highs
• Skills Scaffold Graduation (Early Reader)
• Fluency Milestone Achieved

While the Badging report generates printable awards and certificates based on students’ tracking data, Ms. Harper has to approve these badges first so she maintains control over the process.

In closing

Taken together, the reports I’ve described here help teachers answer the perennial question: How do I adapt my lesson plans in light of all the data I’m seeing on my students?

There are certainly a lot of instructional implications in these reports—and with the granular level of detail they contain, you not only gain specific insights into how your students are doing but also receive valuable guidance about what your students need next. And to make sure you get the support you need along the way, you can click over to the MAP Reading Fluency with Coach Help Center any time you need tips for understanding the reports and using them to their full potential. 

The post Getting the most out of MAP Reading Fluency with Coach reports appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Attendance submitted. Warm-up complete. Student devices charged. Test tickets distributed. Students logged in and fully underway in their midyear benchmark assessment. As the teacher walks around the room, noting which question each student is on, he starts to consider if all the lab items are ready for the activity coming up after lunch. “They should be done testing by then, right?” The next table of students brings yet another train of thought to Mr. Wood’s mind, this time about using assessment data: “I wonder if I can complete a few of the student data trackers at lunch. Our team is meeting in a week to review this assessment data….”

As Mr. Wood gets to the next table, his thoughts are interrupted by a student who has raised her hand. Mr. Wood stops and looks at the student’s computer screen. The student says, “I’m finished. What do I do now?”

If this were a choose-your-own-adventure story, Mr. Wood would be faced with several possible choices for how he could engage with his students as, one by one, they finish their mid-year benchmark. He could simply say, “Take out a book and silently read while others work on their test.” He could encourage them to work on other work, quietly, to help them stay on track with their coursework. Mr. Wood could also take the opportunity to do mini data conferences with each student about the score they received and how they feel about the content of the assessment. In any possible outcome, Mr. Wood’s interactions demonstrate a string of decisions and systems he has set in place to help make sense of data in his classroom. His actions give insight into how he engages with data as an educator.

Luckily for us, Mr. Wood is a teacher who opted for an adventure that helps guide us through the awe-inspiring twists and turns of being an educator who uses data beyond a single moment in time and finds ways to integrate data as part of his classroom “setting,” leading to a core “charater-istic” of his “part” in any educational storyline. If you’re looking for guidance on using assessment data in your classroom, here’s how you can follow in Mr. Wood’s footsteps.

Chapter 1: Build a routine of data-driven instruction

Routines are part of every aspect of Mr. Wood’s day. He has a routine for arrival, lunch, dismissal, turning work in, small group work, and even how students request a pencil. The importance of routines is grounded in maximizing time and supporting every student he sees in his classroom. When it comes to using data to drive his instructional decision-making, Mr. Wood has a routine for that as well.

Using assessment data is most impactful when it supports students. Teachers can leverage ongoing data points to guide daily decision-making and inform their strategies. For example, once students in Mr. Wood’s class complete their benchmark assessment, they know to pull out their own goal-tracking folder and mark their new score, whether they did (or did not) meet their goal, and why they think that is. After each student is done with their assessment and goal-tracking sheet, Mr. Wood conferences with each individual to set a new goal.

While goal setting lends itself to a data routine, it does not have to live within a specific assessment window. Once Mr. Wood and his students construct a goal, a wide range of options becomes available for him and each student in his class. Mr. Wood now gets to align small groups for the next several days with students who are working on similar goals or share similar skills. Students know what they are working toward when they engage in practice or other instructional activities.

Mr. Wood leverages the goal-setting process to inform how he structures table discussions and plans to monitor student progress through teacher observations. This allows him to track and provide meaningful feedback for each student in his class. Furthermore, each time he introduces new concepts, he can quickly engage students by connecting them to their individual goals. This allows something that started in a benchmark window to expand during the months in between, giving students meaning to their learning.

Here are three questions to consider for your data routine:

• How often am I integrating data into my planning process?
• Do my students know their data?
• Can my students articulate their goals and their progress toward these goals?

Chapter 2: Differentiate instruction based on real-time insights

When students come to class, they are expected to engage in a warm-up activity. This activity typically touches on some content that has previously been addressed in class. Mr. Wood likes to pull from something recent to help gauge students’ understanding. As students complete their warm-ups, he is already walking around and taking note of who got the answers correct. This helps him see which students may need some additional support quickly. He notes their names and plans to work with these students again during independent practice time.

Mr. Wood could have decided to wait until the end of the module assessment, or the mid-year benchmark assessment, to track student understanding. However, he decided to address needs and provide support in real time, which is the primary benefit of formative assessment. In doing so, students who may miss a few warm-up activities are provided an additional layer of support that helps to address any potential misconceptions in a timely manner. This is a valuable example of using assessment data.

Warm-up activities are not the only source of data that feed into Mr. Wood’s data-driven moves. While students respond to their peers in a group discussion, Mr. Wood joins each table with a student roster and notes which students are demonstrating mastery of certain concepts and those who are still practicing their understanding. These quick checks provide Mr. Wood with a key for which students should be partnered up for a similar discussion question planned for later. Mr. Wood could also ask some students to share what they heard from their partner, knowing that one student will be sharing an answer that may not have been theirs but is, in fact, the correct answer.

At a moment’s notice, these activities provide Mr. Wood with the data he needs to help differentiate student needs. His activities and data collection exist outside a designated assessment window, which provides him with rich insights to help meet students where they are and scaffold his support as needed.

Consider the following questions as you focus on real-time insights:

• What are some things I am currently doing that could help me capture real-time insights?
• How am I using real-time data to adjust instruction for all learners?
• What systems do I have in place to capture data and make real-time adjustments?

Epilogue

As each student begins to finish an assessment, the question becomes, “What’s next?” How do we ensure that this moment in time—and the data we get from our students—go beyond the bell? How do we ensure we’re using assessment data in ways that truly benefit students?

Mr. Wood is an example of many teachers who have embraced the idea that data is connected to the overall story of student progress and success. As the teacher in the classroom, he is a member of each learner’s tale. As part of this story, he has decided to create routines that allow data-informed decisions to flourish and enrich the setting of his classroom. He is determined to capture various aspects of student understanding and performance in real time to help him be an effective supporter for all those he serves.

When choosing the next adventure of your data story, consider how you, too, can help build beyond an assessment window for your students. If your school tests with MAP® Growth or MAP® Reading Fluency, you can learn more about how to put that data to good use in the assessment archive here on Teach. Learn. Grow.

The post Using assessment data beyond the benchmark window: Two key considerations for classroom teachers appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

NWEA president Chris Minnich is known for acknowledging the limitations of assessments, including MAP® Growth. “A test alone never changed a kid’s life,” he says often. “It’s what happens after the test that matters.” That’s why we’ve designed MAP Growth to connect with the largest set of instructional content providers of any interim assessment on the market.

How it works

You know your students best. The MAP Growth Instructional Connections program is all about helping you make the crucial choices about what comes after MAP Growth is administered. Here’s how it works:

The program includes more than 30 instructional content providers, so there’s a good chance you can connect to instructional providers you’re already using.

Balance your workload while meeting the diverse needs of kids

Every year, HMH queries over 1,200 educators from across the country about the issues that impact them daily and publishes the Educator Confidence Report. The top issue for teachers in 2024? Achieving a balanced workload. Our Instructional Connections program can help by quickly creating learning paths for each student without requiring additional placement assessments.

The report also shows that technology is making it easier to deliver individualized instruction to students. In fact, 47% of teachers said tech improves their ability to deliver individualized instruction, while 49% of them said it saves them time. The report also found that 66% of educators believe tools that connect instruction with supplemental practice, intervention, and assessment in one platform would revolutionize teaching and learning.

Learn more

Whether you want your assessments to connect directly to the learning tools you already trust or are looking for deeply integrated curriculum and assessment, we’ve got you covered! Learn more about the MAP Growth Instructional Connections program on our website at nwea.org/instructional-connections.

The post How to differentiate instruction with the MAP Growth Instructional Connections program appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

As 2024 comes to a close, the team at Teach. Learn. Grow. is grateful for another year of supporting educators in doing their best work in service of the countless kids ready to learn, grow, and reach their potential. Here are the posts that resonated most with our readers in the last twelve months. We hope they will energize you as you prepare to return to the classroom following a well-deserved winter break.

Posts about formative assessment

Formative assessment is an invaluable tool for teachers. It lets you get a good sense for where your students are in their learning without the high stakes of an end-of-unit test or state summative. Best of all, it provides information in real time, so you can adapt your lesson plans as needed to keep all the kids in your room engaged and doing their best.

Here are the most popular Teach. Learn. Grow. posts about formative assessment in 2024:

• “What is formative assessment?”
• “27 easy formative assessment strategies for gathering evidence of student learning”
• “75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom”

For more on formative assessment, head over to our formative assessment archive.

Posts about MAP Growth

When used in conjunction with formative assessment and other student data, MAP® Growth can help provide an even clearer view into student learning. We recommend administering the interim assessment three times a year: in the fall, winter, and spring. That will allow you to see trends over time and, just like with formative assessment, make adjustments as needed to help all the children in your classroom reach grade-level standards by the close of the school year.

Understanding how MAP Growth works is critical for success. The three most popular posts about the assessment are:

• “6 commonly used MAP Growth terms worth knowing”
• “12 common questions parents ask about MAP Growth”
• “Sharing assessment data with parents just got simpler”

To learn more about MAP Growth, visit our website, YouTube channel, and archive of MAP Growth posts here on Teach. Learn. Grow.

Posts about literacy

Reading changes lives and is, arguably, the most important skill children are asked to master in elementary school. It may also be the most difficult.

The following are the most popular posts about literacy instruction:

• “The science of reading explained”
• “The science of teaching reading comprehension”
• “6 strategies for teaching multisyllabic word reading”

Learn more by visiting the Teach. Learn. Grow. archives on the science of reading and on reading more generally, including working with children with dyslexia. If your school tests with MAP® Reading Fluency, you may find our archive of posts about how to get the most out of the literacy assessment useful as well.

Posts about NWEA research

How do we know what works best for students? Research. Our team of researchers is always hard at work studying which practices work—and why.

Here are the two most popular posts about NWEA research findings of 2024:

• “What the research tells us about four-day school weeks”
• “Summer learning loss: What we know and what we’re learning”

Read more in the research archive.

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Every evening, after my family and I have cleaned up from dinner, I sit down to take on the New York Times game Strands. If you aren’t familiar with Strands, it involves a 6 x 8 array of seemingly random letters and a theme. The goal is to find words related to the theme by connecting letters in the grid until all the letters are used. Some days I figure out the theme right away, although that doesn’t necessarily help me find the actual words. Other days I find several words before figuring out the theme. And then there are the days when I stare and stare and stare at that screen and nothing emerges. At that point I’ll often put it down and come back to it on and off over the course of the night. The less familiar the theme is, the more likely I am to use a hint or two (or maybe more). If the theme is something I really enjoy, like Broadway shows or children’s books, I will refuse to use a clue, no matter how stuck I am. Regardless of what type of Strands day I am having, or how many hints I need, I will always—and I mean always—finish the puzzle, sometimes going to bed late to get it done.

My perseverance when solving Strands got me thinking about when I did and did not see such a level of commitment and engagement in my students. Where did I see my students dig in and persist in solving a problem? Where did I see them get frustrated and quickly give up? What were the activities they would keep coming back to, even after hitting an obstacle?

When I first started teaching, I taught sixth-grade science. I often had my students conduct observations or perform experiments in which they were challenged to uncover and make sense of the phenomena they were witnessing. Students loved these tasks and often suggested follow-up experiments to further test their ideas. Stopping them to wrap up the task was often met with groans. They were engaged. They wanted to keep going.

Now jump ahead to when I taught third grade. Unfortunately, we had a pretty standard math program: The teacher would introduce a skill. The class would do a guided practice. Students would go back to their seats to practice the skill with some application problems. Nobody was upset when I stopped them to wrap up those lessons.

It wasn’t until I started bringing more of my old science mentality to my math class that students got engaged. I started looking for problems that allowed students to deeply explore mathematical concepts, like open middle problems. I used rich problems of the week that were not rehashes of what we had just learned in class but that both allowed students to actively decide how to approach the problem and that pushed them to make connections between mathematical concepts. What I began to see was, when students were making sense of something, rather than just practicing a rote task, they were sticking to the task. Even if they got frustrated, they would take a break, but they would always come back later. They were engaged enough that they didn’t want to give up.

A word about words

As is often the case with education, a lot of different words get thrown around in reference to this type of engagement. You have likely heard of “productive struggle,” along with “persistence,” “perseverance,” and even “grit” in reference to “stick-to-itiveness” with mathematical problem-solving. While there is nothing wrong with any of these terms, I have come to like the term “perseverance” for two reasons. First, Common Core Mathematical Practice Standard 1 talks about having students, “Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.” Regardless of whether your state or school uses the Common Core, the description of problem-solving in practice 1 nicely captures the active engagement I think all teachers hope to see in their students. Secondly, researcher Joseph DiNapoli’s description of perseverance in problem-solving seems like a perfect explanation of what I wanted my students to be able to do. In distinguishing between “grit,” “persistence,” and “perseverance,” he describes perseverance as “Initiating and sustaining, and re-initiating and re-sustaining, in-the-moment productive struggle in the face of one or more obstacles, setbacks, or discouragements.” He further clarifies that perseverance, as opposed to persistence, includes a willingness to re-evaluate and change one’s approach, which is critical.

Why is perseverance important?

Whatever name is used, the willingness to persevere in mathematical problem-solving has numerous benefits.

Multiple research studies have identified perseverance as one of several personality traits that act as “contributors to success in school and in life.” In terms of mathematics, the ability and willingness of students to persevere in productive struggle helps them think deeply about mathematical concepts and develop the ability to creatively solve problems. Or, as DiNapoli puts it, “Perseverance, or initiating and sustaining productive struggle in the face of obstacles, promotes making sense of mathematics.” He further asserts that when talking about “problem solving, a key process that supports the development of conceptual understanding is productive struggle.”

Indeed, educational researchers going back to John Dewey have found that productive struggle is necessary for constructing deep knowledge and understanding. Dewey further called out that the focus on quick answers, which was the hallmark of much traditional instruction, impedes opportunities to examine the conceptual aspects of a problem.

Perseverance and zone of proximal development

Creating opportunities for students to persevere in problem solving tells you that you’ve hit the sweet spot in terms of maximizing growth. When you see a student initially engage with a problem, find their way into it, get stuck, analyze and overcome setbacks, re-engage, and try a new approach, you know they are working in their zone of proximal development.

We know from the work of Lev Vygotsky that this edge of understanding—not too easy and not too hard—is where growth happens. Or as my colleague Brooke Mabry explains it, the “Zone of proximal development represents the metaphorical gap between what a learner can do and what they can’t do…yet.” If students race through a set of problems, they likely aren’t learning anything. If they can’t find an entry point to get started, the content is likely too difficult for them. Using pretests of relevant precursor content can help you ensure that students have enough background knowledge to wrestle with the problem while still having it be on the edge of their understanding.

Developing perseverance in math class

Helping students develop perseverance in mathematical problem-solving isn’t just about giving them high-quality problems, although that is an important component. You also need to create a culture that encourages perseverance, and you need to know how and when to provide support to avoid student frustration.

Let’s dig a little deeper into how to support perseverance in your classroom.

Make it worthwhile

Obviously, one of the key components of encouraging perseverance is giving students opportunities to wrestle with complex, interesting problems. There isn’t much incentive to persevere in completing ten nearly identical, rote problems. I like to think about it as the difference between painting a fence versus painting a mural. Yeah, the fence will look nice once it’s done, but other than picking the initial color, there aren’t a lot of big decisions to be made, and the task gets pretty repetitive pretty quickly.

Painting a mural is a far more complex task, with multiple decision points built into it, and it’s a lot more engaging and satisfying. I’ve written about rich mathematical problems before, but essentially, problems with multiple entry points, with nonobvious solution paths that demand active decision-making and the connection of mathematical ideas, and that allow for multiple solution methods are more engaging and promote deeper mathematical thinking and perseverance. Low-floor, high-ceiling tasks are great for this as they allow everyone entry but also can stretch high enough to encourage perseverance.

Be mindful of your mindset

I first got intrigued by the idea of perseverance in math over a decade ago after reading an article comparing how schools in the Western world and schools in the Eastern world approach the ideas of intellectual struggle and intelligence. Researcher James Stigler observed math classes in Japan and in the US and found fundamental differences in how each culture viewed intellectual struggle. In the US, Stigler noted that from a very early age we learn to associate struggle with low ability. In Eastern cultures, “it’s just assumed that struggle is a predictable part of the learning process. Everyone is expected to struggle in the process of learning, and so struggling becomes a chance to show that you, the student, have what it takes emotionally to resolve the problem by persisting through that struggle.” This comfort with struggle is reflected in deeper cultural attitudes. Jin Li, a researcher with Brown University found similar differences when observing conversations between American mothers and children and Taiwanese mothers and children. American mothers tended to connect academic achievement to intelligence, something innate and immutable. In contrast, Taiwanese mothers attributed success to hard work and persistence.

This difference really struck me as both a parent and an educator. The traditional US approach, which is intended to build students’ self-esteem, inadvertently fosters a “you’ve got it or you don’t” attitude rather than a growth mindset. Research has long supported the benefits of a growth mindset, in which you believe that knowledge can expand and develop. In contrast, a fixed mindset is one in which intelligence is viewed as a set trait that you either do or don’t possess.

Developing the growth mindset needed to persevere in problem-solving has a significant impact in the classroom. Stigler conducted another study in which he gave first-grade students in the US and in Japan an impossible math problem. The US students, who had more of a fixed mindset, averaged less than 30 seconds before they gave up, whereas the Japanese students had to be stopped after an hour of working on the problem.

Change minds

We’ve all had the student, or maybe have been the student, who looks at a problem and immediately says, “I can’t do that.” This type of knee-jerk reaction can mean a lot of things: That a student has internalized that they are “not a math person” because of repeated negative experiences. That they have learned that being “good” at math means getting the answer right—and getting it quickly. Or that they have internalized the, “If you don’t get it right away, you’re not smart” messaging. This is where the power of a students’ mindset comes into play. Luckily, there are several ways to help students develop a growth mindset.

One great way to start is to explicitly teach students that new experiences, including wrestling with tough problems, literally helps our brains expand. In a 2018 study, high school students completed online exercises that taught them how the brain can grow and change, the role of hard work in increasing neural connections, and how having a growth mindset can help you push through obstacles and achieve your goals. The study showed that changing students’ mindset positively improved both their perseverance and their mathematical performance.

Once students begin to understand how mental workouts build up their brains in the same way physical workouts build their muscles, change the language of your classroom to support this. Instead of telling a student they are smart, or that they are good at something, praise their process, their hard work, and their perseverance. Name specific steps that they took, what they did to get themselves unstuck, or how they engaged with other problem-solvers. Model using the language of “yet,” as in, “I don’t know how to do that, yet.” This is such a powerful way to reinforce that students are constantly growing in their knowledge and that they are all capable of learning.

Celebrating mistakes as steps to learning is also important to changing mindsets and encouraging perseverance. The fear of “getting it wrong” can really hold students back from engaging with a problem or sharing their ideas. Reframing mistakes as opportunities to learn and course-correct rather than as failures helps students grow their resilience.

Activities like “My Favorite No,” which highlight the learning that comes from making mistakes, are a great way to reinforce this idea. You can also tell students that research has shown that even failing to solve a problem correctly is productive. One study examined students who engaged in what the researchers termed “productive failure.” Students worked together on complex problems without support or scaffolding during the problem-solving process. Afterward, the teacher facilitated a discussion about their approaches, comparing them to a traditional solution approach. Even though these students had failed to solve the problem correctly, when given a post-test, they consistently outperformed students who had received direct instruction on the content.

Value the process

Math is often treated as a highly linear topic, generally for ease of developing a scope and sequence. And while topics and concepts do build upon each other, math concepts connect more in a web than in a single line. Problem-solving in math has also traditionally been treated as linear: follow a set of previously taught steps to find the answer. This type of follow-the-leader (aka, follow-the-teacher) thinking doesn’t promote perseverance or sensemaking in problem-solving.

What if we thought of mathematical problem-solving more like we think of writing, which is not so much a linear process but a recursive one? Much of what my colleague Julie Richardson posits in her article “5 reasons to give students feedback on their writing process” could be applied to mathematical problem-solving. She describes the process of writing as one where writers “constantly move between cognitive processes, such as planning (setting goals, generating ideas, organizing ideas), drafting (putting a writing plan into action), and reviewing (evaluating, editing, revising).” This is exactly what we want students to do when solving math problems: planning (thinking of relevant prior knowledge, listing possible solution paths, considering how to get started), drafting (testing different approaches), and reviewing (determining if an approach is productive, if there is a more efficient approach, and if any answers found are reasonable). Modeling mathematical problem-solving in this way supports perseverance and the idea that the process is as important as the answer. Also, just as with writing, we want students to collaborate, compare approaches, ask questions, and give each other feedback when solving mathematical problems.

Know when and how to step in

Speaking of feedback, knowing when and how to intervene to prevent frustration is critical. When a student is stuck or frustrated, it can be hard not to jump in and “rescue them” by giving them a next step to take. It can also be difficult to know just what the right thing to say might be. Thankfully, research points to a couple of ways to best support students.

Joseph DiNapoli and Emily Miller found that prompting students to conceptualize the mathematics involved in the problem before they started solving helped them to re-engage and persevere after hitting an obstacle. Students were given the prompt, “Before you start, what mathematical ideas or steps do you think might be important for solving this problem? Write down your ideas in detail.” When they got stuck in their solution process, prompting them to review their initial thinking helped students reconsider ideas and re-engage with the problem.

In general, asking open-ended questions designed to support reflection can help students either get started or get unstuck. Nancy Emerson Kress suggests these six questions:

• What do you notice?
• What additional information or clarification would be helpful?
• What can you do or figure out?
• How do you know that your work and/or answer are accurate?
• Is there another way you could approach this problem?
• What else can you say about the problem, and what else would you like to know?

Simple questions like these do a number of things for students. First, you are teaching them that expressing frustration doesn’t lead to the teacher telling you how to solve the problem. Second, by asking questions rather than providing information, you are affirming your confidence in them as capable problem-solvers. Third, this approach prevents teachers from reducing the complexity of the task by over-scaffolding it, a common practice. Finally, you are teaching them a set of questions that they can internalize to help themselves when they get stuck on future problems.

Another way to support students during productive struggle without rescuing them is to have them share their approach, ideas, or progress so far with other students. Hearing other students’ ideas may help students get “unstuck” and give them another direction or idea to pursue. The book 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions provides a great structure for both anticipating student challenges related to a given problem and for supporting high-quality classroom discussions of different approaches.

It takes time

Remember that seeing struggle as positive may be a new idea for students, and maybe for you, too, so it will take time to develop this muscle and mindset. The resources below can help you and your students grow comfortable with struggle and perseverance:

• Academic Tenacity: Mindsets and Skills that Promote Long-Term Learning. Researchers Carol Dweck, Gregory Walton, and Geoffrey Cohen created this free resource to help teachers develop mindsets and self-regulation skills that support perseverance.
• “Keep going! Building a culture of perseverance in math classrooms.” This PBS website includes videos and materials designed to help high school teachers support perseverance in mathematical problem-solving.
• “Khan Academy growth mindset.” Khan Academy provides resources for teachers as well as activities geared toward elementary, middle, and high school students to promote a growth mindset.
• “Teaching a growth mindset.” This site includes resources for teachers about understanding growth and teaching a growth mindset, including how to give feedback, celebrate mistakes, and select tasks that promote a growth mindset.
• Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All. NCTM’s book on effective mathematics teaching and learning includes a chapter on posing purposeful questions and one on supporting productive struggle.
• “Promoting student learning and productive persistence in developmental mathematics: Research frameworks informing the Carnegie Pathways.” This resource from Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching provides an in-depth look at promoting perseverance in math, including guiding questions and instructional moves teachers can use at various points in the problem-solving process.
• “Resources for teaching growth mindset.” This Edutopia site has 25 articles, videos, and other resources on developing a growth mindset, with specific content related to developing a growth mindset in math and improving classroom feedback.

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“Oh, I saw this really great strategy and I think we should try it!” Have you ever uttered that phrase and tried to replicate the strategy in your classroom only to crash and burn, without quite knowing why? Of course you have! We all have! Whether we have been asked by the district, our school, or ourselves, we see and hear about awesome strategies that support students and connect them to their learning all the time. Many of us even give strategies a shot only to abandon them and think they must not work at all.

Grade-level teams in particular are often looking for ways to improve outcomes for students. We read books and articles, go to trainings or conferences, watch others show how successful they are in doing “the thing.” Then, when we try to replicate what we’ve learned, exactly as it is shared with us, we find out it’s not that easy. That’s because strategies that are evidence-based and showing success in other schools cannot just be copied in a vacuum. Without considering system conditions, highly effective strategies fall flat and become “things we tried that didn’t work.” We either get frustrated and keep trying to make them work, or we abandon the effort and go back to what we were doing before, even if we know it isn’t as beneficial for students as we’d like.

Understanding system conditions is critical

System conditions are the factors that can positively or negatively impact student outcomes, and they vary from school to school. Grade-level teams can consider the relationships between these factors—and not just individual elements—when setting goals and deciding on aligned strategies to implement.

When working to gain a clearer vision of system conditions, we can focus on leadership, academic, physical, and social elements that we want to address as we plan for ways to introduce and implement strategies to be successful. As teams, we should acknowledge the strengths we have in order to address potential barriers to a successful implementation.

The role of leadership conditions

Grade-level teams can plan for system conditions around leadership, such as priority goals and a vision for school-wide improvement, team structures, available supports, and teacher autonomy. Grade teams should ask the following questions when addressing system conditions with leadership:

• Will this strategy align closely with our school’s key improvement goal(s)?
• Will leadership allow shifts in schedules or resources to make this change?
• How might leadership teams be able to support our grade-level team with resources, including materials, staff, time, and professional learning opportunities, to begin and sustain implementation?
• To what extent can our grade-level team have autonomy to make and sustain a change?
• How are we, as a team, purposefully organized to plan, reflect, and monitor student data to show that a strategy is beneficial to students?
• How does our team determine roles and responsibilities for implementing a strategy?
• What district or school policies may impact our team’s ability to implement a strategy?
• What are the systematic and explicit processes that are widespread and consistent and would make sense to connect to the new strategy?

Working with academic conditions

Grade-level teams that use data, including assessment data from MAP® Growth or MAP® Reading Fluency, to identify student needs for success should also focus on academic elements of system conditions.

Academics may be the driving force for implementing a quality strategy, so a grade-level team’s close examination of the following questions can assist in setting up positive conditions before and during implementation. Addressing teaching and learning aspects, such as standards, curriculum, assessment, and differentiation, can guide you.

• Will this strategy ensure students are being held to high academic standards?
• What does quality student engagement look and sound like during implementation?
• How are student growth and achievement being measured, and how are they aligned to standards and grade-level expectations?
• How do the resources being introduced align to the core curriculum?
• How do we ensure the strategy supports students equitably and meets their needs?
• How might instructional time be affected by this strategy?
• What evidence-based resources are available or needed to implement the strategy?

Don’t forget physical and social conditions

In addition to leadership and academic system conditions, grade-level teams will want to examine physical and social conditions, leverage positive aspects they bring, and plan for ways to address and strengthen areas needing improvement. Grade-level teams can assess opportunities for communication, reflection, feedback and celebration, trusting relationships, and the physical learning environment.

The questions below can help you determine action steps as you work to implement a new strategy:

• Is communication open, with two-way communication leading to shared ownership of decision-making?
• Do we have mutually supportive and trusting relationships that allow for tough conversations with each other?
• How, and how often, will our team reflect on student data to celebrate and track student, class, and strategy success?
• How will we discuss ways to adjust and adapt a strategy over time to still meet the desired outcomes for students?
• How might we elicit feedback from students, families, each other, and leadership to gain additional perspectives of strategy implementation?
• When feedback is provided by others, how might it be incorporated as part of our reflection process?
• Do families trust our efforts to improve their students’ school performance?
• Does the physical environment support student learning?

Expect an implementation dip

Once grade-level teams have discussed and understood the key system conditions necessary for success with a strategy, it is also important to consider how implementation science plays a role. The science shows us that change happens over time and consistently through phases. It also shows us that quality implementation addresses each phase and is mindful of implementation dips. Grade-level teams can plan for ways to communicate, monitor progress, and have a process of feedback and reflection to meet the expected outcomes for students.

Implementation dips, as Michael Fullan explains, should be expected and prepared for if the strategy that is to be implemented is worthy. As we implement a change, we might find short-term success as we start to change and begin to feel great. Then, as we continue implementation, we may panic when change suddenly feels more difficult and like it outweighs the potential benefits. This is often referred to as the “valley of despair,” and it is the point at which teams may stop trying to implement a strategy, say, “It didn’t work,” and revert to the way things were before. I encourage you to hang tight during this inevitable bumpy phase. Grade-level teams must reflect on ways to adjust and adapt actions within the system conditions if you want to see sustained success toward the goal and expected student outcomes. Grade-level teams can also be sounding boards for why some strategies may not be meeting the expected need or why they may be making the change feel extra difficult. Encourage your team to expect and prepare for an implementation dip while also planning for celebrations and reflection.

A success story

When I think about the challenges of making lasting, worthwhile change, I remember a grade-level team I was working with as they reviewed their fall MAP Growth data. They wanted to implement a walk-to-read program, which would have teachers divide their classroom into flexible student groups based on RIT scores by instructional areas. The goal was to give students dedicated time to build the skills that most needed their attention. Students would have the opportunity to work with a different teacher or instructional aides and materials designed to meet their specific needs.

The grade-level team discussed resources, such as collaborative time to plan together and talk about shared student academic performance. They discussed which resources they were going to use and how to share leveled readers so all students had books to read. They worked with their principal to provide feedback on the instruction as well as ways to communicate with families and other teachers about why and how they were implementing the walk-to-read strategy. Additionally, they determined they would benefit from having an instructional coach work with a small group, so the principal agreed to readjust support staff scheduling and physical space.

The team set up a goal to start and documented the outcomes they wanted to see. They set up regular meeting times to reflect on successes and discuss adjustments to monitor for implementation dips over time. The team and students were ultimately successful, and other grade-level teams took notice and began their own journey to implement a walk-to-read program for their students.

Stay the course

Worthy outcomes deserve careful considerations of system conditions to help you ensure a quality implementation of a strategy. Grade-level teams in particular have the opportunity to connect with each other to benefit students and teachers alike as they work to implement changes that will benefit students and support professional growth and joy for teachers.

For additional insight on changes that last, I encourage you to read our white paper “Focusing squarely on students: A theory of change for NWEA learning and improvement services.” For ideas on research-backed instructional strategies, learn more about our High Growth for All research study and get tips for bringing the strategies to life in your classroom here on Teach. Learn. Grow.

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Do you hear that? It is the sound of autumn’s last leaf falling.

I am sure for most of us, the school year seems to have started only yesterday. And, somehow, we have already made it through the majority of a semester, established routines, made a few new friends, and completed our first round of MAP® Growth testing.

Those routines, some familiar and maybe some you’ve implemented new this year, can typically fall into two categories: planning or implementation. The routines we have in implementation typically involve instruction and executing planned differentiation best practices and teacher agency. The routines we have in our planning—the data-driven decisions we make in combination with our observations and reflections—can lead to a successful implementation.

You may have read a previous article here on Teach. Learn. Grow. highlighting ways to differentiate in the math classroom. If we zoom in a little closer to one of the three non-negotiables mentioned there—embrace student assessment data—we can begin to rely on data as an essential aspect in our data-driven instruction, regardless of content area.

Choose your own MAP Growth data journey

Data fluency—the ability to understand, interpret, and apply assessment data—is a best practice every teacher and school leader should strive to develop. However, not every data journey begins the same way or heads in the same direction.

For those who are just starting their data journey, the MAP Growth Class Profile report is a great first step. It provides current achievement data alongside important test details such as test duration and rapid guessing percentage. The Class Profile report also breaks down results by instructional areas, so you can be intentional about the steps you take and focus on the data that informs your current or upcoming unit plan. You also may notice that students are grouped in ten-point RIT bands, which provides context and justification when creating flexible groups.

If you feel you’re at level two in your MAP Growth data journey, the Student Profile report provides data consistent with the Class Profile but zooms in for a closer look at each individual student. This, combined with your knowledge of your students’ academic, social, and motivational preferences, helps inform ways to create access to grade-level content or the conditions for productive challenge, that is, working within each student’s zone of proximal development (ZPD).

Journeys are better together

Using data to drive instruction is an evergreen best practice that can be successful in isolation, but it really soars when it is used to collaborate with colleagues and students.

MAP Growth data is a great resource to bring to a professional learning community or common planning period. The assessment is typically administered across grades, if not school-wide, so it serves as a wonderful compass to drive a data journey. Grade teams can look at trends to brainstorm best practices and share success stories.

Just as important as collaboration among colleagues is the impact data conversations can have on students. Using the Student Profile report during conferences gives students a glimpse into their data, provides a jumping-off point for them to advocate for their academic and learning needs, and fosters a sense of agency that keeps them invested and interested in their learning journey. It even contains a section dedicated to growth goals. (For more on using MAP Growth for goal setting, see “Everything you need to know about goal setting for students.”)

Understanding the academic variability of your class also helps you better plan for obstacles along your data journey. The MAP Growth Class and Student Profile reports, in tandem with your standards, help you create a roadmap and anticipate bumps along the way. Knowing your content, and what success looks like beyond the week you’re in, are key to differentiating using data to create the conditions necessary for student success.

Embracing data-driven instruction

Wherever you are in your MAP Growth journey, your students are going to benefit from an educator like you who analyzes assessment data to get a better understanding of where students are in their learning. Analyzing MAP Growth data without a clear intention can quickly turn into information overload, especially with so many numbers and metrics to consider. The key is to start somewhere, even if it’s small. Choose one specific area of focus, perhaps one of the many ideas offered in this post:

• Use the Class Profile report to understand achievement and test engagement details or to guide student groupings for an upcoming unit.
• Use the Student Profile report to plan more targeted individual supports or to engage students in data conversations.
• Collaborate with colleagues to analyze data trends and share best data practices.

Remember that every data journey’s starting point will look different and that using even a small piece of the assessment data you have to inform your instruction is a meaningful step forward. With a clear focus, MAP Growth data can become a powerful tool in embracing data-driven instruction to improve student outcomes.

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As educators and leaders, we share a common goal: ensuring every student has the opportunity to thrive. At the heart of this mission lies multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS), a powerful framework designed to meet the diverse needs of students through strategic, evidence-based practices. Having walked the paths of both school and district leadership, I know how essential it is to approach MTSS implementation with clarity, purpose, and an unwavering commitment to equity.

Central to this effort are two critical elements: assessment literacy and a balanced assessment system. Together, they form the backbone of data-driven decision-making, empowering educators to provide targeted support where it matters most.

Understanding assessment literacy in MTSS

“Assessment,” as defined by the National Task Force on Assessment Education for Teachers and NWEA, is the process of gathering evidence of student learning to inform education-related decisions. The quality of both the assessment and associated practices determines the quality of the evidence gathered, which in turn affects the impact of those decisions. Those who are assessment literate understand how to gather dependable evidence and how to use it productively to support or certify achievement.

Assessment literacy is the foundation of effective data use within MTSS. But what does it mean? Simply put, assessment literacy is the ability to understand what assessments measure, why they are used, and how to interpret and apply the results meaningfully.

For educators, this literacy is transformative. It allows them to look beyond the numbers to discern student needs and adapt their instruction. Consider these key aspects of assessment literacy:

• Knowing what and why. Educators need clarity on what each assessment measures and its intended purpose within the MTSS framework.
• Interpreting data. It’s not enough to have data; understanding patterns and trends in results is crucial for identifying gaps and strengths.
• Applying insights. Data should drive action. Whether it’s modifying instructional strategies or providing targeted interventions, assessment literacy bridges the gap between information and application.

When educators embrace assessment literacy and this student-centered mindset, they can ensure every student receives the tailored support they need to thrive.

Components of a balanced assessment system in MTSS

As noted in “A tricky balance: The challenges and opportunities of balanced systems of assessment,” “Assessment systems are balanced when the various assessments in the system are coherently linked through a clear specification of the learning targets, they comprehensively provide multiple sources of evidence to support educational decision-making, and they continuously document student progress over time.”

A balanced assessment system integrates various tools to address different stages of student support within MTSS. Think of it as a three-legged stool, where each leg supports a specific need:

• Screening assessments. These universal tools help identify students who may require additional support, allowing schools to act early and prevent further challenges.
• Diagnostic assessments. Once concerns are identified, diagnostic tools dig deeper into individual student strengths and areas of need, guiding precise interventions.
• Progress-monitoring assessments. These regular check-ins ensure that interventions are working and allow for timely adjustments.

Together, these assessment types create a cohesive system that informs decision-making at every tier of MTSS, from school-wide strategies to individual interventions. Note that our assessments, MAP® Growth and MAP® Reading Fluency, can be used as part of a balanced assessment system.

The role of assessment literacy in data-driven decision-making

Assessment literacy is essential for making the most of the data generated within MTSS. At every level—individual, classroom, and school-wide—educators rely on this literacy to interpret and act on data effectively. Consider these examples:

• Adjusting instructional strategies. When assessment data reveals gaps in understanding, teachers can tailor their lessons to address specific needs.
• Targeted interventions. Data helps educators identify students who need additional support and align those supports to individual needs.
• Resource allocation. At the school or district level, assessment literacy enables leaders to allocate time, personnel, and funds where they will have the greatest impact.

This shift to data-driven decision-making ensures that MTSS interventions are not just well-intentioned but effective.

Building assessment literacy across the school community

To truly embed assessment literacy in an MTSS framework, school leaders must take the lead in fostering a culture of learning and growth. Here’s how:

• Professional development. Regular training ensures that educators and staff deepen their understanding of assessment practices and their application. For schools and districts that test with MAP, we offer MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency professional learning.
• Stakeholder involvement. Families, support staff, and community partners play a vital role in supporting MTSS. Engaging them in the assessment process builds trust and transparency.
• Collaboration. Assessment literacy should be a shared responsibility. School and district leaders can model effective data use, providing guidance and support to teachers.

By building a community that values and understands assessment, leaders can sustain meaningful MTSS practices over time.

Moving from compliance to meaningful use of data in MTSS

Too often, data collection in schools feels like a compliance exercise—, a box to check off rather than a tool for transformation. Assessment literacy flips the script. When educators understand and embrace the power of assessment data, they move from compliance to meaningful action.

This shift is evident when educators:

• Use data as a growth tool, viewing assessments as opportunities to learn and improve, not as judgmental measures.
• Personalize support, applying data insights to meet the unique needs of each student, fostering growth and confidence.

For example, a teacher might use progress-monitoring data to refine an intervention for a reader or adjust groupings in a math class to maximize learning for all.

Tiering supports, not students

One of the most impactful mindsets leaders can instill is that MTSS tiers describe supports, not students. This distinction matters. When we refer to a student as “Tier 2,” we risk defining them by their challenges rather than their potential. Instead, we should say, “This student is receiving Tier 2 supports,” emphasizing that interventions are flexible, temporary, and tailored to specific needs.

To guide this process, entry and exit criteria for each tier is essential. These criteria act as guardrails to ensure supports are delivered equitably and consistently across classrooms, grade levels, and schools. Entry criteria help identify students who would benefit from additional supports by using a combination of data, including screening assessments, classroom performance, and teacher observations. Exit criteria, on the other hand, define when a student has made sufficient progress to reduce or change the intensity of their supports.

The role of assessments is critical in establishing and applying these criteria effectively. As mentioned above, each type of assessment—screening, diagnostic, and progress monitoring—serves a specific purpose within MTSS, and understanding their use is vital for making informed decisions. Screening assessments, for instance, provide a broad overview of which students may need additional support, helping to inform entry criteria for Tier 2 or Tier 3. Diagnostic assessments then offer a deeper understanding of a student’s specific strengths and areas of need, ensuring that the selected interventions are targeted and appropriate. Progress-monitoring data is crucial for determining whether students are meeting the goals outlined in their intervention plans and whether they are ready to transition out of higher-intensity supports.

Leaders play a crucial role in ensuring educators have the assessment literacy needed to understand and interpret these data points effectively. When educators know the purpose of each assessment and how to apply the results, entry and exit criteria become more than procedural checkpoints and serve as tools for equitable and responsive decision-making. For students, this ensures that interventions are not only timely but also tailored to their current learning needs.

Entry and exit criteria reinforce the dynamic nature of MTSS, underscoring the idea that students are not static within tiers. Instead, the supports they receive are adaptable, reflecting their growth and changing needs over time. By integrating assessment literacy into this process, schools can ensure that decisions about tiered supports are both data-driven and student-centered.

Using tools to implement and monitor MTSS

Implementing MTSS can be complex, but leveraging reliable tools and resources makes it more manageable. The American Institutes for Research (AIR) offers an MTSS rubric that serves as a valuable resource for schools and districts. This tool helps teams assess their current practices, identify areas for growth, and monitor implementation progress. By aligning efforts with a robust framework like AIR’s rubric, leaders can ensure their MTSS implementation is both strategic and sustainable.

Using such tools provides clarity and structure, allowing teams to focus on actionable steps rather than feeling overwhelmed by the scope of implementation. These resources also reinforce a data-driven approach, ensuring that interventions are aligned with identified needs and that progress is continually evaluated and refined.

In closing

Building a successful MTSS framework requires an investment in assessment literacy and a balanced assessment system. As leaders, we must prioritize professional learning opportunities that empower educators to make data-informed decisions. Equally important is cultivating a culture where all stakeholders—teachers, families, and support staff—understand the purpose of assessments and the power of tiered supports.

MTSS is not a one-size-fits-all solution; it’s a dynamic process rooted in collaboration, reflection, and continuous improvement. By leading with clarity and compassion, we can transform how we support students, ensuring every child has the opportunity to succeed. Let’s make this vision a reality, together.

The following guiding questions can foster meaningful MTSS conversations in a variety of environments:

• Professional learning communities (PLCs). Use these questions as discussion prompts during PLC meetings to explore the strengths and challenges of MTSS implementation.
• Leadership team meetings. Incorporate these guiding questions to reflect on current practices, set goals, and identify areas for growth within your MTSS framework.
• Professional development sessions. Share these questions with educators during training sessions to encourage reflection on assessment literacy and its role in supporting students.
• Family and community engagement. Adapt the questions to involve families and community partners in understanding and contributing to MTSS initiatives.
• Continuous improvement planning. Use the questions as part of a self-assessment process to evaluate progress and refine MTSS strategies at the school or district level.

For district leaders

• What professional development opportunities can we provide to deepen educators’ understanding of assessment literacy and its application in MTSS?
• How are we aligning resources, such as personnel and funding, to support data-driven interventions and equitable outcomes across schools?
• How do we ensure that MTSS implementation across the district moves beyond compliance to meaningful and sustainable use of data?

For school leaders

• How are we fostering assessment literacy among our staff to ensure data-driven decision-making within our MTSS framework?
• In what ways are we using screening, diagnostic, and progress-monitoring assessments to address the unique needs of our students?
• How can we engage families and community partners to build trust and transparency in our MTSS practices?

For teachers

• How can we use assessment data to adjust instructional strategies and personalize supports for our students?
• What processes do we have in place to monitor the effectiveness of interventions and make timely adjustments?
• How do we ensure that we are tiering supports, not students, while maintaining a student-centered approach to learning and growth?

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When using any type of assessment tool, educators are working to identify student strengths and opportunities for improvement and meaningful growth. We tend to have vast amounts of data at our fingertips, yet sometimes we have difficulty sifting through that data and making informed decisions to truly drive instructional opportunities with intentionality. MAP® Growth and MAP® Reading Fluency reports can help.

Those who are assessment literate understand how to gather dependable evidence. They are then able to utilize that evidence to productively support and certify achievement for students. According to the National Task Force on Assessment Education for Teachers, “assessment is the process of gathering evidence of student learning to inform education-related decisions. The impact of decisions turns on the quality of the evidence gathered, which in turn, depends on the quality of the assessment, and associated practices, used to gather it.” That’s a mouthful!

I’m the first to admit that during my time in public education, I did not always feel confident and comfortable using data to ensure the various needs of all my learners were met. In hindsight, I could have leveled the playing field for my students by triangulating data, using intentional formative assessment, and providing temporary scaffolds to students needing additional supports to access grade-level standards.

MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency can each be one data point in an effective, balanced assessment system. I would like to share some ways campus leadership, interventionists, and classroom educators can potentially use assessment data to drive opportunities for students. Below you will find key questions to use as you analyze MAP Growth or MAP Reading Fluency data.

MAP Growth reporting for school leaders

The MAP Growth School Profile report can help campus leaders use MAP Growth data to identify student needs and impact outcomes. Using the School Profile can help you answer the following questions:

• Which grade levels or classes are excelling? Which need additional supports? These questions can lead to conversations about trends and create opportunities to ask teachers what is working and what they are doing to make gains in their classroom. Teachers each have unique teaching styles and methodologies to ensure students are comprehending standards. If leadership can make time and space for educators to discuss successes and struggles, they can gain insight from one another. This is incredibly valuable as it creates a culture of collaboration and promotes brainstorming and inclusivity.
• Are our programs having an equitable impact? If leaders explore and sort the data based on programs and data like ethnicity or gender, trends can be analyzed to ensure the needs of all learners are met. This is critical to close gaps and ensure high-achieving students in particular have access to rigorous content.
• What trends indicate opportunities for further exploration? This question can lead to conversations regarding analyzing and understanding the impact of the curriculum, instruction, and supports you are providing. It may also help leaders identify educators other educators can learn from and educators who may need additional supports. This should never be approached as a “gotcha” moment. We are all always evolving and growing. Making space for meaningful opportunities for educator growth is valuable.
• Do teachers have time to collaborate across disciplines? Working across disciplines provides meaningful opportunities for collaboration, including creating units or topics that align across multiple contents, and offers additional insights, such as student Lexile levels and behavior supports. If there are opportunities for a topic to be embedded across disciplines, students can build background knowledge that becomes transferable.

MAP Growth reporting for classroom teachers

The MAP Growth Class Profile report is an interactive report that allows teachers to see overall class performance, create small groups based on instructional areas, and get insight into who may need scaffolds, extensions, or enrichments. The Class Profile may help you answer the following questions:

• How are my classes performing overall? Knowing how each class is performing compared to 2020 NWEA MAP Growth Norms and your state’s linking studies can help you gain insight and think about where your students are and where you want them to be.
• What instructional areas stand out as strengths or opportunities to grow? Asking this question can be incredibly powerful when we take the instructional areas and see how they align with our curriculum. Analyzing this data can help us identify students who may need scaffolds to access grade-level standards, students who will likely be fine with Tier I instruction, and students who may need grade-level standards presented with more rigor.
• How can I adjust opportunities to support access to grade-level standards? For students who may need additional support with a subject or within a specific instructional area, it’s critical to explore what scaffolds you can temporarily put into place to ensure all students have access to grade-level standards.
• Do I use assessment data as part of a formative assessment cycle? MAP Growth data can create opportunities for goal setting. We can work with students to create specific goals and offer opportunities for prompt, targeted feedback. Helping students see how the instructional areas within MAP Growth connect to a curriculum can promote an understanding that MAP Growth is not something we do just three times a year. Rather, the data allows educators opportunities to make curriculum connections while working to support students all year long, allowing students to take ownership of their learning.
• Am I engaging in conversations across content areas? The example I find myself referring to often is the Lexile level MAP Growth Reading provides. If you’re a reading teacher, are you sharing student data on reading and comprehension across content areas? If a student’s Lexile level is below the Lexile level grade-level text aligns to, your colleagues in other content areas can provide supports to ensure all students have access to complex, grade-level text.

MAP Reading Fluency reports for school leaders

Campus leaders can use the MAP Reading Fluency Term Comparison report to identify student need and impact outcomes. The Term Comparison can help answer the following questions:

• What trends do we notice as we compare terms? As we compare data between terms, do we see student growth? It’s important to look at how many students are below grade-level expectations, approaching, meeting, and exceeding.
• Do we have more students with oral reading data at the end of the year compared to the beginning and middle of the year? It’s important to analyze data for students given the Adaptive Oral Reading portion of the test to see who routed to Oral Reading rather than Foundational Skills as an academic year progresses.
• How have grade-level performance levels shifted? Ideally, we should see students move from below grade-level expectations to approaching, meeting, or exceeding. When this happens, we can see the impact of our instructional programs.

MAP Reading Fluency reports for classroom teachers

Classroom teachers can use the MAP Reading Fluency Benchmark Matrix and Screener Outcomes reports to answer the following questions:

• What students have data in Foundational Skills? Oral Reading? Having this data will help you have a better sense for the learning trajectory to put in place for your students.
• What domain stands out as a strength or an opportunity for growth? As you sort through each of the reporting categories, notice if there’s a specific area that stands out as a strength or opportunity for meaningful growth. Knowing where students are can help you focus on specific areas during whole-group and small-group instruction.
• How can I adjust opportunities to support access to grade-level standards? As you analyze the data, aim to identify specific instructional areas that will need to be scaffolded to provide students equitable access to grade-level standards.
• Who are my flagged students? How can I provide additional supports to meet student needs? As you start to explore students who are flagged as possibly showing signs of reading difficulty, including dyslexia, you can ask yourself if this aligns with other data points and your observations. If students are flagged in Foundational Skills, analyze what specific domains need additional supports.
• For students needing additional support, what will intentional interventions look like? As you look at students who need additional supports, including students flagged in the Screener Outcomes report, plan for intervention supports. Ask yourself whether you’re continuing to utilize progress monitoring as an additional data point to gauge the effectiveness of interventions. MAP Reading Fluency progress monitoring can help you in tracking progress.

Start where you are

As you think about these questions, please know there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to create collaborative opportunities between educators and growth opportunities for students. One of the best things we can do is simply get started.

Explore the MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency reports available to you. Get comfortable with them. Find your favorites and focus on those. I also encourage you to ask questions, lean into your colleagues as resources, explore our YouTube channel for great informational videos, and reach out to your NWEA representative if you need more support.

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If you happen to have read our post back in early August about the newly updated Class Profile report, you’ll know that MAP® Growth reports are all centered around one thing: you. Your input as an educator helps us create and build them all, including the full suite of profile reports—the Student, Class, School, and now the MAP Growth District Profile report—which transforms all your raw assessment data into essential information for making crucial decisions.

Stepping back, looking deeper

One of the main asks we have heard from administrators is for a customizable report that provides essential, accurate information for making big district decisions. With the new MAP Growth District Profile report, you can:

• Have a holistic view of your district’s academic standing and can easily track achievement and growth from the district level down to individual grades within each school
• Make informed, district-wide decisions about where to allocate resources and make strategic changes by comparing district performance to national norms and filtering data by gender, ethnicity, program, or subject
• Customize endlessly and see exactly what’s most helpful to you with the ability to instantly sort large amounts of data and rely on real-time results

What does all this look like? Let’s take a quick spin through the two main screens of the report. The views are similar but the data they show is very different.

Single-term achievement view

The single-term achievement view of the MAP Growth District Profile report shows your district’s MAP Growth achievement in one term.

1. Here’s your customization. You can see and address the needs of diverse student groups across your district by filtering for gender, ethnicity, program, or subject.
2. These are your district results, where you can see how student scores in your district compare to other same-grade students across the US.
3. Here’s where you can see grade-specific achievement percentiles and compare student scores with peers in the same grades nationwide.

Most importantly, you can now answer the following questions:

• Which schools need the most support in each grade?
• Which schools are excelling in each grade?
• What differences exist when examining performance in a subject by ethnicity, gender, or program?
• Are there trends in achievement at the district or grade-level year after year or between terms?
• Is one grade performing better in some courses than others (e.g., math vs. reading)?

Growth and achievement view

With the growth and achievement view of the MAP Growth District Profile report, you can track your district’s achievement over time. This is where you can really dig in and start to answer those resourcing decisions.

Just like with the single-term achievement view, here you can filter to see results from different groups of students.

1. Here you can review results across multiple testing events to see both growth and achievement at the district level.
2. This is where you can look into grade-level growth for individual schools and courses and support MTSS programs across your district.

There are many important questions you can now answer:

• How is your district doing overall?
• How much are students growing compared to similar students in the NWEA norm group?
• What was the impact of a major change (for example, additional intervention resources or a new curriculum) that was made last year? Did it result in any positive change at the district or grade level?
• What are the higher/lower achieving grades or schools in your district?

Knowledge is power

The MAP Growth District Profile report is a valuable resource for understanding how all the kids in your district are doing. When combined with the Student, Class, and School profile reports, it becomes even easier to analyze assessment data at every level, from the amazing achievement of one second-grader to the trends of thousands of K–12 students.

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Remember Philip Gough and William Tunmer’s Simple View of Reading? That’s the concise equation stating that reading comprehension is the product of word recognition (turning letters on a page into their corresponding sounds) and language comprehension (listening to language for the purpose of extracting and constructing meaning). Here’s that equation in graphic form:

In my last article, I explored the word recognition part of this equation. I explained how MAP® Reading Fluency with Coach, the AI-powered tutoring solution from NWEA, delivers evidence-based, just-in-time microinterventions to help readers develop and refine this key skill. Today I’d like to turn my attention to the other essential part of the equation: language comprehension.

All about language comprehension

Language comprehension, very simply, is what happens when readers go beyond turning letters into sounds and begin to understand the full meaning that words convey. It’s a simple concept, but in practice, it’s a multifaceted process with a lot happening under the surface.

You may recall that language comprehension is a key component of not only the Simple View of Reading, but also Hollis Scarborough’s Strand Model of Skilled Reading (a.k.a., the Reading Rope), which weaves together strands that are necessary for reading acquisition into the durable tapestry we call skilled reading. Word recognition makes up one of the domains of the Reading Rope, and the other domain is —you guessed it—language comprehension. I mention these frameworks again because MAP Reading Fluency with Coach wouldn’t exist without them. They’re the scientific foundation upon which this state-of-the-art tutoring program was built.

The language comprehension part of the Reading Rope is composed of the following strands:

• Background knowledge is the prior knowledge one possesses, which must be utilized to comprehend what we hear or read. It’s one thing to master decoding (turning letters into their corresponding sounds) and quite another to have the foundation of content knowledge that makes extracting and constructing meaning possible.
• Vocabulary encompasses understanding both the meaning and pronunciation of words. It’s important to have a large storehouse of known words, as it supports decoding, and when we know what words mean, it supports our ability to understand.
• Language structures refer to how language is organized to impart meaning. At the word level, it includes awareness of morphological structures, like base words, prefixes, and suffixes. Morphological awareness acts as a bridge that connects word recognition to language comprehension. At the sentence level, language structures include knowing how word choice creates meaning (or semantic knowledge) and knowing the rules of grammar for a language (or syntactic knowledge).
• Verbal reasoning refers to one’s ability to analyze and deduce meaning from both explicit and implicit information. It extends beyond basic recall of what was heard or read and involves making logical inferences, integrating ideas, and interpreting figurative language. Think of verbal reasoning as problem-solving words to extract and construct meaning.
• Literacy knowledge encompasses all the concepts one knows about language, books, and their contents. It includes, for example, knowing the difference between fiction and poetry, as well as knowledge of print concepts and text features. These details make up the background knowledge that sets the stage for improved comprehension.

One way to distinguish word recognition from language comprehension is that the former becomes increasingly automatic. Language comprehension, on the other hand, becomes increasingly strategic as readers progress toward skilled reading.

Putting theory into practice with targeted interventions

Let’s look at the language comprehension microinterventions that are built into MAP Reading Fluency with Coach. These interventions are loaded and ready to go for real-time implementation as students interact with Maya, the AI-powered avatar who functions as their personal coach. As students read aloud, Maya actively listens just as a human teacher or tutor would—and when she detects an oral reading error, she delivers customized support to help students move past the obstacles in their way.

Here are some examples of language comprehension microinterventions that Maya delivers when she detects an error, along with the specific Reading Rope domains they are designed to address:

• Homonyms. Maya selects a word that is a homonym and then asks the student to select the best definition of the word. (vocabulary, background knowledge)
• Vocabulary quiz. Maya provides the definition for the selected word and then asks the student to select the image that best represents the word. (vocabulary, background knowledge)
• Fun fact. Maya shows the selected word along with an amusing picture, and she relays a fun fact where the word is mentioned one or more times. (background knowledge, vocabulary)
• Mid-story comprehension question. Maya deploys a multiple-choice comprehension question to check for understanding during a story. (comprehension, vocabulary)
• Morpheme roots intervention. Maya highlights a root, then explains what it means. The student is asked to name another word that uses the root. Maya then provides a word. (language structure, vocabulary, background knowledge)
• Suffix intervention. Maya highlights a suffix and then explains what it means. The student is asked to name another word that uses the suffix. (language structure, vocabulary)

Watching readers grow

It won’t take long for your readers to encounter and start benefiting from the microinterventions described above. In fact, NWEA recommends that students start with a half hour of practice per week with MAP Reading Fluency with Coach. Because the program is so responsive and personalized, you’ll start seeing results right away.

And, of course, you do need to see those results to know how your students are doing and what they need next. Insight into your students’ progress and growth is one of the most valuable takeaways from MAP Reading Fluency with Coach. This is where the reports come in. I’ll share ideas for how to get the most value out of these reports in a future article.

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Between powerful hurricanes in the Southeast, wildfires in the West, and heat waves all over the country, inclement weather–related school closures are becoming increasingly common in the United States. In 2024 alone, two major hurricanes closed schools in North Carolina and Florida for weeks and caused untold suffering and damages to local communities. These events not only interrupt children’s academic lives but also often impact their physical well-being, home and neighborhood environment, and sense of security. Some families lose homes and livelihoods and are displaced for months or even years.

In the face of such profound disruptions, the reopening of schools after an inclement weather event often represents one of the first returns to normalcy and routine for children. However, it can be quite challenging for schools and educators to meet students’ wide range of academic, mental health, and emotional needs following the disruption. Additionally, after schools reopen, district and state officials are often forced to make tough tradeoffs to balance the need to make up for missed instructional time with students’ and families’ needs for flexibility and additional supports.

In this Teach. Learn. Grow. post, we begin by reviewing what the research says about the effects of absenteeism and inclement weather–related school closures on student learning before turning to evidence on how districts can most effectively add back in instructional time. While simply making up for missed instructional time may be adequate for many students to stay on track, we also provide guidance on how best to provide more targeted supports for students who fell further behind during these closures. Finally, we wrap up with some recommendations for building more resilient school facilities and schedules in the future to accommodate these increasingly frequent disruptions to student learning.

Missing extended periods of school negatively affects learning

After a prolonged school closure, many families and educators worry that students may have fallen behind academically. It’s a natural concern, but the connection between the length of missed school time and academic outcomes is often not immediately apparent.

To get a sense of what to expect the potential impacts of weather-related school closures on learning to be, we looked to research on the academic impacts of hurricane-related school closures and student absenteeism. For easier understanding, we translated estimates from relevant studies to show the approximate weeks of learning lost associated with each week of missed school (see the figure notes for additional details).

The bars in the figure below capture the average estimates of weeks of learning lost per week of missed school. We separate this out for math and reading and for grade levels. The black lines capture the range in estimates across studies (when available). Keep in mind that these are averages and not all students will show the same negative impacts.

Figure 1. Projections of weeks of learning lost for each week of school missed

Note: Average (pooled across studies) estimates are reported in white text at the base of each bar, whereas heterogeneity across studies is shown via the black vertical lines on each bar. Absenteeism results were pulled from Gershenson, Jacknowitz, and Brannegan (2017); Aucejo and Romano (2016); and Liu, Lee, and Gershenson (2021). Inclement weather results were pulled from Morrill and Westall (2023); Fuller and Davis (2021); and Sacerdote (2012). Reported estimates in standard deviation units were benchmarked against typical year-to-year growth estimates reported by Hill et al. (2008) and then rescaled into weeks of learning (assuming 36 weeks in a standard school year). Please contact the first author for more details on the calculations.

Here are some key takeaways. First, both the absenteeism and inclement weather literature indicate that there is not a 1:1 correspondence between amount of school missed and weeks of learning lost: missing one week of school can translate to academic losses that are two to four times greater than the missed instruction time itself. For instance, the research suggests that a week of missed school due to inclement weather for middle schoolers translates into nearly three weeks of lost learning in reading and nearly four weeks in math. This may be because these disruptions don’t just impact instructional time but also present a number of other challenges that may make it harder to concentrate on learning when students do return to schools.

Second, the effects of missing school seem to be larger in middle school than elementary grades. This might be because middle school curricula are more complex and build upon prior knowledge more rapidly than in elementary grades, so missing school can create larger gaps in understanding.

We know more about how missing school affects test scores because that’s often easier to study. It is equally important to acknowledge the impacts on mental and socioemotional well-being. Some students may show signs of long-lasting trauma, becoming emotional or anxious during subsequent hurricane or fire seasons. Meeting these mental health needs is often a first-order priority during recovery. Districts that have previously faced natural disasters reported that academic recovery generally could not take place until students and staff had begun their emotional recovery.

How to best make up lost instructional time

When schools reopen after lengthy inclement weather–related school closures, they often face a number of challenging decisions around how to meet students’ immediate needs while building out longer-term recovery plans. One pressing decision is whether and how to make up for the school days missed, which depends on both the district’s preferences and any state laws around minimal instructional hours/days (or “seat time”). If the total length of closures puts the district in an instructional hour deficit relative to the state law, the district must either look for options to make up the instructional hours or hope that the state will loosen instructional time mandates for the year.

There are three common strategies used to make up for lost instructional hours: canceling previously scheduled holidays or vacation days, lengthening the school day, and adding days at the end of the school year. Is there evidence to support one of these strategies over the others? The short answer is: it’s complicated.

Two factors play a large role in the effectiveness of instructional time make-up strategies: how logistically challenging is it to modify school schedules and the degree of community buy-in for the strategy selected. Extending the school year is likely more effective than extending the school day, likely due to the fact that the latter is more likely to require organizational changes like new school and/or bus schedules. The effectiveness of using holiday or vacation days as school make-up days is highly dependent on how likely teachers and students are to show up on those days. School make-up days that take from holiday breaks (such as Thanksgiving or winter break) are unlikely to be well attended and effectively serve students’ need.  To ensure make-up days are instructional effective, it is important for districts to both gather feedback from families and educators about how they most prefer to make up the time and communicate the importance of make-up day attendance so students do, in fact, benefit from that extra time.

Another underutilized approach that does not involve any modifications to school schedules is to explore strategies for utilizing existing instructional time more effectively. This can take many forms, but existing research suggests behavioral interventions to increase student attendance, policies that limit classroom disruptions (such as limiting school intercom and phone use), and incentives to curb teacher absenteeism.

Strategies for students who have fallen further behind

Just making up for missed school days may not be enough for the students who were particularly affected by inclement weather–related school closures. These students will likely need additional supports over the course of the next year or two. Following the schooling disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many districts already experimented with a number of strategies to catch up students who fell behind, including the high-dosage tutoring, summer programs, and hiring of additional staff to support students’ academic and mental health needs.

While implementing and scaling up these recovery programs proved to be extremely challenging in many instances, we have learned some lessons that can guide districts looking to support students affected by extended school interruptions. Smaller, more targeted tutoring programs tend to be more effective, for example, and summer programs can be effective in raising math test scores in particular.

5 ways districts can plan for inclement weather–related school closures

Inclement weather–related school closures are likely to be increasingly common over the next few decades, making it more essential than ever for districts to plan ahead for these disruptions. While it is impossible to plan for every contingency, there are few steps that are recommended for all districts:

1. Develop a high-quality school emergency operations plan
2. Prepare schools for climate resiliency by upgrading aging heating and cooling infrastructure
3. Plan for air quality and extreme heat emergencies in addition to natural disasters
4. Build more flexible school calendars for upcoming years
5. Invest in trauma-informed strategies to support students’ and educators’ mental health

In sum, inclement weather–related school closures are a growing challenge for districts across the US, with significant implications for students’ academic, social, and emotional well-being. Addressing the academic setbacks requires careful planning, balancing immediate make-up strategies with long-term supports for the most impacted students. By building flexible calendars, prioritizing trauma-informed approaches, and leveraging lessons learned from past disruptions, among other strategies, districts can better support recovery and build resilience for the future.

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What’s the difference between an athlete who wins a race and one who finishes among the rest of the pack? It might be technique, practice time, nutrition, or motivation. It’s likely a combination of factors, but one that’s undeniable is the relationship of the athlete with their coach. The best athletes inevitably have the best coaching relationships: relationships that have been built intentionally to help the athletes progress further toward specific goals.

While educators aren’t athletes, they work long hours toward goals that can get lost amid the daily setbacks and struggles they encounter. And just like athletes, educators require effective coaches throughout their careers.

Where did all the coaches go?

We are currently experiencing some of the highest teacher attrition rates in modern times, especially in urban or high-poverty areas, where turnover rates are 19–29%, resulting in many schools becoming “bottom heavy” as experienced educators retire or transition into other careers. These attrition rates over the last several years have left many schools with fewer than half of their teachers having greater than five years of teaching experience.

The loss of pandemic-related funding and a shortage of qualified teachers to hire has led many districts to cut, or greatly reduce, the number of instructional coaches, the individuals most directly involved with supporting educators in meeting their goals. So, what’s an educator to do when they discover they don’t have a coach?

Autonomy in finding your own a coach

As a teacher, you may often feel you have coaching done to you. For example, your students’ scores aren’t where they should be, so an administrator informs you you’ll be part of a coaching cycle the following term.

This is directly opposed to athletes, who seek out coaches whom they feel can help them meet their performance goals. Educators can—and should—do the same thing. Because when we have autonomy in choosing our coaches, selecting the focus of coaching, and determining the methods used to achieve our goals, we are more likely to meet our goals and have a greater impact on student learning.

Step 1: Find a coach, or create one

Is there someone in your building or district who teaches a different content area and whom you admire? Ask them if you can take a learning walk together to explore what you admire most in their teaching or strategies. If no one comes immediately to mind, consider asking yourself the following questions:

• What are students saying about other teachers?
• Who’s most impactful?
• Are there any educators I’ve met through professional development workshops, or district-supported events, with whom I felt I shared common goals and who were excited about improving student learning?

If you can’t seem to find anyone within your school or district, you may want to connect with another educator online who shares content that you’d like to try with your students. Or you might find someone who has commented on educational posts that also resonated for you. Reach out and build a collaborative network.

Still can’t find a coach or coach-like colleague? NWEA has a team of instructional coaches who work with educators throughout a coaching cycle to support them. NWEA instructional coaches help educators select a coaching focus, identify and learn strategies to achieve a chosen goal, use protocols for assessing educators’ and students’ progress toward the selected goal, and celebrate success at the completion of a coaching cycle. Coaching can be done virtually or onsite and remains independent from school and district evaluation processes.

Step 2: Reflect

After observing colleagues plan and teach lessons, take time to analyze instructional delivery, student engagement, and classroom management. Self-assess your own skills in these areas by recording and reviewing video of your own instruction. You can use a rubric or framework to be as objective as possible in your analysis.

When you’re ready, share your recorded lessons with your selected coach/colleague for constructive feedback. Your analysis should give you a list of areas in which you’d like to grow.

Step 3: Build your knowledge base

Follow blogs, podcasts, or YouTube channels by educational leaders you admire for insights into instructional strategies with the greatest impact on student learning. John Hattie’s Visible Learning study can help you narrow down the strategies you’d like to learn more about and begin implementing in your classroom.

Include in your research how you will track the impact on student learning. Not all evidence-collection methods are appropriate for all instructional areas or student groups.

Step 4: Take action

Implement the strategy you have identified and researched. Track the impact on student learning and be ready to adapt your methods based on what works best for your students and what the data is telling you.

Don’t be afraid to record yourself, even if you are the only one who watches the replay. Remember that even a small change is a step in the improvement process: when repeated, a small change can have a significant impact.

Step 5: Circle back and reassess

Through the use of formative or interim assessments, discover where your changes are having an impact on student learning. Then, reevaluate your original goal. Have you met or surpassed your goal and, if so, what comes next? If not, what other strategies might you need to try?

Ask your coach or a trusted colleague to observe you (again) and provide further constructive feedback related specifically to the strategy you’ve tried putting into place. You can even solicit student feedback at this point. What seems to be helping or limiting their progress? Brief exercises such as exit tickets covering both the content taught and the strategy used can help gauge student understanding and their learning experience, allowing you to adjust future lessons accordingly.

Step 6: Celebrate growth

As educators, we know to prioritize growth in student learning versus focusing only on student achievement. But do we remember to celebrate our own growth in the same way?

You are a work in progress and so is your teaching practice. The only way we improve at anything is through consistent re-evaluation of our process and outcomes (see step 5). We need to be sure to take time to see small successes along the way. Through the use of ongoing assessment, we can spot progress as it’s happening.

Practice, practice, practice

When we release ourselves from the idea that our teaching skills are fixed, we can begin to expand our practice through development in our chosen areas. Just as athletes rely on coaches to fine-tune their skills, educators can seek to support and structure their growth journey.

Even when formal coaching is not available, educators can thrive by taking ownership of their professional growth. By seeking out peer mentors, engaging in self-reflection, building knowledge through research, and actively implementing and reassessing new strategies, teachers can drive their development. Celebrating small wins and tracking progress ensure that both student learning and professional development remain a priority, even when external coaching resources are limited.

Professional learning is something we do for ourselves, our practice, and our students, instead of merely something that’s done to or for us.

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As school leaders, one of the greatest opportunities we have is to transform student assessment data from a periodic snapshot into an ongoing tool for instructional improvement and student success. By using data continuously, rather than confining its use to the weeks following the test, school leaders can foster a culture of growth, where teachers and students benefit year-round.

Sustaining improvement in teaching and learning is most effectively driven by strategies like professional learning communities (PLCs), instructional rounds, targeted feedback, and instructional coaching. Each of these approaches, when centered around data, can lead to measurable and lasting change in instructional practice.

Here’s how school leaders can use assessment data to make these strategies work effectively.

1. Professional learning communities: A collaborative approach to data use

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have long been recognized as a powerful driver of school improvement, particularly when they operate with a strong focus on data. PLCs provide structured time for teachers to collaborate, analyze data, and develop action plans that directly respond to student needs.

Research by Richard DuFour et al. highlights the effectiveness of PLCs, particularly when their focus is centered on data and follows a cycle—plan, implement, reflect, and adjust—creating a continuous feedback loop that drives instructional improvement.

The core benefit of PLCs is the shared responsibility for student success. By gathering teachers to collectively examine assessment data—both formative and summative—PLCs create space for reflective dialogue that can lead to powerful instructional shifts.

School leaders should:

• Use data as a starting point. Teachers can begin PLC sessions by reviewing recent student assessment data to identify patterns, gaps, and areas for growth. For example, a drop in reading comprehension scores might prompt discussions about instructional strategies, resources, and specific interventions for students who need additional support.
• Encourage collaborative problem-solving. Once areas of need are identified, PLCs can develop instructional strategies tailored to address these challenges. Importantly, instructional solutions are implemented and reviewed in subsequent meetings to track progress.

2. Instructional rounds: Building collective efficacy through data-informed observation

Instructional rounds are a collaborative, non-evaluative process where groups of educators visit classrooms to observe teaching practices with a specific focus. Like PLCs, rounds benefit significantly when driven by assessment data providing the foundation for identifying the most urgent instructional challenges.

Research by Elizabeth City et al. has shown that instructional rounds lead to stronger professional learning cultures and promote the development of a shared instructional language and understanding about what high-quality instruction looks like. When rounds are used to address issues identified through data, they become a powerful tool for continuous improvement.

School leaders can:

• Prioritize data-driven focus areas. Use student assessment data to pinpoint a common area of need, perhaps low performance in math problem-solving or inconsistent application of reading strategies across grades. The rounds team can then focus their observations on how teachers address this specific issue in the classroom.
• Leave time for shared reflection. After conducting rounds, teachers gather to debrief. This conversation, when structured around the data and the focus of the observation, generates actionable insights that teachers can take back to their classrooms. Note that these conversations should be framed to promote learning and improvement, not evaluation.

3. Actionable feedback: Tying data to instructional growth

Teacher feedback is one of the most direct ways that school leaders can influence classroom instruction, but for feedback to truly be transformative, it must be timely, specific, and actionable.

Research by John Hattie emphasizes the importance of feedback as one of the most impactful factors in student achievement, but the key is in its delivery and follow-up. Feedback that is specific and grounded in data not only enhances teaching practices but also helps teachers feel supported in their professional growth.

To make feedback more effective, school leaders should:

• Use data as evidence. When providing feedback to teachers, use student assessment data to pinpoint specific areas for instructional improvement. For example, if a teacher’s students are having a hard time with inferential reading questions, the feedback should center on strategies for teaching higher-order thinking skills.
• Provide targeted, actionable steps. Vague feedback is rarely helpful. Instead, give teachers clear, manageable next steps. If assessment data indicates a need for differentiated instruction, for example, feedback should include concrete strategies, such as grouping students by ability or using scaffolds for challenging tasks.
• Follow up. Feedback should be the beginning of a conversation, not a one-off event. Effective leaders follow up on the implementation of feedback through subsequent observations and data reviews to track progress.

4. Instructional coaching: Personalized professional development using data

Instructional coaching offers an individualized approach to professional development that is highly responsive to data and teacher needs. Coaches work one-on-one or with small groups of teachers to provide targeted, sustained support for instructional improvement.

Research by Jim Knight shows that instructional coaching leads to significant improvements in teacher practice, particularly when it is sustained over time and tied to data. By using student performance data to shape the goals and focus of coaching, school leaders ensure the support teachers receive is relevant, timely, and impactful.

Instructional coaches play a critical role in helping teachers interpret and act on assessment data. They can:

• Analyze data with teachers. Instructional coaches help teachers sift through assessment data, identifying trends and specific areas where students need additional support. Coaches then collaborate with teachers to develop instructional strategies tailored to their classroom context.
• Model and co-teach. Once areas for improvement are identified, coaches can model best practices or co-teach lessons to demonstrate how data-informed strategies can be effectively implemented in real time.
• Provide ongoing support. Instructional coaching is not a one-time intervention. Coaches provide ongoing support, meeting regularly with teachers to review the impact of their changes and adjust strategies based on new data.

For more on instructional coaching, visit the instructional coaching archive here on Teach. Learn. Grow.

A call to action: A year-round approach to data-driven improvement

School leaders can ensure student assessment data becomes a year-round driver of instructional improvement by leveraging PLCs, instructional rounds, targeted feedback, and instructional coaching. Each of these strategies, when anchored in data, fosters a culture of continuous reflection and growth.

The key is to make data actionable. It must be more than just numbers on a spreadsheet and serve as a tool that informs collaborative planning, reflective practice, and individualized support. By doing so, school leaders empower teachers to make meaningful, ongoing changes that improve both their instructional practice and student outcomes, long after the testing window closes.

If your school uses the MAP® Suite, I encourage you to consider our MAP® Growth and MAP® Reading Fluency professional learning workshops.

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Imagine you have a friend who sets a new goal to run ten miles a month. This might be a weekly target for some people, but for your friend who doesn’t run, it’s a major accomplishment to even set this goal. It’s something to rightfully be proud of.

Your awesome friend might struggle at first, maybe with the wrong kind of sneakers, running too fast, or taking difficult routes with serious hills. However, by tracking progress and making small adjustments along the way—like getting a good pair of running shoes and finding a route that is not so hilly—your friend gradually achieves their goal. They continue to not only track their progress, maybe with a fitness tracker or recording observations in a journal, but also to make sure to reflect and make changes when necessary.

Does this routine sound familiar? This process of continuous monitoring and adjustment mirrors a crucial foundational teaching practice known as formative assessment.

Formative assessment allows for regular check-ins

You more than likely track and monitor your student’s daily, weekly, and monthly progress in a variety of ways. You administer assessments, record observations, talk with your students, and reflect and make adjustments as needed. And just as your friend remembers to avoid a route with ankle-busting terrain, you avoid instructional obstacles by carefully attending to your student’s understanding.

Formative assessment is the method to that teaching magic. It’s the careful monitoring of student learning through a variety of tools and strategies that guide and inform your instruction.

There are countless ways to put formative assessment to good use in your classroom. If you’re in need of ideas for new ways to use it, I encourage you to read the formative assessment archive here on Teach. Learn. Grow. But did you know MAP® Growth can be a valuable part of the puzzle?

Integrating formative assessment with MAP Growth

A helpful way to think about formative assessment and MAP Growth is that formative assessment provides the road map for the school year while MAP Growth provides three checkpoints: in fall, winter, and spring.

MAP Growth should be administered at strategic moments in the year to help you make sure that what you’re doing is working and that your students are growing. In between those assessments are all those other formative assessment stepping stones, like weekly class quizzes, peer-to-peer feedback cycles, unit exams and midterms, and exit tickets. These are all used to inform planning in between MAP Growth assessments and to let you know that you are on the right track. 

While formative assessment happens more frequently than MAP Growth, it works hand in hand with MAP Growth to help you reflect and respond. While your class-level formative assessments provide insight at the ground level, MAP Growth provides context for how your students are doing compared to similar students nationwide. That can help you understand if students are on track compared to kids just like them. For more on this, watch this video.

Conclusion

Formative assessment is a great tool for seeing not just where your students are but also what next steps could be taken to support them in their learning. Just like a new runner evaluates their performance and adjusts to achieve their goals, formative assessment helps ensure that you can help your students stay on the right track. And once those goals are reached? It’s time to celebrate!

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Reading is one of the hardest things humans learn to do. Letters on a page are a mysterious code waiting to be cracked, because word recognition and literacy don’t develop naturally like talking does. We literally have to rewire our brains to attain these skills. The good news is that through brain imaging, we have learned that there is a science to making this rewiring happen.

There are two major types of action that need to take place for students to learn to read. First, explicit instruction in all facets of reading—including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Second, students need abundant practice in reading, as it is nearly impossible for our brains to rewire unless we are getting lots of practice and repetition. This evidence-based rewiring of the brain is the major outcome supported by MAP® Reading Fluency with Coach, our reading assessment with an embedded AI-powered tutoring solution.

In my last article, I explained the importance of academic scaffolding, a strong but temporary support students can stand on as they learn new skills. And I showed how MAP Reading Fluency with Coach is designed to provide robust scaffolding for readers, in the form of microinterventions, wherever those readers happen to be on their literacy journey.

Now I’d like to explore how academic scaffolding works in practice. The closer you look at a scaffolding system in the classroom, the more you see that it’s made up of many individual parts, which educators can select or swap out as needed to fit a student’s needs. These parts are what we mean when we talk about microinterventions, and we organize them into categories, one of which is word recognition.

Word recognition and its theoretical framework

If you’re familiar with Philip Gough and William Tunmer’s Simple View of Reading, then you know this familiar equation: reading comprehension is the product of word recognition and language comprehension. In other words, for people to understand what they read, they must be able to recognize words in print and make sense of oral language.

In addition to the Simple View of Reading, there’s Hollis Scarborough’s Strand Model of Skilled Reading, which you may know as the Reading Rope. This model represents all the different aspects of reading—for example, decoding and background knowledge—that make comprehension possible as strands that are braided together to from a strong literacy “rope.” The microinterventions available in Coach are informed by the Reading Rope.

Students’ ability to recognize words in print depends on their ability to hear and distinguish sounds, identify letters, and decode, turning letters into their corresponding sounds. With explicit instruction and abundant practice, words are stored in the brain for immediate retrieval, thus allowing a reader to progress from decoding to automatic word recognition, freeing up space in the brain to focus on making meaning.

Word recognition microinterventions: When, what, and how

You may recall that MAP Reading Fluency with Coach uses assessment data to place students into personalized tutoring sessions, based on where they are as readers and what they need to grow. This placement stage is key to ensuring all the scaffolds that follow are tailored to each student. Once placement has been made and students launch MAP Reading Fluency with Coach from a web-based device, they meet Maya, their coach.

As the friendly human face behind MAP Reading Fluency with Coach’s sophisticated AI technology, Maya actively listens to students as they read aloud, detecting errors to deliver just-in-time microinterventions in component skills like phonemic awareness, decoding, sight recognition of high-frequency words, and fluency.

Here are just a few examples of Maya’s word recognition microinterventions:

• Up and down. Students first practice segmenting the sounds of a word and then practice blending the sounds of the word.
• Phonemic lip sync. Maya shows students a video of an adult accurately pronouncing the sounds of a word. Students are then asked to blend the parts of the word they’ve heard.
• Read to me. Maya reads a phrase or sentence to the student, who is then asked to echo back the reading.
• Rhyming game. Maya isolates the word that requires extra practice and demonstrates how the word is pronounced. She then offers the student three different words and challenges the student to choose the one that rhymes with the target word.
• Sentence reread with error emphasized. Maya rereads a sentence where the student has struggled. As Maya reads, any errors the student made are emphasized or sounded out. The student then rereads the sentence.

As you can see, not only are these microinterventions targeted to help students reach reading proficiency, but they are also kind of fun—and that doesn’t hurt! Maya was designed with the understanding that as we leverage technology in the classroom, we must ensure that instruction is given with a human touch, even when it’s coming from an AI-powered avatar.

We recommend that students get 30 minutes of practice per week with MAP Reading Fluency with Coach, a small investment of time that yields big results. In fact, by starting with relatively brief sessions, students can build their reading stamina over time. Consistency is the name of the game, along with gradually increasing demands.

Learn more

In my next article, I’ll discuss how MAP Reading Fluency with Coach provides scaffolding for language comprehension, another foundational domain in every student’s literacy journey. In the meantime, if you’d like to see how the program works and what it’s like for kids to interact with Maya, there’s a brief video I encourage you to watch.

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Family engagement is positively correlated to student achievement, and many schools and districts see it as a major focus for their strategic and improvement plans. Additionally, family engagement increases confidence in parents and other caregivers, helping them feel more able to impact their student’s learning. There’s a lot to be gained from high family engagement with MAP® assessments as well.

Many families and educators find family engagement a challenge, however. The Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships by Karen Mapp identifies six process conditions, or actions, that are key to the design of effective initiatives for building the capacity of families and school staff to partner in ways that support student achievement and school improvement:

1. Relational: Built on mutual trust. When focusing on building relationships with parents and other caregivers, it’s important to build a foundation of mutual trust and respect.
2. Linked to learning and development. Family engagement should be aligned to district and school goals. It should also connect families to teaching and learning goals.
3. Asset-based. Successful family engagement values families for what they bring to a school.
4. Culturally responsive and respectful. Educators are aware of, understand, value, and honor cultural differences when engaging with families.
5. Collaborative. Family engagement should focus on building connections and creating opportunities for shared learning.
6. Interactive. Families, students, and educators should be able to interact in a safe environment.

In my work, I am often asked, “What is the best way to share MAP data with families?” The six process conditions can guide you as you engage families and communities in understanding MAP data and supporting achievement and growth, whether you test with MAP® Growth, MAP® Reading Fluency, or both.

Process condition #1: Relational: Built on mutual trust

The Dual Capacity-Building Framework considers mutual trust the most important process condition.

How is trust a factor when you think about how your school or district uses MAP data? Consider your actions prior to administering your assessments. How many times have you sent home a letter, sent an email, or enabled a robocall informing families that their student will be taking MAP Growth or MAP Reading Fluency? Do the parents and caregivers receiving these really know what the messages mean? This is key in the framework: family and community engagement must be built on mutual trust and respect.

To build trust, I encourage you to explore different ways to communicate the purpose of MAP assessments and explain why students are taking them. Share our articles titled “MAP Growth 101: Everything families need to know”and consider inviting parents and other caregivers to take a practice test. Let families know how the assessment data will be used by leadership and classroom teachers to advance student learning.

Process condition #2: Linked to learning and development

How can you connect families to specific learning goals for their student?

Before testing, teachers can share tips for families to help prepare students and reinforce the message of having their student try their best. See our article titled “Leading up to MAP Growth: 20 tips for families.”

After testing, you can use the MAP Growth Student Profile report and learning continuum to identify skills students can build upon, practice, and learn to support their growth. Create guides around a few skills that support student learning. This can also be a part of any goal-setting conferences you have with each student and their family or caregivers.

At the end of the year, invite families and community members to school for student showcases or a student reading night to celebrate students’ growth.

Process condition #3: Asset-based

Understanding and communicating that families are assets to their students’ education is key in supporting students and increasing family engagement with MAP assessments.

Teachers, you do not have to do it alone. Families know a great deal about their student and would appreciate the opportunity to provide input and share insight about them to support their achievement and growth. Using families as funds of knowledge, you can connect students’ experiences and interests to learning. You can also ask family and community members to volunteer to support tutoring efforts.

How can you learn from families to support students’ growth and gain more insight to your students?

Process condition #4: Culturally responsive and respectful

This process condition aligns to the asset-based process condition and includes valuing families’ and students’ cultural differences.

Our Family Toolkit has many resources to help families understand MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency. Working with your community to have interpreters available during conferences or activities around MAP assessments can be helpful as well. I also encourage you to use resources and activities that are culturally inclusive.

Process condition #5: Collaborative

Collaborative initiatives and activities can bring your school and families together for shared learning.

I strongly encourage you to host learning nights that teach parents how to use resources or feature activities to support their students’ learning at home. Consider one night for each instructional area. Also think about how to involve your surrounding community. Is a restaurant or coffee shop near your school willing to host a MAP night to help families learn more about the assessments or to support learning around resources? Would they consider donating snacks for an event held on campus in exchange for some free advertising?

Process condition #6: Interactive

When tackling family engagement with MAP assessments, it’s important to think outside the box about other ways to involve families in MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency testing. Not all families can attend events in the evening or during the school day. That does not mean they do not care. We may just need to think differently about how best to engage them.

Consider two-way communication with families in the form of MAP or data folders that go home to show progress and provide a tip or resources that can help support students. Families can also leave questions, comments, or messages in the folder for the teacher.

In closing

Parents and other caregivers have dreams for their students and want the best for them. The Dual Capacity-Building Framework is a resource to guide initiatives and activities for family and community engagement to ultimately support students and their learning.

Family engagement is not just something you do alone; it is a partnership, and it will take work. Visit our resource center and blog home page for more tips and resources to support the implementation of MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency assessments in your school or district.

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Imagine that you wish to learn a new sport. Typically, you would observe others play the sport in action to gain an understanding of its techniques and dynamics. However, now imagine that your coach never allowed you to actively participate and merely requested you to watch as they demonstrated the game. Would this passive observation lead to mastery? At a certain point, would you lose interest in learning this new sport? While vicarious experiences are important for building confidence, everyone requires abundant opportunities to practice and develop their skills to comprehend the fundamentals and attain mastery. For that reason, it’s important for instructional coaches to understand different approaches to instructional coaching.

Defining coaching

At NWEA, our definition of instructional coaching is “a collaborative process centered on a cycle of inquiry, action, and reflection to inspire instructional excellence and an exceptional student learning experience. Our sustained partnerships build educator efficacy through evidence-based, research-driven methods.”

Not only do we believe that, but research also consistently demonstrates that coaching is a multifaceted process that involves empowering individuals to set their own goals and determine the most effective approach to achieve them, thus fostering a sense of ownership and empowerment. A coach utilizes critical skills such as active listening and strategic questioning to guide individuals through their professional development journey. It’s important to note that coaching is not about imposing a set agenda but, rather, adapting to the evolving needs and goals of the individual. While advice or opinions may be offered, they are given sparingly and are only provided when explicitly sought by the coachee.

In my experience, coaching generally takes more time than consulting. A full coaching cycle with a teacher can often require up to ten hours of face time with the coach over a quarter or semester. This is because as a coach first enrolls a teacher into coaching, they ask questions to understand the teacher’s experience level, approach to teaching, and current student needs. Then the coach guides the teacher through a process of questioning to select a focus in the form of a measurable and meaningful goal that will make a big impact on their teaching practice and the students in their classroom. The coaching cycle requires time for the teacher to try out new strategies, review and explore data with the coach, and make adaptations along the way.

Coaching is simply not an overnight process, especially when factoring in the unpredictable events of a teacher’s day-to-day work. Recently, while I was meeting with a teacher during their planning period, the fire alarm went off unexpectedly. Instead of analyzing student work, we were herding students onto the playground. This is the daily reality of being a teacher, and it’s precisely why a coach must be flexible and adaptable to a teacher’s current reality.

Understanding the role of consulting

Consulting, on the other hand, is more directive in nature and involves providing expertise that the coachee may not possess. While it is also goal-oriented, consulting focuses on delivering practical, actionable steps to help coachees meet their objectives. Unlike coaching, consulting sessions can be comparatively shorter and are more tailored to sharing specific information or demonstrating particular practices.

For instance, if a teacher needs to quickly understand how a specific teaching strategy looks in practice, a coach can take a consultative approach and model that practice live with students or provide a video of the practice in action. Likewise, a small team of teachers may need to better understand the different MAP® Growth reports to explore recent data from their students’ fall assessment, thus a coach can provide a walkthrough of the purposes of accessing different reports. In this context, consulting is much more technical and simply provides needed information or experience but does not necessarily lead to long-term capacity-building in teachers.

Recognizing the right approach

It’s essential for instructional coaches to understand different approaches to instructional coaching and be able to discern when to apply a consultative stance as opposed to a coaching approach.

An effective coach has the skill to shift between both stances for the benefit of the teacher but understands the true power of coaching. Simply solving others’ problems, rushing to rescue them, or telling them what to do just doesn’t lead to meaningful learning or capacity-building in a teacher’s practice. By granting teachers the time and space to analyze, experiment, and reflect on their practice, instructional coaches can pave the way to profound professional development and capacity-building in educators.

Expanding on the benefits of coaching

Coaching offers several unique benefits that differentiate it from traditional consulting approaches. Firstly, coaching promotes a deep level of self-awareness and introspection among educators. By encouraging them to set their own goals and reflect on their progress, coaching nurtures a sense of personal accountability and ownership over their professional growth journey.

Furthermore, coaching fosters a growth mindset among educators, emphasizing continuous improvement and development. Through ongoing feedback, support, and collaborative inquiry, coaches empower teachers to embrace challenges and view setbacks as opportunities for learning and growth. This transformational approach not only enhances teacher efficacy but also translates into improved student outcomes and classroom dynamics.

Balancing coaching and consulting

While coaching and consulting serve distinct purposes in the realm of educator professional development, finding the right balance between the two approaches to instructional coaching is key to maximizing their impact. When faced with a situation that requires immediate expertise or guidance, a coach may choose to adopt a consultative stance to provide timely support and solutions.

On the other hand, when the goal is to facilitate deeper reflection, skill development, and capacity-building, coaching emerges as the preferred approach. By engaging teachers in thoughtful dialogue, goal-setting, and ongoing support, coaching instills long-lasting changes in practice and mindset that extend far beyond the duration of a single coaching session.

In conclusion, coaching and consulting play pivotal roles in shaping the professional growth and development of educators. While consulting offers targeted expertise and immediate solutions, coaching nurtures deep reflection, self-directed goal-setting, and sustainable capacity-building in teachers.

By embracing both coaching and consulting approaches within a comprehensive professional development framework, schools can cultivate a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and excellence. Investing in coaching as a transformative practice is an investment in the future of each student a teacher will serve throughout the rest of their career and empowers teachers to realize their full potential and have a meaningful impact on the lives of their students.

Read more about instructional coaching here on Teach. Learn. Grow.

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When a new building rises from the ground up, construction workers need a way to climb higher and higher as the structure takes shape. For thousands of years, the solution to this problem has been scaffolding, a temporary structure that supports workers and their materials.

In education, we use scaffolding as a metaphor, but the meaning and purpose are the same: a temporary system of support that lets individuals climb higher and higher, achieving greater outcomes than they could without such support. Scaffolding in the classroom is incredibly important in the early years of reading instruction, when children develop the skills that will propel them through the rest of their school years and into their careers.

AI enters the chat

At NWEA, one of the ways we help educators build their own systems of scaffolded reading instruction is through MAP® Reading Fluency with Coach. It’s the newest iteration of our research-aligned, valid, and reliable reading assessment that’s been in use for years. Essentially, we’ve taken this invaluable resource and leveraged the power of AI to make it an “intelligent” tutoring system.

The addition of an AI-powered coach takes MAP Reading Fluency to a new level by allowing it to adapt in real time to each student’s learning needs and delivering the essential features of scaffolding, as defined by Jennifer Hammond in her book Scaffolding: Teaching and Learning in Language and Literacy Education:

• Extending understanding: Teachers can clarify, challenge, and extend what students can do on their own.
• Temporary support: Scaffolds are meant to be removed as soon as students are able to learn independently.
• Macro and micro focuses: Scaffolding addresses the big-picture development of overall programs and curricula but also the selection and sequencing of specific classroom interactions and tasks.

Another way educators describe scaffolding is as a gradual release of responsibility. You know scaffolding is doing its job when the learners gradually assume more and more of the responsibility for learning as they develop the skills to achieve outcomes on their own.

Turning assessment data into personalized scaffolds

The process of building customized scaffolds for each student starts with the MAP Reading Fluency with Coach assessment, the results of which place students on their own tutoring pathway. The personalization begins when students meet Maya, their high-tech (but friendly!) coach who guides them through tutoring sessions.

During the tutoring process, Maya listens carefully to students as they read (in English or Spanish) and delivers real-time microinterventions based on her observations of student performance in the areas of phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. These microinterventions, which I’ll describe in detail in future articles, happen at three distinct moments:

• Word level: Maya intervenes when the student is stuck on a particular word.
• Phrase level: Maya intervenes when a student misreads words within a sentence.
• Story level: As a wrap-up, MAP Reading Fluency with Coach helps students build comprehension and understanding at the end of the story.

The high-tech scaffolding made possible by MAP Reading Fluency with Coach benefits students and teachers alike. Students get the benefit of a responsive, intelligent tutor who provides just the right support and just enough of it—not too little, not too much. And teachers get a much-needed helping hand. We all know the value of differentiating instruction, but it’s easier said than done. In most classrooms, you have one teacher and many children. For these teachers, Maya becomes a dependable and effective assistant.

Research and reporting

Some of this technology may be new, but the practice of scaffolding is widespread in K–12 education, including digital learning environments. Research has shown the connection between scaffolds and improved outcomes in reading, and MAP Reading Fluency with Coach is designed to align with and build upon this research. What students perceive as friendly correctives or suggestions from Maya are actually evidence-based interventions based on countless studies in the science of reading.

Beyond the real-time support students get from MAP Reading Fluency with Coach, the program generates five different reports that teachers can use to inform their small-group or even whole-group instruction. For an inside look at MAP Reading Fluency with Coach, including a preview of how Maya supports students with interactive scaffolded reading instruction, check out this brief video.

The post How MAP Reading Fluency with Coach supports scaffolded reading instruction appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Too often, we educators find ourselves being bound by the number of days in a school year, the number of minutes in a staff development day, or even the pressure of mandated deadlines for specific academic benchmarks. While these variables play a crucial role in developing and maintaining a professional learning cycle—especially a cycle that prioritizes taking assessment beyond the testing window—it is essential to note that these efforts should be part of a broader system and tie together a district’s ability to provide focused and comprehensive support for all educators on an ongoing basis.

By fostering a culture of data use and continuous job-embedded professional learning opportunities, districts can enhance strategic initiatives to go beyond specific times of the year. Establishing opportunities for educators to engage in professional learning that is connected to key district metrics or priorities provides a systematic approach for real-time support, applicable tools and strategies, and deeper understanding for all educators within the community.

A sample scenario

Consider the following, a common scenario for many school districts across the country.

Several weeks after the end of a school year, district leaders gather to refine their goals for the upcoming academic year. Each administrator comes to the table ready to help prioritize initiatives, allocate resources, and support district efforts that help to advance the strategic mission of helping all students learn and closing the achievement gap for all students. This planning session is fueled by the district’s historic summative and interim assessment data, observations from administrators, community feedback, department initiatives, school site requests, and teacher insights.

After several weeks of planning and preparation, the district finalizes its plan to streamline the lesson planning process across all school sites through a focused district-wide approach to professional learning communities (PLCs). One of the core components of the district’s PLC process is how schools will leverage their interim assessment data. Educators will need to measure progress, inform instruction, and communicate student achievement with families over the year. District leaders determine that all educators must engage in professional learning during the fall kick-off event. Additionally, leaders have planned professional learning sessions during the school year to align with the interim assessment window: fall, winter, and spring.

With a focus on PLCs, and a calendar for support sessions for all educators, the district plans for a strong kick-off meeting in the fall, with a focused initiative grounded by an interim assessment window to make the PLC process both actionable and meaningful for educators. The objective of this development series is to be grounded in the interim assessment calendar to tie data analysis and planning together. While this approach is most likely going to yield successful results for students and teachers, it is also a prime example of how professional learning can be solidified in a comprehensive manner throughout the course of the year, outside the assessment window, and within the day-to-day business of school and instruction.

Fostering a culture of data use and learning

In keeping with this scenario, let’s consider a third-grade teacher who has the opportunity to engage in two focused professional learning days geared toward aligning with the district’s PLC process and how this helps foster a culture of data use and learning in her school.

Ms. Jones has seen the new planning process and is excited to be able to engage in common planning time with her other third-grade teachers. Additionally, she has used her fall interim assessment data in her latest PLC meeting to help align conversations around students’ abilities as they currently relate to the Common Core standards Operations and Algebraic Thinking and Reading Informational Text. The third-grade team meets to establish some common goals for their team and decides to set individual student goals based on fall assessment scores. During their conversations, Ms. Jones expresses excitement in seeing how students grow from fall to winter and says she can’t wait to come back as a team and share all the growth.

Data exists in every aspect of the work and is not tied solely to a specific assessment or time of year. Ms. Jones and her third-grade team are collecting all sorts of data every day of the week. What students were here today? How many students were able to answer our warm-up question? What percentage of the class got question 13 correct? This type of data collection is invaluable for educators. Fostering a culture of data use and continuous learning allows educators, like Ms. Jones, to align their day-to-day practice with district priorities, such as PLCs. For example, a systematic approach throughout the district could allow for PLC conversations to focus on formative assessment strategies that are connected to trends seen within a school, grade-level, or even classroom.

During their next PLC, Ms. Jones and her third-grade team come with their curriculum and a copy of the end-of-unit assessment. It is still about nine weeks until the school administers the winter interim assessment, so there is still a good chunk of time until she and her peers get trained on the next step in the PLC cycle. However, this PLC meeting has now grown to include the building leader and instructional coach.

During the regular planning conversation, the building principal leverages her district conversation guide to help prompt the team to consider what specific skills are being assessed at the end-of-unit summative assessment. Ms. Jones and her team identify several skills: multiplication, addition, and subtraction. The principal then asks the team, “What standards are those skills aligned to, and when are we teaching those lessons?” This series of prompting questions provides the teachers with the opportunity to dig into their lesson plans and agree upon a series of common formative assessments they can give to help track progress between interim assessment windows. During the next few PLC meetings, teachers bring formative data and determine the types of scaffolds needed, as well as the pace the grade level needs to take when teaching specific concepts.

Providing the opportunity for leaders to model and engage in a culture of data analysis allows for deeper connection and impact as it relates to a district’s mission. Providing a systematic approach to professional learning tied to the PLC process is beneficial to ensure understanding. However, real-time professional learning opportunities in the daily practice of educators allow for immediate response and impact. Connecting daily practices—in this case, data collection and planning—to the larger goals of the district, i.e., PLC processes, allows educators to make explicit connections from their work to the broader mission of the district. Additionally, these daily opportunities help to reinforce a culture of data use and continuous learning for all educators.

Key consideration for district leaders: How can we, as a district, promote a culture of data use and responsive development within our current initiatives?

Establishing personalized and job-embedded professional learning

After Ms. Jones, her fellow third-grade teachers, and all the educators across the district engage in their PLCs, how can leaders be sure that each individual has the understanding and tools necessary to engage fully? Job-embedded professional learning opportunities allow educators to get the right amount of support based on their individual needs. District leaders may, understandably, be concerned with the resources required to support differentiated and job-embedded professional learning sessions for every educator.

Consider a middle school near Ms. Jones’ elementary school. Riverview Middle School’s principal, Ms. Johnson, attends the ELA PLCs and uses the streamlined process we saw with Ms. Jones and her third-grade team. Ms. Johnson leverages the PLC conversations to help inform the date and time she visits classrooms to engage in instructional rounds.

Based upon the days the seventh-grade ELA team identifies what they are going to teach and when, Ms. Johnson calendars a 10–20 minute block of time where she can go in and see the instruction that has been planned as a grade level. During her instructional rounds, Ms. Johnson collects her own set of data: What was the standard being covered? What strategies is the teacher using to promote deeper understanding? Are students engaged in their learning? What formative checks are being utilized to track progress throughout the lesson?

Collecting the data does not constitute professional learning or job-embedded support. However, Ms. Johnson uses her observations to establish trend-level data, inform staff of professional learning days, guide planning questions during PLC discussions, and provide individual coaching cycles for educators. As the principal of a middle school, Ms. Johnson is pulled in many different directions every day. However, through a systematic approach to instructional rounds, she can tie her observations and next steps to what each teacher needs based on their current level of understanding.

Context matters, and educators want to apply their learning to their day-to-day practice. Designing professional learning to consider the specific needs of schools, teachers, and students—based on data tied to current initiatives—allows for a comprehensive system of support for all educators. Supporting differentiated learning opportunities (e.g., coaching, mentoring, or peer-led learning communities) gives districts a vantage point on how to support job-embedded supports across all campuses.

Key consideration for district leaders: How can we differentiate learning opportunities and structure embedded modalities for support?

Conclusion

District leaders should reflect on their current focus, systems, and resources. Based on the current strategic vision and priorities, district systems can be designed to connect all professional learning opportunities comprehensively and streamlined. Building a culture of data use and providing differentiated learning allows educators to leverage their context and connect their efforts directly to the initiatives of each district.

If your district tests with MAP® Growth or MAP® Reading Fluency, we encourage you to consider our professional learning offerings that can help you make good use of assessment data all year long. Our professional learning focuses on MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency reports, strategies for informing instruction, and more. You may also find our School and District Leaders Hub useful.

The post Key considerations for district leaders when planning educator professional learning beyond the assessment window appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Teachers have assessment literacy questions for their own professional development, but teachers also need to know: how do I bring my students along on the assessment journey? When it comes to empowered learners, an essential piece of the puzzle is ensuring they not only understand but also own their assessment experience. When it comes to student assessment literacy, how do we get our students on board and bought in?

To better understand this, I sat down with Aly Martinez Wilkinson, a professional learning lead here at NWEA. Her rich classroom experience in curriculum and instruction informs her passion for equitable, engaged classrooms. Together, we tackled three essential questions to help you increase student assessment literacy.

Question #1: What does it mean to be assessment literate, in the words of a fifth-grader?

Let’s start by defining the word “assessment.” “To assess” simply means to evaluate and gather information. An assessment is any assignment—an exit ticket, homework, a quiz, a test, a computer assessment, like MAP® Growth—that’s being evaluated to determine where a student is in their learning. Assessments can be formal or informal; they can be diagnostic (“Where do we start?”), formative (“How’s it going?”), or summative (“How did it go?”). They can even be public, like when a teacher supervises a group project.

Invite your students to popcorn any activities or assignments that could qualify as an assessment. From there, engage in a discussion about the purposes of different assessments. What does an exit ticket show, as opposed to take-home homework? Why have a presentation assessment in the same class as an essay? This helps students understand the purpose of each assessment, and it establishes a classroom norm of ongoing assessment awareness. This classroom culture will help achieve what Aly labels as essential: “It’s important that students truly feel that we aren’t doing this ‘to’ them, but for and alongside them.”

To be clear, assessment literacy is not quite the same as data literacy. Assessment literacy encompasses the entire process: intention of the assessment, creation of the assessment, and retrospection (evaluation of efficacy and results) of the assessment. Data literacy focuses on understanding the results generated from an assessment, including spotting trends and applying data to instructional decisions. Data literacy certainly improves assessment literacy, but do not fear: students don’t need to be in AP statistics to have a meaningful relationship with assessment. In fact, assessment literacy encourages everyone to be more mindful of the journey and less focused on the results.

Teacher tip: Sometimes it’s hard to fully categorize an assessment as solely diagnostic or purely summative. Don’t worry! A balanced assessment system puts the focus on formative assessment, as most learning is perpetually ongoing.

Question #2: How do we empower students to become assessment literate?

When it comes to empowering learners, Aly frequently cites the responsive learning cycle: the intentional dismantling of the traditional “sit-and-get,” “sage-on-the-stage” teaching paradigm. Moving learners away from being passive recipients to empowered learners involves a decentering of the teacher and a recentering of students as managers of their knowledge journey.

What’s important to accept about implementing a responsive learning cycle mindset is that it is not an easy shift for almost any party involved. Teachers will have to constantly revisit old methodologies and curricula, asking who they serve and whether the learning is relevant, responsive, and meaningfully measurable. These questions are hard, and teachers don’t always have the full tanks of gas required to answer them. Meanwhile, students may not immediately enjoy this repositioning of themselves at the center because guess what? It requires more of them! Being aware of these primary roadblocks—teacher burnout and student apathy—and frontloading how valid these responses are will give everyone a longer fuse during the process.

It’s all about small steps toward a larger culture shift. Teachers, try these tips with your students to gently move the needle toward a more responsive learning cycle:

• Ask students to help create assessments in class. Students can write questions and suggest projects that will demonstrate their learning. If you’re just starting out or have younger learners, start small by having students submit test review questions and evaluate them as a class. “Is this a strong question that invites students to demonstrate their learning? How could we make it better?”
• Constantly reframe students as the teacher. Invite them to brainstorm what true student understanding could look like with questions such as, “If you were teaching this concept, what’s the most important thing you’d want your students to understand? What would you need to see demonstrated from a student?” Conversely, ask them what could get in the way of or falsify student learning: “What’s a question or assignment that a student could complete without really understanding this at all? As a strong teacher, what would you worry students could hide that they don’t really ‘get’?”
• Help students link assessment design integrity with assessment result integrity. In order to create a culture of (respectful) data review, try this: Share imaginary test results where every student got an A. Ask students what they would assume about that assessment. They might say things like, “It wasn’t very hard” or “Everyone must have studied!” Ask them, “Was this a good assessment?” Students may offer that if everyone got an A, it might not have been very challenging. As the conversations get richer, introduce different fake data sets, spanning all levels of possible student performance. Ask students new questions: “Is a strong assessment ‘challenging’? Is a ‘B’ a bad grade? Why would a teacher worry if everyone ‘bombed’ a test? Imagine a really good test. What do you predict the range of scores to be?” You might be surprised at how intuitive students already are about assessments. They’ll likely be surprised, too!
• Print and highlight assessment statements. Whether you’re a school leader, teacher, student, or family member of a K–12 student, the following assessment literacy assets from the Nebraska Department of Education can help capture and calibrate the journey: school leader assessment literacy statements, “Teacher foundational statements,” and “Student and family foundational statements.” Consider highlighting a handful of statements that you already feel a tight grasp on. In another color, highlight a few statements to focus on. Revisit these statements after an assessment and have a professional development or classroom huddle to share how it’s going.

Question #3: How do we encourage student assessment literacy when many teachers get hives about their own assessment literacy?

This is such a valid question! Teachers, we understand the need to feel supported in your assessment journey. Let’s be clear: assessment literacy is the start-to-finish, intention-to-results journey of mindfully evaluating student learning. You are already more assessment literate than you think!

Aly constantly reassures educators, saying that when it comes to assessment literacy, it’s normal to feel a bit panicked. But the good news is, being assessment literate does not mean you’re a data scientist. It means that you’re on an ongoing (unfinished!) journey toward holistically viewing what we teach students and how we measure the learning. That’s it.

Great teachers want to empower learners, and the power of student advocacy when they are invested in their own learning pays dividends in the classroom. Aly points out the connection between student assessment literacy and the responsive learning cycle: “When our students feel like they have some say in how they demonstrate what they’re learning, the temperature in the classroom changes—for the better.”

And leaders, any less-than-glowing reactions teachers have to assessments and assessment literacy are often rooted in real emotions of feeling unsupported or uninformed. Our resource on answering teacher questions about assessment might be useful! It’s essential to meet teachers’ needs regarding assessment literacy so that teachers can meaningfully model this mindset for students.

The post Student assessment literacy questions, answered appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

One of my friends, a science and drama teacher, was recently surprised by the news that she would also be teaching coding this school year. Sound familiar? It’s one of our collective educator nightmares. But, as I was watching the webinar Maximizing the early literacy block: Help your teachers with evidence-based strategies, I realized that if I were given a new literacy block on Friday, I honestly wouldn’t be lost on Monday. That’s because the webinar was genuine professional development, chock-full of resources and explanations of the science of reading. It had tangible teacher tips from Heather Cella, director of Early Learning Solutions Strategy at NWEA, and Tiffany Peltier, who (among other things) serves on the scientific editorial board of The Reading League Journal. Okay, credentials, we see you!

Listen up, literacy coaches, reading teachers, and any education leaders ready to level-up the early literacy block: you need to watch this webinar. In less than an hour, you will walk away with real strategies for core, small-group, and independent instruction. Need an overview first? Let’s hit the highlights.

Introduction: Let’s be clear and simple

Tiffany opens the webinar by reminding participants that our goal at NWEA is to translate our robust, ongoing research into effective classroom practices. What good is it if we have all the data but don’t do the work of helping teachers use it to improve their teaching? Teachers know that early readers are still lagging behind pre-COVID levels, but instead of looking to the past, their question is “What do I do tomorrow?”

To answer that question, our team starts with a science-aligned approach, backed by evidence of what works when it comes to learning to read. NWEA believes that successful literacy teaching cascades from the simple view of reading, and Heather and Tiffany don’t skip over this. The simple view of reading is a model used to concisely explain how reading comprehension is acquired. It states that two components, when multiplied together, lead to what we typically consider “successful” reading, or reading comprehension (RC). Those two factors are decoding (D) and language comprehension (LC).

Decoding (D) is the act of seeing symbols and recognizing their associated sound, and it comprises what we typically teach as phonics. We scaffold this process individually with students, as this unfolds at a unique pace for each kid. Language comprehension (LC) is where vocabulary, semantics, content knowledge, and language usage come together, and it underscores the need for all students—regardless of decoding readiness—to be exposed to rigorous, on-grade-level texts full of rich ideas and construction.

“When I was a teacher, I didn’t recognize how essential learning morphemes can be for students,” Tiffany admits. So many of us didn’t benefit from the science of reading in our own teacher training! We now understand that strong literacy curriculum must be supported by this science-aligned understanding. NWEA hosted another webinar last year, The science of reading for leaders: Helping your teachers shift instructional practice, that covers this topic more deeply.

Teacher resources, strategies, and new things to try

Tiffany offers true professional development in this section of the webinar on the early literacy block, frequently inviting participants to try alongside her as she demonstrates new literacy strategies to use during whole-group instruction and showcasing several NWEA lesson plan templates that are ready to download.

To maximize core group instruction, try implementing:

• Our printable suite of embedded mnemonics, explaining the science behind this scaffolded system and how teachers can put it to use tomorrow
• Spelling and word-chaining; Tiffany models multiple classroom-ready examples that would additionally bolster small-group instruction
• Advanced word recognition lesson planning tools to support multisyllabic words as your curriculum becomes more advanced

To take advantage of these resources, download the webinar literacy assets.

Using data (quickly!) to make successful small groups and differentiate

How can we help teachers more quickly turn assessment data into immediate classroom changes?

“As administrators, we know that using strong data is key,” Heather says as she introduces quick techniques for leaders and teachers to use with MAP® Reading Fluency, which reports out on individual student’s progress in oral reading fluency, phonics and word recognition, and phonological awareness. This information is critical when planning an early literacy block.

What about teachers’ choices as they organize small groups? With example data on screen, Heather walks through using easily sortable reports to inform dynamic groupings and individual supports. As the groupings generate automatic, color-coded lists, teachers’ time is cut in half as they head into instructional planning.

As teachers develop their groups, then they can turn toward differentiation. “My teaching moves are going to change depending on where the student is in their learning,” Tiffany explains. She provides examples of supporting letter and sound acquisition through instructional hierarchy phases:

• Acquisition: The student is developing both accuracy and fluency. The teacher, therefore, models, blocks practice, gives detailed feedback, and provides consistent reinforcement.
• Fluency: The student’s accuracy is high, but fluency is low. The teacher, therefore, delays feedback, spaces out practice, and supports opportunities for repeated interaction.
• Generalization: The student’s accuracy and fluency are high. The teacher, therefore, scales back the scaffolds, adjusts practice levels, modulates feedback, and provides opportunities for independence.

As MAP Reading Fluency breaks down these details and parses them into digestible bits of data, teachers can pivot to individualized instruction. Heather and Tiffany show together what Student A’s data indicates, versus Student B’s—and what action to take in either case.

 “There are two very different needs as shown by screening data,” Tiffany says. “If we don’t know how to read them or don’t know what they mean, I might be giving all students oral reading instruction, and those phonics gaps are going to continue to grow! We need to make sure, are we providing correct instruction for each student’s needs?”

Independent learning with coach

Teachers simply can’t be everywhere at once! We need assistance with our early literacy block and with providing those research-proven, in-the-moment microinterventions for our students who are ready to read independently but still need a few guardrails. Our students need a solution as unique as they are, driven by their data and constantly adjusted to their new growth.

When students take MAP Reading Fluency, each student receives a report on:

• Foundational skills: Phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, and language comprehension
• Oral reading data: Oral reading fluency and reading comprehension
• Possible learning disabilities: Our universal screener flags potential reading barriers like dyslexia

MAP Reading Fluency also places individual students in learning pathways with Maya, our AI-powered virtual coach who provides one-on-one reading practice that targets areas of support based on a student’s latest scores. Maya provides those microinterventions based on the science of reading in English and Spanish. You can see how Maya works around minute 45 of the webinar.

Carry the learning forward

Part of transformative professional development—whether in-person or virtual, live or asynchronous—are simulation activities, empathy-building, and learner activation. In the webinar, Tiffany and Heather build teacher understanding and empathy of what a reader may feel as they learn. And that’s what’s truly important: deeply identifying with our learners. Only then can we meaningfully help them grow their love of reading.

Ready to continue maximizing your early literacy block? Watch the webinar, and keep the fun going by:

• Watching Tiffany’s video on supporting early readers
• Reading Heather’s article about MAP Reading Fluency with coach
• Viewing our video on MAP Reading Fluency with coach
• Exploring professional learning on the science of reading

The post Maximizing an early literacy block appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

How much experience do you need with AI to be considered an expert? That’s the question we asked ourselves while preparing for a conference presentation on—you guessed it—AI. The answer: Far less than we thought.

In just 10–15 hours, you can gain enough know-how to teach others a little bit about AI. In turn, you’ll discover that others have things to teach you about AI, too. That was our experience at the 2024 NWEA Fusion conference. We engaged with educators who had never used AI before and those who know far more about AI than we do. The result was a highly interactive and engaging session of information-sharing between colleagues and peers.

We hope that by sharing a few of the basics and showing you AI’s potential to transform teaching and learning, you’ll be intrigued enough to experiment with some of our AI exercises, too.

Guiding principles  

Before you start your journey with AI, it’s important to keep in mind how AI differs from traditional internet search engines. To effectively use AI, follow these five guiding principles.

1. Create prompts rather than conduct searches. (We’ll teach you how to do just that.)
2. Approach AI as a thought partner. (Expect AI will do 80% of the work and you’ll do 20%.)
3. Use AI to give you ideas or help you get started. (One great idea is worth the effort.)
4. Check AI output for accuracy, bias, and hallucinations. (AI is still learning, too.)
5. Spend 10–15 hours exploring AI before integrating it into your teaching practice. (Trust us.)

Choose an AI tool  

Getting started with AI can seem daunting at first. Where do you begin when there are so many tools, with more being added every day? We decided to start by exploring the free versions of several general-use AI tools, as opposed to educator-specific tools. While educator-specific AI tools are great, they have more focused purposes. Doing your initial exploration in tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini can help you develop and refine your prompting skills, learn what is possible with generative AI, and highlight some of the pitfalls of AI.

The free versions of the big three general-use AI tools can all do the following tasks (and more!):

• Answer general questions
• Brainstorm ideas
• Help with text-based content creation and editing
• Summarize articles or websites
• Generate images

Each tool has slight differences in terms of its features and capabilities. We’d highlight some of those differences here, but by the time this article publishes, some of that information will probably be out of date. Our recommendation is to pick one of these tools and start working through the prompt exercises below. You can even test the same prompt in each of the tools to see which one you prefer. At the end of this article, we’ll provide information about some of the education-specific tools for you to explore.

Some basics 

The heart of working with AI is asking it the right questions, a process called prompt generation or prompt engineering. (Don’t worry. It’s easier than it sounds.) Prompting is different from searching.

We all know how to search the internet; essentially you use key words to find existing information. If you don’t find what you want the first time, you must start over with another search, using different key words. In contrast, AI prompts use natural language to generate original text based on either the set of data that AI was pre-trained on or data gathered from the internet. Instead of having to tease out key words, you can simply type what you are looking for, much in the way you would ask a friend a question. This allows AI to be more of a thought partner than a reference book. And because you can ask follow-up prompts, you can easily iterate ideas just as you might with a colleague.

Three generic prompts can give you most of what you need when working with AI. But always plan to iterate on the prompts once you see the results. The basic method we propose is to use a series of building blocks that enable you to ask increasingly complex but narrow questions. These prompts should give you a “good enough” initial result, which you can then refine by asking more questions.

Ready to get started? Read on to learn about the three generic prompts.

1. Basic prompt: [Task] + [Input] + [Output] 

Task: A task is the main work you want AI to do. AI does well with these tasks (and many others):

• Summarize: Condense long articles or documents
• Translate: Convert text from one language to another
• Generate: Create content like stories, poems, or code
• Analyze: Examine data or text to provide insights
• Plan: Help organize schedules, trips, or projects
• Recommend: Suggest books, movies, or restaurants
• Explain: Clarify complex concepts or topics
• Edit: Improve grammar, style, or clarity of text
• Assist: Provide help with tasks like drafting emails or creating presentations
• Research: Investigate a topic by synthesizing information from various sources

Input: Input is any information you provide to help AI with a task. An input can be as simple as a topic or example and as complex as a data set or a piece of writing.

Output: Output is how you want the AI to respond to your prompt. It can be as simple as a one-sentence summary or draft email and as complex as a translated literary work or insights from a data set.

Personal exercise #1 

We are big believers in experimenting with AI for personal reasons before professional ones. It’s a low-risk way to start and will immediately get you thinking about how AI can be used in education.

For your first exercise, try writing a prompt about your favorite hobby. It might look like this:

Example prompt: [Task] Research [Input] the topic of dahlia plants and [Output] tell me in a bulleted list of 100 words or less how I should plant, grow, and care for dahlia flowers in Portland, OR, to get the best results.

Since you’re already an expert in your favorite hobby, be sure to check the AI’s output for accuracy. (While most of the information we got was correct, one piece of advice could have led to bushy and green dahlia plants but with few or no flowers.)

2. Intermediate prompt: [Role of the model] + [Task] + [Input] + [Output] + [Constraints] 

Role of the model: AI can assume a variety of roles across many different domains. These roles achieve a more tailored result for your prompt. Here are some roles that AI is good at performing:

• Travel agent: AI can help plan trips, suggest destinations, book flights and accommodations, and provide travel tips.
• Personal assistant: AI can manage schedules, set reminders, send emails, and help with daily tasks.
• Content creator: AI can generate articles, create music, design graphics, and even write code.
• Tutor: AI can help with learning new subjects, providing explanations, and offering practice exercises.
• Data analyst: AI can process and analyze large datasets, identify trends, and generate reports.

Constraints: A constraint is a piece of information that helps to narrow the results you get from AI. It makes the AI output more precise and more relevant to your needs. A constraint can be any information that has a narrowing effect. For example, a timeframe (only give me the latest news), a location (only include restaurants in Tokyo that I can reach by train), a format (only provide the data in pie charts), a quality criterion (only show me peer-reviewed articles), or a personal preference (only find vegetarian recipes).

Personal exercise #2 

For your second exercise, try writing a prompt about a place you’ve always wanted to visit.

Example prompt: [Role of the model] Act as a travel agent and [Task] create a five-day itinerary for a trip to Nashville, TN. [Input] The itinerary should include outdoor activities, live music, and restaurants featuring local dishes. [Output] Write the itinerary as a bulleted list with options for each day. [Constraints] All recommendations must be doable for an 84-year-old woman who is healthy and active.

Since this is presumably a dream trip, be clear about telling the AI what you like and don’t like about its recommendations. For example, our results featured a day of shopping, which was a hallucination. We politely asked the AI to try again and got much better results the second time. Once we’d settled on a basic itinerary, we asked follow-up questions and received more details.

3. Advanced prompt: [Task] + [Input a] + [Input b] + [Input c] + [Output] + [Constraints] 

Personal exercise #3 

For your final personal exercise, try writing a prompt that will generate a personal music playlist. (Warning: Your prompt will probably not look much like ours, unless you also grew up in the ’80s.)

Example prompt: [Task] Recommend some songs I might like based on my music tastes. [Input a] I like alternative rock and folk music. [Input b] I do not like country or rap music. [Input c] My favorite bands as a teenager were U2 and Depeche Mode, and my favorite solo artists were Tracy Chapman and Sting. [Output] Please create a 10-song playlist. [Constraints] Only include songs from the last five years. Do not include any songs from my favorite bands or solo artists as a teenager.

You’ll have to sample the playlist to see if you like the results. And since AI is generally very receptive to feedback, we encourage you to tell the AI what it did well and not so well.

AI and education: Getting started 

Now that you’ve had some practice with prompting AI on general topics, let’s shift to thinking about AI in education.

The possible uses of AI can seem limitless, which can feel overwhelming. To get started, we recommend thinking about tasks that either take up a lot of your time or that might not be your favorite. Hate drafting emails or monthly newsletters? Get AI to help. Do you spend hours looking for just the right activity to enliven a lesson? Ask AI to suggest activities.

Integrating AI into your teaching shouldn’t feel like adding yet another task to your to-do list. So, let’s spend some time exploring how AI can help with some common educator tasks.

AI application #1: Lesson planning 

Lesson planning can consume a lot of time. Even when I had a robust curriculum, I often found myself searching for a different way to approach challenging content. More often than not, this led me down an hours-long rabbit hole on the internet. Instead of endless internet searching, you can use AI to help you draft all or parts of a lesson plan.

Professional exercise #1 

For this exercise, take a topic or lesson that you have found challenging to teach and ask AI to help you develop a lesson for it. Try using the intermediate prompt: [Role of the model] + [Task] + [Input] + [Output] + [Constraints]

Example prompt 

[Role model] Act as a fifth-grade teacher to [Task] create a lesson plan [Input] introducing dividing unit fractions by whole numbers and whole numbers by unit fractions. [Output] Write the lesson plan using headings for each section of the lesson. [Constraints] The lesson plan should include student learning objectives, a lesson warm-up, concept development, guided practice, five independent practice problems, and an exit ticket.

Tip: Review each section of the lesson plan and iterate on components that don’t meet your needs. Here are some examples of how I used follow-up prompts to tweak the original output:

• The original concept development section included a step that simply said, “Explain that dividing a unit fraction by a whole number is the same as multiplying the fraction by the reciprocal of the whole number.” I want students to discover this themselves, so I asked AI to create three activities to help students understand this concept.
• Originally the lesson plan included only naked computation word problems, so I used follow-up prompts to generate both standard word problems and enrichment-worthy word problems.

AI application #2: Increase engagement 

Who among us is not looking for ways to increase students’ engagement in learning? Technology can sometimes provide an answer, but only if we know how to use it effectively. AI can often be a student’s or teacher’s best thought partner for innovative ideas.

Professional exercise #2 

For this exercise, take a topic or lesson you already love to teach and ask AI how to make it more engaging. Try using the advanced prompt: [Task] [Input a] [Input b] [Input c] [Output] [Constraints].

Example prompt 

[Task] Recommend some engaging ways to teach Greek and Latin roots to fifth graders. [Input a] I’d like the activities to include the Frayer model for building student vocabulary. [Input b] I do not want students to do rote activities like matching roots with meanings, taking online quizzes, or sorting words. [Input c] I’d like students to work in collaborative groups and show their learning. [Output] Provide a bulleted list of 10 ideas for me to review. [Constraints] Make sure that every idea is strongly aligned to Oregon state standards and list the specific standards with each idea.

Tip: If you aren’t happy with your prompt results, try asking the AI for help. Sometimes the most effective prompt is also the simplest: How should I ask you for X? (Our prompt resulted in the genius idea of a root word escape room experience for students. How fun is that?!)

A few AI tools for increasing engagement 

Some AI tools provide a type of interactivity that is not only engaging but can enrich a lesson, too. Here are a few to try:

• Persona chatbots. Would your lesson plan be better if students could talk to a persona? Think of historical figures, world leaders, and even fictional characters like Harry Potter, then head to character.ai.
• Animated drawings. Would your students love to see an animated version of their artwork? Upload a drawing and watch it come to life through animation on metademolab.com.
• Movie generators. Would you like to add videos with impressive special effects to your lessons? The image and movie generator a runwayml.com is sure to wow your students!

AI application #3: Support deeper thinking 

A common concern about using AI in the classroom is the justifiable fear that students may use it to cheat, whether it be having AI write their essay or solve their math problems. One way to get around this is to use AI to engage students in deeper problem-solving and analysis.

Professional exercise #3 

For this exercise, take a typical practice problem from your math curriculum and test out different ways that AI can move your students toward analyzing the concepts behind it, rather than just solving it. The type of prompt you use will vary depending upon how you approach this.

Example prompt

[Role model] Act as a seventh-grade teacher. [Task] Create four different approaches to solving this problem: [Input] “The bill at a restaurant is $52.60 before tax. The tax rate is 8%. You want to leave a 20% tip on the pre-tax amount. How much tip should you leave and how much will the total be with tax and tip?” [Output] Each approach should include an explanation and a model.

You can take the AI output and ask students to do one or all of the following:

• Compare, contrast, and make connections between their solution approach to one or more AI-generated approaches
• Apply the AI-generated approaches to similar problems to determine the characteristics of a problem that might make each approach more useful or efficient

You could also ask AI to include one or more errors in each explanation and then have students find, explain, and correct the error(s).

Although all of this can be done with general AI tools, educator-focused AI products often have specific tools that are designed to support deeper student thinking. Magic School Plus, for example, has tools that do the following:

• Create questions at each DOK level, as appropriate, for a given topic or standard
• Generate project-based learning plans that integrate multiple standards and topics
• Produce exemplar and non-exemplar responses to an assignment, allowing students to explore what makes a response high-quality and what could be done to improve a lower-quality response

If we can do it, you can, too! 

The hardest part of getting started with AI may just be taking that first step and trying it. Believe us when we say, we were there, too. We hope that after spending 10–15 hours experimenting with the exercises in this article, you’ll be ready to embrace AI as a learning opportunity—for both your students and yourself. To further help you, we’ve compiled a list of AI tools and resources to get you started.

Multipurpose, educator-focused AI tools 

• Eduaide.ai. This is a suite of 50 AI teacher tools that can generate prior knowledge and scaffolding for lessons, direct instruction scripts, anchor charts, cooperative learning activities, and gamification options.
• Khanmigo. Khan Academy’s suite of 24 AI teacher tools can generate prompts, lesson plans, letters of recommendation, rubrics, differentiated resources, SMART goals, and other types of content.
• MagicSchool.ai. This suite of 60+ AI teacher tools can generate lesson plans, rubrics, emails, spiral reviews, informational texts, Jeopardy-style games, and other types of content.
  
  

Single-purpose AI tools 

• Animated Drawings. Upload student drawings and automatically animate the artwork with a few quick adjustments.
• Consensus. Allows users to ask about the relationship between concepts, yes/no questions, or about the impact of a concept. The AI reviews relevant research papers to provide a summary, a consensus meter, and links to the source materials.
• GotFeedback^lite . Upload or copy/paste student work and select specific areas (narrative structure, claims, details, etc.) on which to focus feedback.
• Runway. This AI editor allows you to generate and edit images, audio, and video.

Resources for learning more about AI  

• AI for Education. This site contains a variety of free AI resources, including a prompt library, AI classroom resources, and a library with over 25 webinars on specific AI topics.
• AI Guidance for Schools Toolkit. Assembled by TeachAI, this toolkit is designed to help education leaders integrate AI in their schools thoughtfully and safely.
• AI Initiative. Common Sense Media provides AI product reviews, AI literacy lessons, and articles on AI use for educators and families.
• Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning. This report from the U.S. Department of Education contains guidelines on how to prepare for the role of AI in teaching and learning.
• Artificial Intelligence in Education. This site, developed by ISTE, provides AI guides for elementary, secondary, and elective area teachers on how to teach students about AI.
• North Carolina Generative AI Implementation Recommendations and Considerations for PK-13 Public Schools.This living document was created to share resources and direct responsible use of generative AI tools, as well as guide AI Literacy in North Carolina Public Schools.
• Teaching with AI. This guide from OpenAI is designed for teachers who use ChatGPT in the classroom and includes prompts and an explanation of ChatGPT’s benefits and drawbacks.
• Transforming Education with AI: What Educators Need to Know. This webinar, hosted by cofounder and CEO of the AI Education Project, covers topics from streamlining administrative tasks with AI to students’ misuse of the technology.

The post Embrace AI as a learning opportunity for your students and yourself appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Teacher and student agency are critical for learning.

I remember when my parents started letting me order for myself off a menu. I was probably six years old, and I requested a cheeseburger (very sophisticated, I know). I can easily recall the sense of pride and maturity I felt as I sat up straight and prepared myself. Since then, it’s been a smorgasbord of sushi, chicken wings, and, as a native New Yorker, pizza of course.

Such a small shift—and a bit of ownership—completely changed my relationship to dining and food. I went from being told what to eat to being able to use my new favorite skill, literacy, to actually make a decision! The world was my oyster…even if oysters didn’t show up on my plate for a few more years.

Now that I’ve whet your appetite (I promise I’ll stop soon), think about the shifts we see in our students the moment we give them an option, a decision, a stake in their learning. Student agency, in all its forms, is a vital component of differentiation: that habitual, evergreen best educational practice. It’s no surprise that the more our students feel they are a key member of the learning team, the more engaged they are in the learning.

Taking into consideration who our learners are, and their specific context, helps us find opportunities for agency that empower the students and naturally push progress forward. But this doesn’t happen by accident.

School leadership that empowers and promotes inspired teaching

All quips about the struggles of adulting aside, it feels good to be able to make decisions. Especially when those decisions are made from a foundation of support and preparation.

Teacher and student agency go hand in hand. For teachers and, subsequently, students to flourish in their own agency, school leaders must provide the conditions for the reflection, growth, and courage needed to take ownership of learning. I think of my good friend Kim Borszewski, or Dr. B, the superintendent of Schiller Park District 81 outside of Chicago. We speak often of the conditions needed to empower educators, and they always come down to a few key tenets: having trust, feeling supported, and being well-informed before choosing a path. Encouraging teachers to seek out best-fit best practices for their personalities, or interests, shows them you not only value who they are as a teacher but also as an individual.

Once teachers feel they have the support of school administration to search out innovative classroom resources, the floodgates tend to open. When teachers feel they are trusted and seen as educational professionals, they can bring their best selves to the classroom. Speaking from experience as a math educator, I am grateful that my administration felt confident in my teaching abilities so I could bring my other skills and talents into the classroom. For example, my second degree in fine art, my love of music, and my creativity all had a place in a class that wasn’t necessarily fine art or music.

Does every initiative work? Will every option in agency be a success? No, of course not. But intentional planning and reflective redirection nurture the development of agency. Being able to try something new, without the fear of criticism or repercussions, creates the conditions for agency and creativity.

Clear for takeoff! 

Once teachers feel their voice and choice matter, and make an impact, they have a clear runway to transfer and model agency to and for students. When a teacher’s confidence and comfort are apparent, it can be used as the model for students in their decision-making and self-advocacy. In fact, for math teachers in particular to model not only their problem-solving skills but also their process in choosing an avenue or a tool or resource, we show students the good habits we use within our agency. Why did I select graph paper and a ruler when other tools were available? Why did I choose to stand up at my desk rather than stay seated?

Of course, depending on the age group and content area, certain parameters should be in in place to keep the learning grounded and established learning goals at the forefront. Younger kids can be given a few options within an overall plan while making sure the learning goal is at the center of the activity; older students can have more flexibility and can be given more variety in their problem-solving.

Math should be a dynamic, exciting subject. Teachers should feel empowered to use their entire classrooms as an expansive learning space. Thinking back to Dr. B’s Schiller Park, the classrooms feel like customized workshops where clusters of desks for collaborative learning brush up against quiet nooks for independent think time. The learning isn’t centered in just one designated zone; it is happening everywhere! Students, within reason and when appropriate, have options for how and where they engage. Remember, more often than not, a bit of structure is needed. So teachers keep student agency and preference as a top priority when flexibly and purposefully grouping their students.

Small shifts for big impact

This kind of math classroom magic doesn’t happen overnight. To get to this level of agency, it takes small shifts in mindset, from the administration down, that are low risk but yield high rewards.

Reimagining school funds, teachers are encouraged to research practices, curricula, and resources and have the necessary green light from administration to advocate for their professional growth and best practices. That momentum, that confidence to have agency, can lead to small shifts in the classroom and enable students to show up authentically in their learning. Keep what is working and shift where possible. And put the power in the hands of your teachers and students.

Next steps for agency in the math classroom

A new school year is the perfect opportunity to start thinking about your triumphant return to the classroom. Here are a few easy steps to lead with agency before the last leaf falls:

• Be a differentiation expert. You may have read my post on my non-negotiables of highly effective differentiation. Being an expert in content, data, and your students creates the foundation to become a differentiation master. It also allows us to intentionally plan for student agency. Knowing where the bells and whistles lie within your upcoming unit, or opportunities for students to take a little learning journey, will help you better plan for those opportunities. Understanding your data, as well as your personalities, helps to inform how much or how little agency is offered.
• Show up as your authentic self. Think who you are has no place in the stoic, sterile world of the math classroom? Think again, my friend. With a nod from leadership, bring who you are to the classroom. Students benefit from seeing teachers in all their colors, and modeling agency and decision-making will give them the confidence to advocate for the learning style that best suits their unique personalities.
• Reflect on areas where small shifts are possible. Go back to the drawing board often, and revisit points in your lessons or unit where the math might have been lost or muddied. What can you do differently next time?
• Keep the learning goal at the center of the lesson and use agency to enhance it. Encourage yourself to keep coming back to your learning goals and exploring ways to give students enough agency to sustain excitement over the material.
• Establish norms so student agency doesn’t become classroom chaos. If choice is all of a sudden a new thing, the novelty will override the intention behind it. Start small, keep expectations high, and be prepared with a more narrow focus at first.

The post How to support teacher and student agency in the math classroom appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

“We talk a lot about the power and joy of writing. But these students live it!”

This statement, followed by this video, sent shivers down my spine. That’s my colleague and national literacy expert, Miah Daughtery. She’s talking to me about her work with 826DC, a writing lab in our nation’s capital that serves primarily students of color.

826 DC is much like the organization’s other eight chapters. It offers a free, high-quality writing program to students ages 6–18 from under-resourced communities and provides an inspiring space for them to write. (Imagine a secret writer’s room hidden behind a magic shop.)

826 National is the national arm of the organization. It’s a non-profit focused on strengthening the writing of students, and it leads the largest youth writing network in the country. Its flagship writing center is in San Francisco at 826 Valencia Street (hence the name 826). 826 National supports nine local chapters across the country, each with community-based writing labs and in-school programs that serve around 25,000 students annually. It publishes about 750 unique pieces of student writing a year, like these, and it equips educators and families with free resources at 826 Digital to help every student discover the power and joy of writing.

I recently sat down with Laura Brief, the CEO of 826 National, for a virtual chat over Zoom. We were joined by Miah Daughtery, vice president of academic advocacy for NWEA, and a board member of 826DC since 2017. What unfolded was an enlightening conversation about how to empower young writers and move the national conversation about writing forward. Note that my questions and their answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Tell me a bit about how 826 got started. I’m especially interested in how the organization provides a third space for writing, a place outside of home and school.

Laura: 826 National began with a vision of being a unique writing resource that offers students personalized writing support. Both teachers and students have been at the heart of what we do from the very beginning. The organization was founded in 2002 by the author Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, The Circle) and the educator Nínive Calegari, a former public school teacher with a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

There’s long been an understanding that students need a space where they can engage with writing in a meaningful way, outside of school or home environments. The founders wanted the space to be something that students immediately sensed was different. The space at 826 Valencia looks like the hull of a pirate ship, and the writing center is hidden behind this whimsical, pirate-themed storefront. Young people know right away this space is for them. It’s honest and weird and wacky. (The shop sells pirate-y merchandise, alongside books written by 826 students, all in support of the organization.) But the store is also a way to invite the community in.

Miah: 826 DC follows the same model. Our theme is “Writing is magic,” and the storefront is a magic shop. Students enter the lab through a small Alice-in-Wonderland-sized door, and they know they’re entering a different world with different rules. Once inside, they see a massive library of books, including our student anthologies.

What have you noticed about student motivation in the writing lab environment? What gets students most excited about writing there?

Laura: When students get to see the books they’ve published on a bookshelf next to books written by authors they admire, it creates tremendous pride…and agency.

When I first started working for 826 as a volunteer, I went to Everett Middle School, which offers a specialized English immersion program for newcomer students. (826 National directly serves 20,000 educators, extending its impact to an additional 750,000 students.) What impressed me most was how the 826 facilitators connected writing to students’ lives. They asked students to write a poem using a guided prompt (“I saw…and now I see…”). The students were sitting in small groups at tables with adult volunteers and staff. When they started writing, there was a palpable shift in the room. What was real for them was being brought to life in the classroom. Not only were they learning to write a poem, but the text of their lives was the source material.

In our writing labs, we let who the students are, and what they bring with them, be a guide for their writing. We also invite students to get curious and embrace the boundless possibility of their creativity. They can feel this the moment they come through the door.

Miah: I see students at 826DC being genuinely jazzed about writing. What makes the 826 writing lab compelling for students is that they have so much choice over what they write. We’re not trying to replicate school. But we do partner with schools. Our staff knows writing pedagogy. They know the research about how students learn to write. And they have an awareness of state standards.

I’ve heard that students and their siblings return to the 826 writing labs year after year. What advice can you give classroom teachers about building writing communities?

Laura: This scenario happens across all our chapters. The students become our best champions. After they finish school, they come back to volunteer, teach, and even become board members.

One aspect of our program that could be replicated in classrooms is building a writing community. This can start by giving students opportunities to collaborate with fellow writers through group inquiry or creative problem-solving. Then it’s important to model and normalize how peers can learn from each other. For every writing lesson, we build in time for reflection and dialogue, and we make peer editing an integral part of the writing process. We emphasize curiosity-driven feedback, asking students what they find interesting or what they want to know more about when reading a peer’s work.

We also create opportunities for students to show up in the collective writing space as their authentic selves. We do this through the way we scaffold the writing prompts and the writing process but also by putting in the work to create a brave space. We work hard to give students a sense of ownership over the space and a sense of agency over their writing projects. We may start by naming a goal for the project, but the students define how we reach that goal.

Miah: One reason we have so many families come back is that we literally and figuratively invite the community in. We have open houses, and we do projects that are for the DC community, like when our students read their work at the Kennedy Center. We also work hard to cultivate a safe, warm, and inviting space where students—and their families—want to be. We invite students into the conversation by asking, “What’s important to you?” We also invite in a bit of chaos, but in a positive way. We ask students to take that creative energy and funnel it into their writing.

How does 826 encourage students to talk about their writing and get feedback? How have you seen such collaboration help improve students’ writing?

Laura: One technique we use is a “grumpy editor,” an imaginary editor who taunts students but also gives positive feedback. At 826 Valencia, our grumpy editor is Captain Blue. I was at the writing center a couple of weeks ago, and some third-grade students came up to me. One said, “We heard no one has ever seen Captain Blue. Will we get to meet him?” I told them to wait and see. Then they hear a booming voice from above. “Kids can’t write books!” Captain Blue says, very grumpily. Now the kids are all atwitter. Captain Blue goes on to give one sentence of personalized feedback for each kid’s writing—emphasizing how wonderful it is—which is so motivating.

826 students also collaboratively write books, which gets them talking about writing from day one. The writing process often begins with verbal sharing to clarify intentions and get feedback before putting a pen to the page. From there, students must rely on one another for feedback, for coaching, for editing, and for cheerleading. Each chapter also creates a student editorial group that provides feedback to writers within the book. This mirrors the professional writing process in the real world and empowers students to see themselves as both authors and editors. One of the best things teachers can do in their classrooms is identify as writers themselves—go through the process of writing and getting feedback themselves—because it models this collaboration.

We also work hard to create spaces where students feel physically and psychologically safe. It shows up in how we teach writing and in what we praise about students’ writing. 826 students really understand that failure is a part of writing. That’s the beauty of editing. Writing is a process. And by editing, you are making adjustments to it, just like in life.

Miah: When students write, they are taking a piece of themselves and making it visible to other people. It is an act of vulnerability that requires both bravery and trust. Writing among individuals you feel safe around, those who give you a sense of community, builds that trust. So, I would encourage educators to reach out to the 826 network and collaborate on building a writing community because this is where 826 really excels with young writers.

Your writers have real audiences, through their published anthologies and public readings, often to large audiences. What can schools learn from 826’s approach to amplifying writers’ voices?

Laura: We are big believers in publishing. We produce a series of reports each year on the effectiveness of our programs, and our research shows that publishing student writing has benefits that go well beyond the pages of the book. Writing is a powerful tool that lets students grapple with their own stories and identities. When the element of a real audience is added, students gain a greater sense of pride in their writing. But they also begin to think about the impact of their words on the reader…and on the world.

A survey of educators who subscribed to our 826 Digital platform in 2021 revealed that only 18% printed a book of student writing and only 19% hosted an opportunity for students to read their writing. In an 826 survey of educators nationwide, 67% of respondents said they use student publications as writing models with their students. This tells us educators understand the value of student publications; they just aren’t able to publish student writing for reasons we can all guess.

For classroom teachers, we encourage finding times to really celebrate student writing—outside of the classroom, in unexpected ways, and in front of unexpected audiences. We also recommend making student writing as visible as possible—on school walls, in libraries, on billboards. Then honor student writing through a low-tech publishing method. Try partnering with the community, or other students, to develop art that frames the book to be as beautiful as the writing within it.

Miah: Real audiences raise the stakes of writing in a meaningful way. When students at 826DC know their writing will be published, they approach their writing as though it will be published. In 2019, Ron Charles, the book critic for TheWashington Post, reviewed that year’s anthology, This Time They Hear You, a collection of science-inspired fairy tales. This year, 826DC held the book release party at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown DC. Students read a selection of their writing to the community—friends and family, yes, but also whoever happened to be in the library that day. During the reading, what struck me most was how collegial the students were to each other. I saw middle schoolers cheering each other on, applauding each other’s work, and offering genuine praise. There was no teasing. No funny business—at all. Their writing was real, and they approached their opportunity to perform it seriously. At the end of the reading, Ron Charles sat down with the student-authors and interviewed them, just as he would any other published author. While every school writing assignment can’t have a real-world audience like this, even once a year would make a big difference.

Your website has a powerful banner about how writing changes lives, communities, and the future. How have you seen writing bring about such profound changes?

Laura: One way writing changes us is that it allows us to be ourselves. Writing can be a personal, internal tool for transformation. It can help you be yourself and understand yourself better. Writing can also be loud and powerful and public. It can help you to take that self and broadcast it into the world—to change lives through public change and civic engagement.

Being able to tell your story and amplify your story is incredibly powerful. An 826 student once had the opportunity to introduce Barack Obama at the Obama Foundation Summit, and she said, “I didn’t know then that stories could change the world, let alone a story that I had written.”

Learn more

To learn more about the 826 National Youth Writing program, including how you can support their work, visit them online. To learn more about professional development on writing instruction, visit our website.

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Dyslexia is a widely recognized learning difficulty, yet research shows misconceptions are widespread, not only among the general public but also among educators, school psychologists and reading specialists, and even college professors. This complicates the path to understanding the most widely identified learning disability and getting the right intervention and support to students.

As we observe Dyslexia Awareness Month, it’s essential to dispel these myths, offer clarity through research-backed models, and emphasize the importance of early screening and targeted intervention. By fostering a deeper understanding of what dyslexia is, educators and administrators can enable students to understand their difficulties and achieve their full potential.

Common misconceptions about dyslexia

While completing my doctorate, I researched how best to help dispel misconceptions about dyslexia among educators. Studies from the field of conceptual change, a subset of the field of learning science, show that dispelling misinformation can work better to improve long-term understanding than just giving people accurate information. To do this, we must first name and normalize myths before attempting to inform people about the facts.

Despite increased awareness, myths about dyslexia continue to thrive. One of the most common misconceptions is that dyslexia means people see letters or words backward. This myth has been perpetuated in pop culture, but dyslexia is not a visual problem; instead, most plainly, it’s an increased difficulty with learning to read and spell words.

Another myth is that dyslexia is tied to intelligence. Some assume that if a child is smart, they can’t possibly have dyslexia, or that struggling with reading equates to a lack of intelligence. Some people believe you have to find a discrepancy between intelligence scores and reading scores. Neither of these is true.

Dyslexia describes a difficulty with learning to decode words fluently and trouble with spelling. There is no need to find any discrepancies in intelligence, strengths, or weaknesses to identify a student with dyslexia. Instead, best practice for identification is a low response to generally effective reading intervention, combined with low achievement in reading that isn’t accounted for by other disabilities, like an intellectual disability or the need for glasses.

A path to clearer understanding: The Simple View of Reading

To understand dyslexia better, it’s helpful to look through the lens of the Simple View of Reading. According to this model, reading is composed of two essential components: word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension. While both components are crucial for successful reading, when we use the term “dyslexia,” we are only referring to the word-recognition component, that is, we’re referring only to decoding.

This difficulty with word recognition is the defining factor of the term “dyslexia,” which the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) defines as “a specific learning disability…characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.”

This doesn’t mean students with dyslexia may also have a difficulty with language comprehension; as we know from research, about 50% of children with dyslexia also have developmental language disorder, or DLD. This fact helps educational leaders know to always assess both components separately, rather than just assessing reading comprehension, when doing a comprehensive assessment for dyslexia.

DLD and dyslexia: A connection through the Simple View of Reading

DLD can co-occur with dyslexia, further complicating reading and learning. While dyslexia affects word recognition, DLD impacts a child’s ability to understand and use language, influencing how they comprehend what they hear and read. For more on this, watch Tiffany Hogan, a leading researcher in dyslexia and DLD, as she emphasizes the importance of recognizing DLD as a significant factor in reading development.

Understanding DLD through the lens of the Simple View of Reading clarifies how both difficulties affect reading in unique ways: dyslexia impacts word recognition and DLD affects language comprehension. To learn more about DLD, visit DLDandMe.org for a wealth of resources. Understanding both dyslexia and DLD can help educators align interventions to student need and enable all students to learn to become readers.

Early screening for at-risk children

Given the overlap between dyslexia and DLD, early screening is crucial for identifying students who are at risk. Identifying which students are having the greatest difficulties allows educators to target word recognition, or decoding, skills for students at risk of later being identified with dyslexia; support language comprehension for those at risk of later being identified with DLD; and provide a double-dose of intervention for students who have difficulties in both areas. Early intervention is key to helping children succeed academically and avoid long-term struggles with reading.

Our K–5 reading assessment, MAP® Reading Fluency, can help with early identification of students in need of interventions, including those at-risk of later being identified with dyslexia and/or DLD. To learn more, download our MAP Reading Fluency Dyslexia Screener fact sheet and see our YouTube channel.

Early intervention: Aligning interventions with student needs

Remember, after screening identifies students who are at risk of not meeting grade-level reading benchmarks, the next step is not to identify students with dyslexia or DLD; it is to ensure that students who need intervention are given targeted lessons that are aligned with their specific areas of difficulty.

Dyslexia interventions should focus on word recognition—whether the student needs fluency with phonics skills, multisyllabic words, or passages of text—using structured approaches that are explicit and systematic. In the early grades, this may look like introducing a phonics skill, working with word chains, and reading decodable texts. In the later grades, this may look like teaching flexible division routines, morphology-based reading and spelling patterns, and text-level fluency work. 

For students with DLD, interventions should include strategies that focus on both vocabulary and morphology and reading comprehension. The key is that the interventions are tailored to the child’s individual difficulties, ensuring targeted support that meets the specific areas of need. If the child has more difficulty with learning new vocabulary and connecting concepts, pre-teaching science and social studies content could be impactful. Integrating writing should also be considered for students with DLD to connect explicitly taught skills in grammar, vocabulary, and content knowledge.

Practical tips for educators and administrators

Whether you’re a classroom teacher or school or district administrator, the following can help you serve the needs of students with dyslexia:

• Implement early screening. Identifying student difficulties early ensures interventions can begin before reading difficulties escalate. Prioritize universal screening for dyslexia and DLD during the early grades. Ensure your screener is brief and well-researched. MAP Reading Fluency is an excellent choice.
• Adopt evidence-based interventions. Use interventions grounded in research and tailored to address a targeted student need in either word recognition, language comprehension, or both.
• Invest in professional learning. Continuous professional learning is essential for educators to stay current with research and best practices for understanding and teaching students with dyslexia and DLD. Professional learning opportunities, whether virtual or in person, equip educators to implement effective interventions in their classrooms. Learn more about our offerings on our website.

Bonus: Watch the second part of our interview with Tiffany Hogan

To deepen your understanding of DLD and its connection to dyslexia, watch the second part of our interview with Tiffany Hogan. In this video, she shares valuable insights and strategies for supporting children at risk for or with DLD and dyslexia.

The post Unraveling dyslexia: Dispelling myths and understanding early intervention appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Even while schools were still closed and many American students were learning virtually, researchers were already studying what came to be called COVID learning loss, or unfinished learning. This has included several past reports by NWEA, including on the first full year post-COVID, the specific effects on the youngest learners, how learning loss hit lower-scoring students especially hard, and the struggles American schools have faced in helping students rebound and recover. What hasn’t been as well documented is science learning loss following COVID-19 school closures.

Most, if not all, of the research on COVID learning loss has focused on math and reading achievement. Science has been conspicuously absent, which is understandable given students are tested in reading and math far more often than in science, social studies, or even writing, and the fact that many assessment companies do not even offer a science test.

This imbalance is also reflected in how instructional time is allocated in areas outside of math and reading during the school day. A 2018 survey found science received an average of 27 minutes of instructional time per day compared to 82 minutes in reading and 63 minutes in math. In our recent research, which was released on September 17th, we sought to give science its due by analyzing how a sample of American students fared following the outbreak of COVID-19 and its related school closures.

Doing so ended up being trickier than we expected. For one, far fewer students take the MAP® Growth science test than the reading or math test. But even in those schools that do administer MAP Growth Science, they do so less frequently (e.g., in the spring but not the fall) and in fewer grades (e.g., fifth but not fourth). As a result, our science findings are less nationally representative than those from the math or reading reports referenced above.

In the end, we examined the science score trends for a sample of 400,451 students in 621 schools that a) consistently administered MAP Growth Science from spring 2017 through spring 2024 and b) consistently tested the same grades within those schools (i.e., if grade 3 was tested in 2017, the school was also required to test grade 3 consistently from 2018 to 2024). This resulted in a sample that was more rural (38%) and suburban (41%) than the nation overall (28% and 32% as of 2019–2020, respectively).

Results

To evaluate the degree of science learning loss following COVID-19 school closures, we examined scores in spring 2021 and spring 2024 compared to those from the same schools in spring 2019. In terms of metrics, we referred to these as achievement gaps between pre- (spring 2019) and post-COVID (spring 2021 and 2024) school years. Figure 1 presents these achievement gaps between spring 2019 and the two post-COVID school years.

Figure 1. Science achievement gaps in 2021 and 2024

A few things are immediately clear from Figure 1. First, all students experienced science learning loss following COVID-19 school closures by spring 2021, with students in fourth and fifth grade hit hardest. Second, by spring 2024, elementary students had largely rebounded back to spring 2019 levels. However, the same cannot be said for middle school students, especially seventh- and eighth-graders, who scored even further behind in spring 2024 than their same-grade peers in spring 2019 or spring 2021.

It’s important to emphasize that these mean-score differences can be misleading. Although the eighth-grade difference of .10 standard deviations might seem small by traditional metrics for effect sizes, this gap would take three months of typical eighth-grade growth to close due to the relatively slow rate of middle school growth. Table 1 presents these same mean-score differences alongside the number of typical months of instruction it would take to close these gaps.

 Table 1. Achievement gaps and months to catch up by grade

(Note: The greyed-out cell indicates that the group has exceeded pre-COVID achievement levels.)

And finally, while not represented above, it’s important to highlight that some of the most concerning findings in science relate to Hispanic middle school students. We don’t know why, but Hispanic students, who were roughly 22% of the students in our sample, continued to fall further behind even into the 2023–2024 school year. In spring 2021, a Hispanic eighth-grader needed the equivalent of 3.4 months of instruction to catch up to the overall average score from spring 2019. By spring 2024, that number had ballooned to 6.3 months!

Discussion

Something that continues to vex us as we seek to better understand science learning loss is why the size of the science achievement gap is so much smaller than the those for math and reading (in terms of effect sizes). One possible explanation may be the smaller amounts of instructional time schools tend to spend on science (i.e., an average of 27 minutes per day compared to 82 minutes in reading and 63 minutes in math). Going from 27 minutes of instruction prior to the pandemic to zero when schools were closed could simply have been a smaller distance to fall than going from 82 minutes to zero in reading. Even if our science sample represents the schools most dedicated to science, and therefore taught science for an impressive 45 minutes per day, going to zero would still be a smaller drop in instructional time than going from 63 minutes to zero in math. Although this might explain a smaller drop in scores from 2019 to 2021 or 2024, it’s far from positive news regarding science scores.

Second, it’s also possible that science scores did not drop by as much because of the nature of how science is taught compared to the structure of the MAP Growth Science test. The MAP Growth Science test covers topics of life science, earth and space sciences, and physical science. But it’s possible that in any given grade, schools focus their teaching on just one of these areas and save the others for subsequent years. For example, perhaps the fifth-grade teachers in our sample mostly focus on life sciences and, as a result, fifth graders missed this life science instruction during the pandemic. We would expect this instructional loss to matter much less to student performance on items related to earth, space, or physical sciences, the net result being a smaller drop in scores than if the test were solely a measure of life science.

Recommendations

Just as with math and reading, there are no easy solutions to making up for science learning loss following COVID-19 school closures, and doing so will be even more challenging as ESSER funds come to an end. But beyond the standard recommendations of tutoring and summer school, we’ve become intrigued by another path forward that might help mitigate learning loss in science and math or reading at the same time: the integration of science into math or reading instruction.

The research on this is far from definitive, but one of the challenges with science has been “finding time” for it in the school day. Too often instructional hours are seen as a zero-sum game, with more hours for reading meaning fewer for recess, art, or music. But when science is integrated into literacy or language arts instruction, science learning can happen outside of the minutes devoted to it. What’s more, some evidence suggests integration can accelerate learning in both reading and science, thereby helping students recover in multiple domains simultaneously. In the coming months, this is an area we at NWEA hope to dive into in greater depth.

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Special education teachers are an essential part of our nation’s ability to provide a free and appropriate public education to the approximately 7.5 million students with disabilities currently attending our public schools. That’s about 15% of all students. But it’s no secret that attrition for special education teachers remains particularly high, for many reasons. Federal data shows that over 20% of public schools reported they were not fully staffed in special education at the start of the 2023–24 school year, and over 50% of public schools reported they will need to fill positions in special education before the start of the next school year. That’s a lot of support needed for a lot of students. Unsurprisingly, other teachers have been stepping in to help. So we would like to do our part and share some helpful tips for general education teachers about assessment in special education.

Why is assessment in special education important?

General education teachers already have a powerful tool they can use, one they are very familiar with: assessment. Accurate, reliable assessment data can point the way and help general education teachers make impactful decisions to support students with disabilities.

A reliable, accurate assessment can help teachers evaluate what students have learned. The resulting data is also essential for determining if any instructional adjustments should be made, whether it’s for a whole class, a small group, or an individual student. But there are other ways assessment is used specifically for kids with disabilities:

Creating a “present levels of performance” statement

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that every individualized education plan (IEP) have a present levels of performance statement. This provides a detailed overview of a student’s current academic and functional abilities, including information on the student’s strengths, areas for improvement, and progress toward previous goals. It’s based on all the information and data previously collected and known about the child, including assessment data, and it serves as a baseline to set specific, measurable goals and determine the appropriate support and services the student will need.

An accurate picture of where the student currently stands in their educational journey helps educators and caregivers collaborate effectively to create a plan that addresses the student’s unique needs, promotes their academic and functional growth, and keeps them in the least restrictive environment (LRE). The present levels of performance statement has to be accurate and must be updated every year.

Identifying accommodations and/or modifications

Assessments for general education students are administered with the assumption that students are capable of showing what they know. But we can’t make this assumption for students with disabilities. For example, years ago, a student of mine who had difficulty with inferencing couldn’t understand the meaning of some of the questions on an assessment. She didn’t know what the questions were asking and spent hours on the test without making meaningful progress. Reliable assessment data can uncover areas like this where students may need more support. The data can make it easier to understand if new accommodations or modifications are required and should be included on the student’s IEP.

When thinking about accommodations for a student, ask yourself, does the data suggest a student could benefit from specific accommodations? For example, suppose you have a student who consistently has difficulty with reading comprehension on tests. You see this student’s scores are significantly lower in reading comprehension compared to their peers. And your classroom observations and formative assessments uncover that the student takes longer to read passages and often misses key details. Based on this assessment data, you might conclude that the student could benefit from extended time on tests or access to audiobooks during independent reading activities.

There are many possibilities for accommodations. “140+ IEP accommodations every special ed teacher should bookmark” is a great link to bookmark. You can find more great resources on the website for the National Association of School Psychologists.

Let’s look at another example if you’re considering whether a student needs an accommodation or a modification. Suppose you have a student who regularly struggles with problem-solving on math assignments and assessments. Your formative assessments tell you that the student has trouble completing problems and often makes errors in multistep calculations. Providing the student with fewer problems, or breaking complex problems into smaller, manageable steps—while ensuring the core concepts are still covered—is a modification that would benefit the student.

The website for the Parent Educational Advocacy Training Center (PEATC) lists many other possible modifications that can help you support the special education students in your general education classroom.

Showing progress on an IEP

Regularly keeping parents and other caregivers of students with disabilities in the loop about what’s going on in school is a great way to reduce any surprises at quarterly updates and annual IEP meetings. And accurate assessment data can be used when sharing great news about progress on the IEP outside of what’s required!

If your school tests with MAP® Growth, our Family Toolkit can support you in collaborating with your students’ families.

Thank you!

All of us here at NWEA would like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who is working so hard to support students with disabilities and keep them moving forward. This student population tends to be one of our most vulnerable, and the work you do can make a real difference—every single day.

The post Assessment in special education: Actionable tips for general education teachers appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Alexander Graham Bell once said, “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” I couldn’t agree more. When reflecting on MAP partners I have gotten to work with, one thing has become abundantly clear: districts, campuses, and educators with seemingly high implementation success have a clear, streamlined process in place that does not leave room for misconceptions. I want your school or district to have high implementation success, too, so I’d like to share some MAP testing tips for assessment in the fall and beyond.

Below, you will find four specific tips that can help:

1. Know your why for MAP testing
2. Share your why with all stakeholders
3. Make a plan for implementation
4. Ask the questions each group of stakeholders should be able to answer

Tip #1: Know your why for MAP testing

One of the first questions I encourage you to ask yourself is your why for utilizing MAP. Whether you’re testing with MAP® Growth, MAP® Reading Fluency, or both, please take a moment to jot this why down.

Did identifying your why come easily, or are you unsure? It’s okay either way. Write down whatever comes to mind because that will provide a good starting point. If you remain unsure of your why after spending some time with what you wrote down, I encourage you to seek out clarity by asking a colleague (or a few).

There are various reasons for using MAP testing to support teaching and learning. Here are several whys shared by some districts I’ve worked with:

• Monitors the progress of all student learning over time, allowing for proactive intervention and celebration of learning
• Offers opportunities to differentiate classroom instruction based on specific student need
• Creates a culture for continuous improvement district wide
• Provides all stakeholders with data that can inform plans to increase achievement for all students
• Allows for data conversations with students to identify areas of strength and opportunities for growth, creating opportunities to work with students to set goals
• Connects to instructional connections to meet needs for students and potentially leverage additional supplemental resources

Tip #2: Share your why with all stakeholders

Once you’ve identified your MAP testing why, how will you communicate it to colleagues, students, and caregivers? Stakeholders are not simply educators and students; we must leverage the expertise and desire of caregivers and allow the community to get involved, too. Knowledge is power, and that power can be harnessed through communication.

NWEA offers a Family Toolkit that includes videos, guides, and more designed to help caregivers make sense of MAP Growth. We also have several blog posts with advice on supporting families.

Prior to sharing the Family Toolkit with caregivers, campus leaders and educators must be on the same page and speaking the same language about MAP. This allows us to have consistent conversations with students. To do so, you may need to firm up your own understanding of MAP products. Spend some time with the toolkit yourself so you can better understand MAP assessments, how to communicate with families, and tools and strategies to implement after students have tested. Your contact at NWEA can help you with all of this as well.

Ideally, sharing your why with stakeholders will make it so much easier to use assessment data to create meaningful learning opportunities for students and to see MAP data as one point in the larger picture, that is, as data to analyze in conjunction with other information you have about students, from teacher observations to attendance records.

How will you get all stakeholders to understand your why for MAP testing? How will you get them to see it is not something we simply do three times a year and then forget? How can you support students in becoming investors in their own learning journey and thinking about what growth means to them?

Tip #3: Make a plan for implementation

Now that you have the why behind using MAP jotted down and have decided on the best way to share that why with stakeholders, you’re ready to think about implementation.

When implementing an assessment like MAP Growth or MAP Reading Fluency in a district, campus, or classroom, making plans can increase the likelihood of follow-through for two primary reasons: 1) creating plans encourages people to develop strategies for overcoming obstacles ahead of time, before those obstacles are reached, and 2) according to many researchers, including Gavan Fitzsimons and Vicki Morwitz, plan-making helps on a cognitive level, forging links in the memory between future moments (like testing day) and the behaviors required to be ready for those moments.

When we create plans for administering assessments, we are ensuring everyone agrees and is ready to move forward together. If we don’t properly plan for MAP testing, multiple grade levels may decide to test at the same time, for example. If your district or campus isn’t one-to-one with devices, that may create a problem. If teachers who are acting as proctors are not prepared, the wrong test could be assigned, accommodations may or not be assigned, and more. All teachers—plus leaders, students, and caregivers—benefit from having a plan in place.

If proctors have a plan explaining when they are to assign the test to students, they can plan accordingly with less pressure and stress. When proctors and other teachers understand what MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency are, as well as their intended uses, they can have more meaningful conversations with students to create understanding. If all educators in a building understand how MAP data can and will be used, they can have more collaborative discussions about academic opportunities. This can help ensure students are offered opportunities for Tier 1 instruction with rigor and fidelity while putting scaffolds and/or extensions in place as needed. When students and their families understand what the assessments are and how they are used, they can become partners with teachers, working to create meaningful goals and fostering self-efficacy, among other things.

Tip #4: Ask the questions each group of stakeholders should be able to answer

This brings me to the various questions everyone in your school community should be able to answer about MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency. Think of this as a quality assurance check to ensure the other tips were executed effectively. If any of your stakeholders can’t answer some of these questions, how can you help them better understand your why or your implementation plan?

Campus leaders

• Why are we using MAP Growth and/or MAP Reading Fluency?
• When is the testing window?
• What grade levels and subjects will be given what assessment?
• Are we altering the bell schedule and shutting down the campus on testing day, or will educators test within their class time?
• Who should proctors reach out to if they need support during testing?
• Is there a retesting policy?
• What are the intended uses of the assessment data?
• How will we analyze the data?
• When will we analyze the data?
• What are the expectations and what time allotments will be given to educators to dig into the data?
• How will we communicate the intentions behind the assessment to teachers, students, and caregivers?

Teachers, including proctors

• Why are we using MAP Growth and/or MAP Reading Fluency?
• When is the testing window?
• What assessment is to be given, to which students, and when?
• How do I proctor?
• Who do I reach out to for support?
• What do I do if I feel a student should be retested?
• What should I tell students about MAP before testing day?
• When will I analyze the assessment data?
• What should I do with the assessment data?

Students

• Why am I taking MAP Growth and/or MAP Reading Fluency?
• Is this for a grade? If not, why is it important that I do my best?
• How will my scores be used?
• How can I create goals for my learning based on my scores?

Caregivers

• What is MAP Growth and/or MAP Reading Fluency?
• How is MAP Growth and/or MAP Reading Fluency different from other assessments?
• Are there resources for families?
• When will results be communicated to caregivers?

As you think about the many stakeholders involved, how comfortable do you feel preparing them to answer these questions? Are there any you want to seek clarification on before you begin testing? Even if you have already completed testing for your district or campus, do you need to go back and provide any guidance for stakeholders?

In conclusion

Educators are brilliant humans, capable of creating innovative lessons, building relationships, and adapting endlessly. If we can take a little time to prepare ourselves and each other ahead of MAP testing, we can all gain the confidence needed to succeed. And confidence can be contagious for students.

When our students have a sense of ownership and personal power, they become empowered learners. And isn’t that what we all want most?

The post MAP testing tips for assessment success in the fall and beyond appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Back when we were in schools every day, we were constantly on the lookout for resources to support rich, rigorous, mathematical learning. Although many of the teachers we worked to support liked the concrete-representational-abstract framework of their math curriculum, we frequently heard them express frustration over the rote practice problems provided in most of their resources. Teachers were spending a lot of time looking for content that went beyond a standard worksheet. They were telling us they wanted activities that would spark student excitement and encourage deeper thinking, like open middle math problems.

When paired with number talks, open middle problems can help teachers embed rich conversation throughout math class.

Defining the problem

So, what exactly are open middle math problems? In an open middle problem, students are given starting information and either an answer or a definition of the answer. By “definition of the answer,” we mean that students are given a description of the type of answer toward which they are driving. For example, many open middle math problems ask students to find the least or greatest solution or a number that is closest to a given number. How they get from start to end is up to them. Rather than following a solution path that was stepped out for them by the teacher, the path is completely under their control.

The best way to understand an open middle math problem may be to compare one to a typical textbook problem for the same topic. For a lesson on three-digit subtraction, a standard textbook might ask students to find 539 – 286 either as a straight computation item or embedded within a word problem. By contrast, an open middle math problem for the same topic asks students to use the digits 1–9, at most one time each, to make two three-digit numbers with a difference as close to 329 as possible.

Although understanding of place value, regrouping, the relative magnitude of numbers, and the relationship between addition and subtraction underlie both types of problems, with the more traditional problem, a student can answer correctly by following a set of learned steps without truly understanding the conceptual underpinnings. However, students must actively engage with these concepts to solve the open middle math problem. The open structure forces students to consider these concepts and constantly make decisions and adjust their solution path. Here are some of the questions students might consider when solving the open middle math problem:

• What strategies can be applied to solve? Should I subtract? Should I add up? Can estimation help?
• Should I focus on a certain place value for each number first, or should I create one number completely?
• Is it possible to make two numbers where regrouping will not be required?
• Is it possible to get exactly 329?

Open middle problems can also be word problems. While some open middle math problems are structured this way, others can easily be turned into word problems. For example, the three-digit subtraction problem above can be rewritten as a word problem such as this: Jared and Suni are playing a video game. Each of their scores were three-digit numbers. Jared’s score was 329 less than Suni’s. Use the digits 1–9, at most one time each, to make two three-digit numbers that could be Jared and Suni’s scores.

It’s the journey, not the destination

Because of the way they are designed, open middle math problems emphasize process over product. While students are still expected to arrive at a defensible answer, open middle problems push students to utilize a variety of mathematical skills and understandings to wrestle with the problem. The goal is not to be the quickest to follow a predetermined solution path but, rather, to allow for a more iterative approach where students continually test and revise strategies. Dan Meyer terms this “patient problem solving,” where students bring all their mathematical knowledge and intuition to bear on solving non-routine problems. The active engagement that this engenders supports rich mathematical thinking and discussion amongst students.

One of the co-developers of open middle problems, Nanette Johnson, describes their value this way: “This structure requires students to prove to themselves and others that they have truly found the best possible answer. Rather than putting down their pencils and saying, ‘I’m done,’ students continue to think, argue, and work. They develop the habit of making multiple attempts to solve the problem, each time wondering if they can come up with an even better solution than their last.”

The fact that students can arrive at different answers naturally prompts discussion between students of how they approached the problem, why they think their answer best meets the criteria, and whether other answers could get closer to the goal. As Johnson states, this serves to foster increased engagement and persistence. It also provides a vehicle for the rich mathematical discourse we were seeking in our districts.

Low floors, high ceilings, and big concepts

By design, open middle math problems allow easy entry for all students, but they also provide the flexibility to allow students to stretch themselves. For this reason, open middle problems have been described as easy in terms of getting an answer, but not so easy in terms of getting the ideal or “best” answer. Take, for example, that problem that challenges students to use the digits 1–9, at most one time each, to create two mixed numbers with the least possible difference. Students are given a template like the one on the Open Middle website in which to write their numbers.

Students who are still developing their understanding of fraction operations might take a simple approach of having the digits in the second mixed number be one less than the digits in the first mixed number: 9 5/7 – 8 4/6. This results in a difference of 1 1/21. Another student might opt to use the greatest digits available, 8 and 9, to make the denominators of the fractions, knowing that the greater number of parts a fraction is divided into, the smaller it is. Perhaps they create the expression 2 7/9 – 1 6/8 , which results in a difference of 1 1/36. At this point, the teacher might ask these two students which of their answers is the least, sparking a conversation about the relative magnitude of the numbers, benchmark fractions, and estimation. The teacher could then push students by challenging them to see if it is possible to get an answer that is less than one.

A student further along in their understanding of fractions might recognize that the need to regroup could reduce the size of the final number. Perhaps they create the problem 3 1/9 – 2 7/8 with the result of 17/72. Student interactions or well-placed teacher questions, such as, “Is it possible to get an answer of 0?” might prompt some students to realize using improper fractions can further reduce the magnitude of the answer, indeed all the way down to zero.

The nature of the problem allows all students entry without limiting students with more advanced knowledge of the involved concepts. Rich conversations and strategic teacher questions help all students expand and grow their understanding of concepts beyond the idea of fraction subtraction, while providing teachers insights into each students’ level of understanding of these concepts. In the iterative process of testing ideas, discussing different approaches, and trying new solution paths, students explore far deeper concepts of the meaning of fractions, number magnitude, and equivalent forms.

Impact of using open middle math problems

While there is no research that specifically examines open middle problems, there are studies that show the efficacy of components of the approach. In a research paper on equitable teaching approaches to math, Jo Boaler and Megan Staples call out that several studies have demonstrated that “conceptually oriented mathematics materials, taught well and with consistency, have shown higher and more equitable results for participating students than procedure-oriented curricula taught using a demonstration and practice approach.” Open middle math problems support such a conceptual orientation and, by design, break the “demonstration and practice” model.

Having students discuss and compare different solution approaches is a critical component of open math problems. Although students are not working in groups, they are also not working in isolation. Part of the iterative process of using open middle math problems includes time to share and discuss the relative merits of various solution approaches and use these to iterate new approaches. Actively comparing solution methods has been shown to increase procedural understanding, particularly for lower achieving students. Another study found that students who learned by comparing alternative solution approaches demonstrated greater conceptual knowledge and more flexible problem-solving than students who reflected on different approaches one at a time.

Open middle math problems are well aligned to NCTM’s process standards. They provide rich opportunities to practice:

• Building new mathematical knowledge through problem-solving
• Monitoring and reflecting on the problem-solving process
• Making and exploring mathematical conjectures
• Developing, evaluating, and communicating mathematical reasoning and analyzing the reasoning of others

Getting started

When working on incorporating using open middle math problems in your classroom, we encourage you to determine how to integrate them into existing math lesson plans so they aren’t one more thing you feel you have to do. Consider, for example, how open middle math tasks build off number talks but take you and your students to the next level.

Both open middle math problems and number talks encourage rich dialogue between students. While number talks are conversation-base only, open middle math problems involve both conversation and written responses. Number talks are brief 10–15-minute warmups, while open middle math problems give students more time to explore their thinking and the thinking of others. They also provide teachers with a written record of this thinking and how it evolves over the course of iterative problem-solving.

You might also try working on open middle problems yourself, which can help you understand the power of the approach.

Adding doesn’t necessarily mean more

We also encourage you to focus on potential roadblocks to making open middle math problems a part of your classroom. In our experience, time can be a big concern. If that’s worrying you as well, we suggest you focus on the relative merit of having students deeply engage in a single rich mathematical problem in place of completing 10 rote problems. This can help you move away from a “mile-wide, inch deep” approach to math.

Remember, too, that these problems do not need to be completed in a day. Take the time to let students work through possible solutions, share, discuss, and revise over the course of one or more days.

Finally, time you previously spent looking for better resources could be repurposed into unpacking open middle math problems to prepare you for facilitating a rich classroom discussion. Here are some questions to get you started:

• What big mathematical ideas do you hope students will bring into discussions?
• What models or mathematical terms might students use in their explanations?
• What are examples of clear justification or correct reasoning you hope to see?
• What are some possible solution approaches and what do each of them reveal about students’ understanding of the underlying concepts?

Give it a try!

Adding open middle tasks to your math routines can truly deepen both math conversations and student engagement in your classroom. Ready to try them yourself? Use these links to get more information about open middle math problems and supporting mathematical writing and discourse.

Open middle resources

• Open Middle This site, created by Open Middle co-creators Nanette Johnson and Robert Kaplinsky, contains a wealth of open middle tasks organized by grade and domain as well as worksheets in English, French, and Spanish and printable number tiles.
• Open Middle Exercises GeoGebra has converted many of the paper versions of open middle exercises into interactive versions.
• Open Middle Math: Problems that Unlock Student Thinking, Grades 6–12 You can preview Robert Kaplinsky’s book about open middle math here.

Classroom discussion and mathematical writing resources

• “4 ways to engage students with writing in math class” This article delves into a different way to support and encourage student writing about math, including how to write high-quality explanations for how they solved a problem.
• “Eliciting, supporting, and guiding the math: Three key functions of the teacher’s role in facilitating meaningful mathematical discourse” This piece defines what makes math discourse meaningful, why it’s important, and what the teacher’s role is in facilitating such discourse.
• “Mathematical discourse in the classroom: A prime time for discussion” This article provides strategies for facilitating meaningful mathematical discussion with the goal of helping students develop a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.
• “Using the 5 practices in mathematics teaching” This article provides an overview of how teachers can successfully orchestrate classroom discussions by anticipating possible student solutions, monitoring their work, selecting and sequencing how students share their work, and asking questions that help students make connections between mathematical ideas.

The post Opening up students’ mathematical thinking using open middle math problems appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Building a positive school data culture is no small feat. I introduced seven steps that can help leaders like you be successful in “K–12 data leadership: Be the change for your school community” and dug into the steps a bit more in “Rewriting your data identity and the role of self-reflection” and “Data in education: Starting small and seeking professional learning.” In this article, I’ll explore the remaining steps: building a team, accountability, and mentorship.

But first, I want to express my gratitude for you, and for all the amazing leaders who have inspired this work. While we often speak in terms of deficits, the amount of successes happening in our schools nationwide should not be understated. We are at a pivotal moment in education, and leadership can truly be the tide that lifts all boats. I’d like to dedicate this article to all you school and district leaders who are digging deep, confronting your data identity, and leading your community in prioritizing growth.

I’ve written about the internal narratives that prohibit leaders from becoming their best selves, the importance of turning to the edu-pros when you feel stuck, and the way self-reflection keeps us on our growth path. Now let’s dive into the ways a community can help us strengthen our school data culture.

We’re so much better together

Every year, when the NFL draft begins, sports fans get into fevered debates over which team will get which NFL hopeful. To the victor, the spoils do not go. Instead, lower-performing teams are given first dibs to acquire new talent and level the playing field once the season starts. (My team, unfortunately, has had prime selection in the last few draft picks. Fingers crossed for 24–25.)

The idea is simple: the team needs to be better. And the keyword here? It’s “team.” Rarely can one person march forward to greatness—or, in this case, significant growth—on their own. And, conversations about Number 12 aside, it takes a village to get across the line.

As a leader, once you’ve cleared your own internal obstacles and registered for some meaningful professional learning, you can start to consider your #GrowthGang (I just made that term up). That’s the core group of people who will not only inspire you to keep going, especially on the path to building a positive school data culture, but from whom you can learn and with whom you can grow.

The ebb and flow of growth is easier to withstand when we have a group that empathizes with and supports our internal and external mission. Many school leaders can create a cabinet, essentially their dream team of trusted advisors. I have learned through my conversations with school leaders that equal parts diversity and similarity in skills, disposition, and background are what make a strong leadership community. It’s being similar and different in the ways that count, the ways that push us forward, that can make a tremendous difference, one leader I recently spoke with said.

As you settle into your new school year, I encourage you to reflect on your core group—and take the opportunity to build a team that can go the distance with you.

Don’t settle on accountability

Once you have your team assembled, employ them to keep you on track. As I’ve written before, old habits have a way of creeping back in without notice, so hold yourself accountable to a consistent, committed mindset. Sure, this might wax vulnerable, but holding yourself accountable is non-negotiable.

Step outside the school version of yourself for a moment and reflect on when and how you call on your personal team (a trusted family member, a lifelong bestie) to keep you on track. How did support help you reach a goal or overcome an obstacle? How did having someone in your corner help you be the version of yourself you most want to be?

I know that whenever I feel a limiting behavior is upon me, I call my sister for some much-needed objective insight. Sometimes we are so close to the challenges before us that we can’t see them clearly, much less the best ways to go about solving them. Having a team of trusted colleagues who can serve as a sounding board and thought partners can lift us out of our too-close perspective and make the challenge of improving a school data culture so much easier.

The best kind of ship? Mentorship!

If willpower and commitment aren’t issues for you, and you are intrinsically motivated to stay the course, then a) well done and b) consider elevating your experience by becoming a mentor. If entered into with intention, mentorship is low risk and high reward. We often feel, incorrectly, that learning and teaching cannot happen simultaneously. However, as a mentor, you can blend the two. You can fill your cup by supporting someone in their growth journey and applying your newly honed skills; they can fill yours by bringing a new set of ideas and skills to the table. What could be better?

If being a mentor doesn’t feel right to you, that’s okay. Asking for guidance is more than okay, and becoming a mentee is a great way to learn in a 1:1 environment. Committing to habit change is easier when you’re in the work with someone you value and trust, too.

Whichever side of mentorship you find yourself on, being accountable to a colleague and having them be accountable to you is a surefire way to surround yourself with people who will support and enhance your growth, especially when it comes to the arduous work of building a positive school data culture.

Best wishes for this school year

Each new school year signals to us a fresh start and a chance to reclaim our rough edges and set our sights even higher. For students, a clean academic slate provides endless opportunity for growth, self-discovery, and expansion. For teachers, it means trying new ideas, embracing differentiation, and creatively seeking each student’s personal best by pairing data with content. For leadership, it is a time when we can move with confidence in a new direction, keeping a close eye on the rearview mirror to make sure we have learned from the past.

Now is the time. Seize that confidence. Keep moving forward. I’m confident you can build a school data culture able to support your teachers in their work and your students in reaching their potential.

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Every year, educators come together at the NWEA Fusion conference to talk shop: how to best support teachers, grow students, and learn from our collective years of experience. We share feelings, anecdotes, tips, tricks, and cautionary tales. But our main obsession, the piece that proves the efficacy of initiatives, curriculum changes, and new implementations? Our real keynote speaker, autograph signer, conference swag star? Data. We know, we’re nerdy like that. And every year, we nerd out together. Because we know how important it is for schools to have a positive data culture.

At Fusion 2024, we got a data download with one such nerd, Marcus Fryatt, director of assessment for Park Hill School District in Kansas City, Missouri. Park Hill is on an impressive journey of using regularly scheduled data check-ins: protected time to deep dive into academic data. Marcus makes sure these check-ins occur regularly and generate actionable plans that all educators feel ownership of.

But beyond explaining what comprises an effective data check-in, Marcus shares that successful data implementation begins and ends with a positive data culture. Ready to hear from him? Watch our conversation with Marcus to hear more about his passion for patience.

Need a playbook? We’ve distilled five steps for education leaders to implement Marcus’s data-driven vision in their school or district here.

Step 1: Break the data into manageable pieces

Supporting teachers on their data literacy journey doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It’s all about making data feel approachable. Instead of handing over vast data sets that can feel like insurmountable mountains, why not start with a few manageable hills?

Marcus and I hereby give you permission to start with a single data point—or, if you test with MAP® Growth or MAP® Reading Fluency, a single report. (For more on MAP Growth reports and MAP Reading Fluency reports, visit our MAP Help Center.) Let that single data point or report be the only thing your team focuses on for a set period, like a semester or a year. It can be tempting to investigate more, zooming in and out, but mastering one data point or report at a time pays long-term dividends when the team is ready to branch out.

By presenting data in bite-sized portions, you are empowering your teachers to:

• Focus on one aspect at a time, avoiding overwhelm
• Begin to see data as a story that paints a bigger picture over time
• Have time and space to implement data-driven instructional changes—and see the ripples of those changes within the data itself

Leaders, it’s essential to explicitly signal to teachers that they don’t have to master all reports. Encourage them to stay focused on a single data set for a given period. This is a powerful way to get started building a positive data culture.

Step 2: Protect recurring data check-ins

Marcus has pioneered Park Hill’s data check-ins, which occur three times a year with building leaders and are reserved for talking about academic data only. Marcus says, “There is an infinite amount of data we’re able to provide our schools, but this time is purely dedicated to academic information based on NWEA Growth data.”

In these meetings, Marcus, building and instructional leaders, and classroom teachers dive into the pure academic data. They discuss what story the data is telling and plan a “theory of action”—a structure for understanding what changes and shifts need to occur in response to the data. At that point, Marcus’s district-level job is to provide resources and support to bolster that individual school’s plan.

But for this to happen, Marcus underscores three components that must be in place. He explains that the time for these data conversations must be:

• Protected. Time will not find itself. Data check-ins must be prioritized and marked as non-negotiable on the calendar.
• Predictable. No one should have to ask when data is going to be discussed and put to use. Get a recurring appointment going, even if you’re unsure of where to start.
• Pointed. Keep the focus of these meetings on academic data only. There are countless other data points, anecdotes, and observations that can add noise. Keep the signal pointed at the purely academic growth data.

Step 3: Shift everyone’s mindset from achievement to growth

“The idea is not, ‘I need every kid at a certain achievement level,’” Marcus explains. “The idea is, ‘What am I doing to help students grow?’”

If you’ve been around NWEA’s corner of the internet, you know we’re all about growth. But it’s one thing to idealize, and it’s quite another to implement. In Marcus’s experience, he advocates for district leaders to change their language to emphasize growth as the only measurement teachers should invest in. This is critical to building a positive data culture.

Many teachers have an internalized fear about test scores being weaponized against them, despite NWEA and education leaders acknowledging the myriad factors that compose a test score. Teachers worry that they won’t get students where they “should” be, joylessly catapulting themselves through their curriculum to achieve test scores. This, we all agree, benefits no one.

Leaders, as you clearly and transparently encourage a positive data culture and a mindset shift toward growth rather than achievement, take that as an opportunity to directly reassure teachers that their focus is not on rectifying years of a student’s “shoulds.” Marcus advocates for a culture shift—even one that takes years—that starts at the top and allows teachers to focus on one mission: “My job as a teacher is to help students grow.”

Step 4: Focus on relationships

It can be tempting to picture a data-driven culture as one of cold, hard science and numbers. This, folks, is mythology. Data is what’s on the page, but the act of data interpretation, strategy, planning, and follow-through is solely in the hands of people: people with dreams, families, emotions, tempers, fears, and big ol’ soft spots. From our youngest students to our tenured faculty members, this is about people.

Relationships inside a school are a waterfall. Their trickle-down effect starts in the office and ends in the backpack. Are our kids carting around district baggage about failure, passed to them from dejected teachers? Or do our kids feel successful and cared for because our teachers feel respected, supported, and recognized as human beings? Do district leaders, many of whom were once teachers themselves, still feel connected to the joy of a classroom “aha”moment?

It’s possible to prioritize data as an objective compass while driving change through relational compassion. And often, it’s just about reminding the team of who’s at the bottom of the waterfall: our kids.

Step 5: Embrace the slow pace

At one point in our conversation, Marcus takes a deep breath. “It’s like writing a dissertation,” he says. “You have to get something down on paper first.”

No matter your role in education, you know that big changes take time, and that their difficulty is just part of the process. No one knows better than educators, whether they’re classroom teachers or district leaders, that you just have to “rip the Band-Aid off,” as Marcus says.

A glorious part of the profession is that success, like a student’s career, is measured in years, not days. Year one isn’t going to be perfect. Year two isn’t going to be, either! As Marcus reminds us, “Just like teaching, it’s a never-ending process. We continue to search for new ways to help each of our teachers support each of our students. That’s the goal.” So stay the course, and your efforts toward building a positive data culture will pay off in the end.

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I am betting it is safe to say that most of us have experienced test taking anxiety at some point in our lives. Maybe in high school you put in a staggering amount of time studying for a very important exam but were so concerned about doing well that you couldn’t sleep the night before or concentrate properly the day of the test. Maybe you had a stomachache during the exam or felt your pulse racing. Or maybe you sat down for the exam and your mind went blank.

These are all classic instances of test taking anxiety. And as difficult as these situations can be for students in general education, test taking anxiety poses significantly different challenges for students with disabilities. For example, when I was teaching, one of my students with ADHD found timed exams to be very difficult. When the test would begin, the idea of the clock ticking increased her anxiety, making it very hard for her to concentrate. Although she knew the material, the anxiety caused mental blocks that led to incomplete answers. The result was scores that didn’t fully reflect her true ability, which affected her confidence and increased her anxiety for future tests. It was an awful cycle.

Knowing some of the problems kids with disabilities may experience can lead us to be proactive with solutions that we know work. Here are some strategies that have worked for me over the years with my students.

1. Review the student’s IEP

This may seem obvious, but an IEP provides essential, individualized information for any testing accommodations a student should receive. Some students may require additional time or a smaller group setting. Others may require text-to-speech tools that can read the test aloud to the student, or access to a highlighter to help them focus on key information. It will all be spelled out in the IEP.

Since students grow and change from year to year, their accommodations may change as well. This should be reflected in a student’s IEP and is one of the many reasons it’s so important to have an up-to-date IEP.

2. Involve the student’s family or caregivers

The school-to-home connection is a crucial one for students with disabilities. Involving parents and other caregivers to help explain the purpose of testing can go a long way toward ensuring a successful testing experience.

If you test with MAP® Growth in your school, know that the Family Report is designed to be the centerpiece of important discussions like this. Parents and caregivers can speak with their kids about what the assessment is and how it fits in with their progress as a student. The following Teach. Learn. Grow. articles can also help you strengthen communication:

• “MAP Growth 101: Everything families need to know”
• “12 common questions parents ask about MAP Growth”
• “Leading up to MAP Growth: 20 tips for families”

3. Preview the testing experience

We know many students with disabilities do so well—and feel so comfortable—when they are within their daily routines. But an assessment like MAP Growth is usually given three times a year and can certainly be considered as something that is outside a daily routine.

Previewing the day and the test, so kids know what the experience will be like, can be very helpful. MAP Growth has a great solution for this: kids can take the practice test to get familiar with the format. Reminding students about the schedule change the day before the test can also help them know what to expect.

4. Talk to students about how to use their specific accommodations during each test

Kids may need reminders about accommodations leading up to assessment day. For some students, this may just be a gentle conversation about the tools they have at their disposal to help them do well. For others, it might be a reminder that they can take a break plus demonstrating, “This is how you ask for a break.”

Giving all kids a fair shot

Test taking anxiety is real, but it doesn’t have to be insurmountable. With the right support, our students with disabilities get a better chance to demonstrate what they’ve learned.

The solution for my student with ADHD was to give her breaks and extended time that allowed her to refocus. She was ultimately able to show all the hard work she had put into learning the material. What will work best in your classroom?

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We throw a pretty amazing conference every year called Fusion. Fusion is a chance for educators from around the country to get together to learn about and share evidence-based practices for moving students forward. And every year, we have multiple workshops about goal setting. Why? Because goal setting for students is absolutely an evidence-based best practice for improving student outcomes.

Fusion sessions are often packed as educators from large and small, urban and rural districts learn about goal setting. Below you’ll find some important goal setting questions that come up every year, along with the answers.

What is goal setting for students?

Goal setting is a set of practices for helping individual students understand their academic performance, identify concrete goals for future performance, and collaborate with their teacher on the behaviors and practices that will get them there.

Why is goal setting for students so important?

There are many benefits to both the process and the outcomes of goal setting. Here are a few of the most important ones:

• Students get motivated. Research shows that goal setting is implicit. As soon as a task is introduced, students are already planning on how much effort they are going to put in. Setting goals helps students stay motivated and engaged by giving them clear targets to aim for. 
• Students take ownership. When students set their own goals, they own their goals and their learning. This sense of control and autonomy has many benefits, including increased self-confidence.
• Students continuously improve through formative assessment. Goal setting works hand-in-hand with formative assessment. Teachers can use goals to guide their instructional strategies and provide targeted feedback, helping students continuously improve.
• Students see their own growth. Goals provide a framework for measuring progress. By setting and achieving goals, students can see their growth over time, which reinforces their learning and development.

What are effective student goal setting strategies?

In what is surely going to be welcome news to busy teachers, the goal-setting process doesn’t require following strict rules. Effective strategies generally share five key ideas:

• Center student choice.Students should feel like they are in charge of what and how they learn. Centering their choices provides the opportunities for self-reflection and agency that are critical for empowering learners. This is an important idea to incorporate as you’re working with your students on goals. 
• Start early.Students can begin setting individual behavioral or academic goals as early as kindergarten! Getting this early start helps students get used to the process. It’s equally important to set goals as early as you can every school year.
• Do it often. Individual goals should be short-term, spanning around four to six weeks. Regular weekly check-ins with students are great for evaluating progress, making adjustments, encouraging students, and helping kids stay focused if they are feeling discouraged.
• Make it visual. Effective goal-setting techniques involve tools like anchor charts, data walls, personalized learning plans, data notebooks, and other student-accessible resources. These ask students to directly identify their goal, describe the steps they should take to get there, and ultimately provide evidence their goal has been reached.
• Create personal relevance.The best goal-setting processes begin during conversations with students about what matters to them. Teachers can use students’ personal aspirations, areas of interest, or experiences as departure points for talking about why setting a goal matters.

What’s the role of assessment data in goal setting for students?

Assessment data plays a crucial role in goal setting. Accurate assessment data provides the insights that establish where a student is in their learning. It also helps you tailor educational strategies to the student’s individual needs.

How can I set effective goals using MAP Growth data?

Goal setting is an area where MAP® Growth really shines, primarily because the growth norms are created from the world’s largest pool of student data. Here’s a quick example of what goal setting with MAP Growth can look like.

Step 1: Analyze your assessment data

Start here! Always get underway by assessing what a student already knows. This is the departure point for helping students make their own next steps and connect with their own growth.

Step 2: Have a conversation

The most important part of goal setting is ensuring students set goals that are meaningful and realistic for them. If goals are created and simply given to a student, the student won’t be invested in the goal. It’s also crucial that the goal centers on the relevant learning that needs to occur, not just on the increase of a number, like a RIT score. The MAP Growth Student Profile report is a great starting point for this conversation.

Here are some recommendations on how to talk things over with a student:

• Talk with your student about how they felt when they took the assessment. What did they feel comfortable with? What was challenging? For example, they might say that they felt pretty good about questions related to whole numbers and basic operations but weren’t as sure about the fraction questions.
• Look at the goal section of the report with your student. What would be average growth for similar students? Depending on your student’s current achievement percentile, meeting the average growth might be adequate. If they are at the 85^th percentile, meeting the growth projection would keep them at roughly that achievement level. If they are below the 50^th percentile, above average growth might be needed. A reasonable growth percentile would be at the 60^th percentile of growth. This gives a goal for the next MAP Growth assessment, and you’ll need a plan to reach this goal. Focus on the Instructional Areas section of the Student Profile report to determine specifically what learning would help you reach the goal.
• Look at the learning statements. These will provide an idea of the types of questions your student will be able to answer correctly about half the time, or those in their zone of proximal development. Talk with your student about how this data relates to how they feel about their learning and determine a concept and skills that they would like to focus as you’re going through your next unit.
• Have your student write the goal. Having students write their own goals gives them a sense of ownership. After that, they can determine the steps they can take to meet them, and you can identify how you can support them. It’s also helpful to think about what might get in the way of reaching a goal as well as what can be done to overcome barriers.

What should I do between MAP Growth testing events?

Your students will take MAP Growth three times a year: in the fall, winter, and spring. Between those testing events, it’s helpful to track progress with formative assessment. One of the greatest benefits of formative assessment is that it can help you identify progress toward a goal and course correct if necessary. Just remember: formative assessment should never be used for grading.

You can also strengthen the school-to-home connection by sharing student goals with the student’s family and caregivers with the Family report. Feel free to also share the Family Toolkit, which is loaded with helpful resources.

Finally, be sure to celebrate accomplishments along the way. Encouraging students to be proud of what they’ve achieved can help them stay the course and feel excited and confident about their learning.

Thinking ahead

Goal setting for students, like everything else, is about preparing the young people in your class for the future. It’s such an amazing, effective best practice for them today and a practical skill they can use once they have finished school and are out changing the world. By starting with students early, you’re giving them an essential tool to use right now and a great head start in life.

For more ideas on how to tackle goal setting in your classroom, read more here in Teach. Learn. Grow. and watch the video below.

The post Everything you need to know about goal setting for students appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Have you ever taken a piece of writing on your computer and dropped it wholesale into the recycle bin? Ever crumpled up a piece of paper full of writing and shot it at a trash can, hoping to make a basket? There’s something universally cathartic about being able to start over again—from scratch—with writing. Perhaps it’s because we learn something new as we write. And though our early failed efforts can be painful, they do point us in a new direction and get us closer to what we really want to say with our writing. When you give students feedback on their writing process, you can help them do just that.

Writing is a recursive process, not a linear one

Research shows that this idea of starting over with writing has merit. Writing is a recursive process, not a linear one. The recursive model was first proposed by Linda Flower and John Hayes in 1981, replacing the previous linear model I was taught in school, which involved outlining, completing a first draft, editing, completing a second draft, and so on, all in the same order each time.

In the recursive model, writers constantly move between cognitive processes, such as planning (setting goals, generating ideas, organizing ideas), drafting (putting a writing plan into action), and reviewing (evaluating, editing, revising). Writers move fluidly between these processes to accomplish specific, self-generated goals.

Writers change their goals based on what they learn through the act of writing

According to Flower and Hayes, writing goals change, and they are generated in one of two ways:

1. The writer establishes high-level goals and supporting sub-goals based on their purpose for writing.These goals are often set before writing begins. For example, a high-level goal for a student in elementary school might be, “I want to tell my school principal about how moving more during the day is good for us, so I can ask for PE class every day instead of every other day.”
2. The writer changes their writing goal, or creates a new goal, based on what they learn through the act of writing. For the same student, the evolution of their goal might look like this: “My research says that students need 60 minutes of physical activity a day, so my plan for PE class every day isn’t enough. I need to get creative. How can students move more throughout the day? If I start my letter with these ideas, I’ll really get my principal’s attention.” (Cue shot of crumpled-up piece of paper landing in trash can.)

Often, those tossed-out efforts are proof positive that we’re engaged in the writing process and, more importantly, learning from it!

Students and their teachers may learn more from feedback on the writing process than on the written product

Flower and Hayes also suggest that educators should give students feedback on their writing process—not just the written product—when they give students input. This is because it can provide more useful information for students and teachers than focusing on the written product alone. Here are five reasons why:

1. Proficient writing is closely linked to a writer’s ability to self-regulate

Self-regulation is the ability to manage your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to achieve your goals. In writing, self-regulation involves managing your environment, behaviors, and personal thoughts to effectively plan, draft, and review your work.

Educational psychologists describe these fundamental forms of self-regulation in writing as follows:

• Environmental processes are the external conditions and resources that writers use to facilitate their writing. This includes managing the physical environment (like finding a quiet place to write), seeking feedback from others, and using tools and resources (such as dictionaries or writing software) to enhance writing quality.
• Behavioral processes are the actions and strategies that writers employ to improve their writing. These include goal setting and generation tasks like outlining, drafting, and revising. But they also include self-reinforcement, such as rewarding ourselves when we meet a writing goal (like treating myself to a piece of dark chocolate when I finish writing this blog!).
• Personal processes are the internal cognitive and emotional mechanisms that influence writing. These include beliefs (confidence in one’s writing abilities), motivation (the desire to accomplish a goal with one’s writing), and cognitive strategies (like planning and organizing). They also include emotional regulation, such as how we manage stress and maintain focus while writing.

These three forms of self-regulation interact in a cyclic feedback loop—a loop that gives students many opportunities to self-monitor and adjust their strategies based on what’s going well (or not so well) in their writing.

Unfortunately, traditional feedback methods for student writing often deprive students of these opportunities to become self-regulated learners. In many cases, self-reflection and dialogue produce more relevant feedback for students, as my colleague Gina Wilmurth writes about in “Speak up! How getting students to talk more can improve writing.”

2. Multilingual learners engage in distinct writing processes and benefit from varied feedback

Researchers have found that multilingual learners use distinct writing strategies compared to monolingual learners. These processes aid multilingual learners in navigating the complexities of writing in English by leveraging their full linguistic repertoires. For example:

• Multilingual learners frequently rehearse phrases and words to ensure accuracy and fluency in their writing. This helps them internalize and produce language in English that aligns with their intended meaning.
• Multilingual learners often switch to their native language to retrieve a specific word or idea because it provides access to a broader range of vocabulary and concepts, which can then be translated into English.
• Multilingual learners may revert to their native language to review their writing for coherence, checking that writing is logically structured and ideas flow smoothly.

It’s important to remember that the language students learn first is the bedrock upon which all other languages develop. That’s why empowering multilingual learners to use translanguaging during their writing process is so effective.

When providing feedback on writing to multilingual learners, the type of feedback matters, too. In a meta-analysis of 25 studies on this topic, peer feedback was found to be more effective than teacher feedback for non-native speakers of English. Non-native speakers also benefitted from more varied feedback than native speakers, including oral, written, and computer-based feedback. Finally, the analysis revealed that coaching students on the revision process improved the content of their writing more than giving feedback on a specific written product. For example, providing general explanations about grammatical patterns was more effective than identifying specific errors.

3. Feedback that promotes a growth mindset is more effective than feedback that highlights errors

While feedback generally leads to writing gains for all students, all feedback is not equal. Based on the body of research, some feedback leads to significant gains in learning, some has no effect, and some has a negative effect. Formative feedback, which is given directly to students as part of everyday teaching and learning, is the most effective feedback for writing.

Feedback that promotes a growth mindset (i.e., using effort to increase learning and accepting that mistakes are an important part of the learning process) is also effective. This is particularly true for low-achieving students because it draws a clear connection between effort and achievement (“My writing improved because I worked hard”), which leads to higher expectations for future writing tasks and more attention to effort. Unfortunately, a student’s growth mindset is rendered useless whenever we include a grade with our comments. Repeated studies show that grades alone and grades with comments produce no learning gains. However, comments alone—as is typical in a formative feedback cycle—can result in large learning gains.

4. How we frame feedback to students makes a difference

While formative feedback can improve students’ learning and enhance teachers’ teaching, this is only true when students are receptive to the feedback and the feedback is on target.

In one study involving tenth-graders, students didn’t understand what the feedback was intended to achieve. A teacher’s feedback on word choice, for example, was perceived as a request to use “bigger words” that would impress the teacher. Another study with seventh-graders, however, produced a different result. Researchers placed a handwritten sticky note on some students’ essays that read, “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.” This simple reframing led to significant gains in writing quality, especially among African American students. Students who received these notes were 40% more likely than the control group to revise their essays and integrate the teacher’s feedback. Why? The sticky notes built trust between teachers and students.

Clearly, how we frame our feedback can make all the difference. That’s why well-known researchers Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey have a new framework for creating a positive culture of feedback in the classroom. Their “4 C’s of Feedback” focus on care, credibility, clarity, and communication. They also address many of the issues I’ve noted in this article, such as the importance of one’s environment, building trust, and self-regulation. To learn more, watch the free webinar How Feedback Works.

In the meantime, when you give students feedback on their writing process, follow these dos and don’ts.

5. Feedback about the writing process is more likely to transfer to future writing tasks

There are many ways to give students feedback on their writing process effectively. What’s most important is to start, because students are more likely to transfer this feedback to future writing tasks. For a more holistic view, gather input from students, their peers, and adults who observe them writing. Start simply by asking students to rate a series of “I statements” on a four-point scale (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree).

Here are 10 statements to get you started:

• I enjoy writing at school.
• I set goals when I am writing.
• It’s hard for me to come up with ideas when I write.
• I do not usually plan before I start writing.
• I can stay focused when I write.
• I like making changes to my writing.
• I do not like to share my writing with others.
• I write differently depending on who will read my writing.
• I know who I can go to for help with my writing.
• I believe writing is important in everyday life.

Students can revisit these statements throughout the year to track their growth as writers. Also, make sure that you take time during every writing conference to discuss a student’s writing process. During these conversations, you can suggest strategies that might help the student improve their process based on their specific needs (e.g., planning, staying focused, getting help).

And remember, there’s always room for improvement

The writing process first proposed by Flower and Hayes in 1981 was so influential that it spawned fourteen other models, including four revisions by Flower and Hayes to their original work. The lesson here is that there’s always room for improvement when it comes to teaching writing and supporting student writers. For example, more recent studies show that digital support for academic writing is most effective when it encourages students to self-monitor and develop their own writing strategies.

As an educator and writer, I’m excited about these new technologies that can aid us in writing. I’ll probably still feel compelled to toss out an early draft or two. But next time, I just might ask an AI chatbot what it thinks before I do.

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Explaining assessment data to families can be challenging. Their focus is often on letter grades and whether their child is passing or failing. When family-teacher conferences roll around, they’re rarely long enough to cover everything, leaving assessment data to fall by the wayside. And both families and kids may be confused about why MAP® Growth isn’t the same as a state-level, year-end assessment.

That’s why we worked closely with Learning Heroes to create the MAP Growth Family Report, a tool that can make these critical conversations more constructive. While it’s currently only available in English, a Spanish translation is available for reference.

Here’s how the Family Report can help.

• Written for family members. Intended specifically for parents and guardians, the Family Report focuses on what families value most: clear information on a student’s performance—and how to encourage learning and growth
• Designed to level set. A brief introduction explains the goal of the report, what MAP Growth is, and why students take MAP Growth. It also defines “achievement,” “growth,” and “RIT score,” so everyone’s on the same page from the start
• Easy to navigate. A student’s progress is broken down by subject, while graphs show individual achievement and growth compared to the national average and, when possible, compared to local state standards
• Clearly connected to achievement. Families are shown whether a student is on track to perform well on state-level or other upcoming assessments, like the ACT, so they can get a clear sense of how well a student is moving toward achieving bigger goals, like being ready for college
• Actionable. A list of questions is included to get the conversation started. Families are also led to our website to learn more about MAP Growth
• Printer friendly. Teachers can quickly print reports for an entire classroom of students, so it’s easy for them to send reports home

For more help sharing assessment data with families, take a look at our family guide to MAP Growth.

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Imagine walking into a classroom where every student is eagerly participating, their eyes shining with curiosity and their hands flying up with questions and answers. This isn’t a fantasy or even an idealistic dream; it’s the reality that effective, targeted instructional coaching for student engagement can help you achieve.

In a world where student disengagement is a growing concern, the partnership between instructional coaches and classroom teachers becomes pivotal in transforming classrooms from mundane to magnetic. Whether you are a classroom teacher on the hunt for strategies to captivate your students or an instructional coach eager to supercharge your support for teachers, here are three steps that can help.

Step 1: Define “student engagement” and why it matters

Jim Knight, a well-known expert in instructional coaching, defines student engagement in a way that emphasizes the active role students play in their learning. According to Knight, student engagement refers to the extent to which students are involved in their own learning, including but not limited to their participation in class and their emotional and intellectual investment in learning.

When students participate in class activities, discussions, and tasks, they contribute to the lessons and collaborate with peers. When students feel a sense of belonging and value in the classroom environment, they are emotionally engaged in the learning. When students think critically about the material and apply their knowledge in a variety of ways, they are intellectually engaged in the learning.

Why does all of this matter? Because when student engagement happens consistently, it creates an environment where students are well-positioned to play an active role in their achievement.

Step 2: Understand the four types of engagement

Instead of throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what might stick, let us dig into the research on instructional coaching for student engagement for a more targeted approach. The research leads us back to Knight’s framework, which categorizes engagement into four types:

• Behavioral
• Emotional
• Cognitive
• Social

Behavioral engagement is the foundational level of engagement. It involves students being on task and demonstrating their engagement through participation, attending class, and completing assignments.

Emotional engagement includes students’ interest, enthusiasm, sense of belonging, and overall positive attitude toward school and learning.

Cognitive engagement involves the mental effort and intellectual investment students make in their learning, including critical thinking, goal setting, and connecting concepts.

Social engagement pertains to how students interact with their peers, contribute to the classroom community, share ideas, participate in discussions, and provide feedback.

By understanding and addressing these four dimensions of engagement, we aim to foster deeper, more meaningful engagement in our students.

Step 3: Use strategies that work

There are several classroom practices that address our students’ needs, boosting engagement and enhancing learning.

Today’s students are digital natives who are accustomed to interactive multimedia experiences, so we can tap into that and work to improve engagement in various ways, including through gamified instruction. Gamifying instruction in particular does not have to be complex. You can start by incorporating a point system or creating digital badges like “Top Contributor” for students working on behavior engagement or “Inquiry Icon” for students developing their cognitive engagement. Incorporating leaderboards, quests, challenges, and even classic game mechanics can level up a simple activity into an engaging experience.

Our High Growth for All research study also identified ten specific instructional strategies proven to support student learning, which we refer to as the Transformative Ten. When students are successful in their learning, thanks to effective approaches to teaching, engagement is sure to follow.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not highlight the profound impact formative assessment has on student engagement. While not meant to be used for grading, formative assessment can provide real-time insights that enable personalized learning, motivate students through goal setting, and inform instructional decisions. By leveraging a variety of assessment data in the classroom, educators can gain a comprehensive view of each student’s academic progress. When this data is paired with effective strategies tailored to meet individual needs, we can create the dynamic and responsive learning environment of our dreams.

Instructional coaching through NWEA

Consider the partnership between coach and teacher as a collaborative effort to explore, analyze, contextualize, and apply insights together. Instructional coaching for student engagement can make a big difference in your school or classroom.

To learn more about instructional coaching services available through NWEA, visit our website.

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As with many things in education, the term “enrichment” has come to mean different things to different people. For some, enrichment refers to supplemental classroom content or after-school activities that go beyond the standard curriculum. For others, it means a group of students who get pulled from the regular class to engage in more challenging content or gifted and talented activities. Math enrichment in particular can mean a lot of things.

When I first started teaching, I thought of enrichment as the puzzles and activities that I had on hand for fast finishers. I used these frequently in math when I thought I needed something to challenge kids who clearly (or so I thought) understood the math. Both of those assumptions—that what I was giving those students was enrichment and that finishing quickly meant students understood math deeply—were among the many things that I misunderstood as a beginning teacher. So, what is a better model for enrichment in math?

Math enrichment for all

There are several issues with my original approach to enrichment. First, it provided students who might actually have been ready for more challenge with glorified busywork that didn’t deepen their understanding of math. Second, it created a delineation between regular (aka “boring”) math work and “fun” enrichment work. Finally—and most importantly—it reinforced the assumption that not all students were capable of deeper understanding of math or worthy of enrichment. If indeed there had been an activity of value, it would only have been offered to a select few students (and usually the same few), denying others the opportunity to explore math in a richer way. As Jennifer Piggott of the University of Cambridge’s NRICH Mathematics Project puts it, “Enrichment should pervade the curriculum as a whole and not simply be available to those who work fastest.”

Ironically, it wasn’t until I became an enrichment teacher that I was introduced to the concept of enrichment for all. My school had a two-tiered enrichment program. In addition to a traditional pull-out program, every class got multiple one-week enrichment sessions each year where I worked with the grade-level classroom teachers to create a unit that deepened on-grade content. The lessons were designed so that all students could participate in all activities but were purposefully open-ended enough to allow students to explore the content at different depths. In these whole-class sessions, I saw both high levels of engagement and an incredible depth of thinking by all students.

Setting things straight

Before digging further into enrichment, I want to clarify some terminology. First, let’s address the difference between “enrichment” and “acceleration.” Researchers Susanne Schnell and Susanne Prediger nicely distinguish the two concepts in their study “Mathematics enrichment for all—Noticing and enhancing mathematical potentials of underprivileged students as an issue of equity”: “Acceleration means learning mathematics in accelerated pace (mainly by taking special courses ahead of the normally scheduled year). Enrichment means to expand students’ experiences and skills by exposing them to rich learning processes.” They further distinguish two approaches to enrichment: enrichment by “broadening,” or the learning of extra topics or subjects, often via extracurricular programs, and enrichment by “deepening,” which focuses on greater depth and complexity with the current topic. I’m going to focus on enrichment by deepening.

Why math enrichment for all?

Numerous research studies have highlighted the fact that African American, Latino, and Native American students, English learners, students with disabilities, and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are significantly underrepresented in traditional gifted and talented programs. This can be attributed to multiple factors, ranging from biased or flawed entry criteria to lack of equal educational opportunities for all students. Couple this with inequitable access to on-grade instruction and high-quality instructional materials and you can see that some students face real barriers to accessing anything beyond low-level content.

NCTM’s position on Access and Equity in Mathematics Education calls out that “To increase opportunities to learn, educators at all levels must focus on ensuring that all students have access to high-quality instruction, challenging curriculum, innovative technology, exciting extracurricular offerings, and the differentiated supports and enrichment necessary to promote students’ success at continually advancing levels.” Schnell and Prediger propose that an enrichment for all approach is necessary to expose the potential of traditionally underserved students: “Only if the situation has a potential of becoming mathematically rich, then the student can show some potentials. And in longer-term perspectives: if the student experiences his or her mathematical potential in a mathematically rich learning situation, then the potential can become a stable characteristic of the student in the long run.”

Students who are perpetually underchallenged have little opportunity to showcase their potential. I also appreciate Schnell and Prediger’s use of the term “potential,” as it implies a more fluid and dynamic characteristic, which may appear situationally but can be nurtured and developed. By contrast, labels like “gifted” and “talented” tend to be approached as more static and “given by nature.”

Furthermore, studies have shown that access to enriching math content has a positive impact on students’ engagement and attitudes. One study examined the Secondary Mathematics Masterclass program in the UK, which is designed to “inspire and engage young people in the art and practice of mathematics.” Students in the program reported enjoying learning “through experimenting rather than just being told something.” Over 60% felt the program improved their attitude toward and confidence in math, as well as their mathematical ability. John Hattie’s Visible Learning project cites attitude toward content domain as a factor with the potential to accelerate learning. All students need access to opportunities that support such positive experiences in math.

Getting started with math enrichment for all

Now that you understand the why behind enrichment for all, it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty of how to provide it. In their paper, Schnell and Prediger propose seven design principles for fostering all students’ mathematics potential:

1. Provide enrichment in whole-class settings
2. Enrich and deepen topics related to the on-grade curriculum
3. Utilize low-floor/high-ceiling problems to allow for differentiation and challenge
4. Engage students with rich mathematical problems
5. Use open-ended problems to give students experiences of autonomy and competence
6. Value cognitively demanding processes over “perfect products”
7. Support positive engagement through discussion of students’ ideas and thinking

Below are three specific ways to put some of these principles in action. The good news is you may already be doing some of these!

1. Support positive engagement through discussion of student’s ideas and thinking

Many college- and career-ready standards include practice standards requiring students to articulate their thinking and critique others’ reasoning. Thus, many teachers already include mathematical conversations as a regular part of their classroom. The importance of this cannot be understated. In his research on high-growth strategies, Chase Nordengren states that “Student conversation is the most concrete representation of students’ higher order thinking. By introducing student discourse early and often, high-growth teachers create opportunities for all students to engage in higher-order thinking around grade-level topics.”

But not all student conversations are alike. To be effective, the discourse should be focused on high-level questions and big topics rather than solely on procedural questions. Research has shown that high-level questions that prompt students to reflect on and consolidate their learning improve student performance. While students may start by explaining their approach to a problem, they can be prompted with high-level questions to see connections to previous problems and big mathematical ideas. Delving into big mathematical ideas supports the design principle of deepening and enriching on-grade topics.

When planning questions for a unit or lesson, think about the mathematical ideas that underlie the topic of the lesson and what you might ask to help students make these connections. For example, when discussing a problem about dividing fractions, students can be directed to discuss larger topics like the meaning of division, the relationship between division and multiplication, as well as fundamental fraction concepts. NWEA’s free Formative Conversation Starters provide a great model for using a single problem as a jumping-off point for a deeper discussion of big math ideas. For tips on how to implement these conversations, check out my colleague Kailey Rhodes’s post “Formative conversations and the pursuit of equity in math instruction: 4 light bulb moments.” Or read my colleague Ted Coe’s post on student discourse to learn more about the connection between high-level questions and strategies for high growth for all.

Open-ended, general questions like “How does that work?” “Is that always true?” and “What do you notice/wonder about…” also help promote deeper thinking over quick responses.

2. Engage students with rich mathematical problems

Problem-solving is a standard part of all math classes. Traditionally, this takes the form of routine word problems where students apply the skill learned in the previous lesson to a real-world context. Such problems rarely demand deep thinking of students.

In his TED Talk, math teacher Dan Meyer talks about how he revises the problems in his textbook to support “patient problem-solving,” where students must ask questions, rely on their intuition, build the problem themselves, and actively and iteratively make decisions. His Three-Act Tasks present students with limited information, usually in multimedia form, and a question to answer. Through discussion, students ask questions, generate ideas, determine what information they need, gather that information and then work on answering the original question, self-monitoring, and changing course as needed. They are actively engaging in mathematical thinking in a way that they don’t when solving a rote problem with a straightforward solution path.

Fermi problems are another example of problems that support creative thinking. Named after physicist Enrico Fermi, these are open-ended problems that push solvers to determine a solution path, make and test assumptions, and sometimes make reasonable estimates to solve. They also support a collaborative group approach and mathematical modeling. An example of a Fermi problem is, “How much water does your household use in a week? Can you answer this without looking at a water bill?” As with Three-Act Tasks, students must determine what information they need and determine a solution path, which they must monitor and change as needed.

3. Utilize low-floor, high-ceiling problems to allow for differentiation and challenge

Low-floor, high-ceiling tasks are designed to allow all students to participate and contribute to the conversation while giving those with deeper understanding something chewier to wrestle with. Or as described on NRICH’s site, “everyone can get started and everyone can get stuck.” Problems are structured so that there is more than one way to solve them, and there is room for students to explore different approaches and wrestle with bigger mathematical concepts.

Educator and researcher Marian Small has created a type of low-floor, high-ceiling task that she calls open questions. These types of questions allow for natural differentiation and, like the Formative Conversation Starters, also use a single question to explore big ideas in math through rich classroom discussions. Here’s an example of an open middle question: ____ is 4/5 of ____. This presentation allows all students entry to the problem. Every student can respond in some way, and the variety of responses can be leveraged to raise the level of the discussion for the entire class. The blanks can be filled with various types of numbers: whole numbers (4 is 4/5 of 5 or 72 is 4/5 of 90), fractions (12/25 is 4/5 of 6/10), or decimals (0.8 is 4/5 of 1). Students who show deeper understanding can easily be asked to stretch their thinking.

Small recommends circulating around the room to monitor student work. If you feel a student isn’t stretching themselves as much as they could, tell them that many people have similar answers and request that they find an answer with, say, greater numbers or a different type of number. All of this can lead to conversations about different types of numbers as well as the meaning of multiplication and scaling. Open questions like these help students understand that not all of math is about following a single path to an answer but, instead, can be about flexible thinking and creativity.

A note about technology

Technology has become an integral part of education. As with all educational tools, its uses should be carefully considered. While online programs can support math enrichment for all, care must be taken to ensure that they do not either become digital versions of the puzzles I gave to my fast finishers or claim to accelerate learning without building solid conceptual understanding. Online communication and collaboration tools can be a great way for students to model, map, and share their mathematical thinking with others. Check out “75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom” to find some that might work for your class.

Whenever students are learning online, have them explicitly connect that work to whole-class content and teach them to think metacognitively about the material they are interacting with. Both strategies support higher-order thinking and retention of knowledge.

Changing minds

Shifting to an enrichment-for-all approach can unlock the mathematical potential of all students. To get started, think about how you can build on what you already do in your classroom to provide open-ended, rich explorations of math for all students. Feel like you need some more support? We’ve got you covered with the high-quality resources listed below.

• 3 Act Task File Cabinet. Educator Graham Fletcher has a host of resources on his site, including links to Three-Act Tasks for a wide array of grades organized by big ideas and standards.
• Dan Meyer’s Three-Act Math Tasks. This Google Sheet contains links to Three-Act Tasks, primarily for middle and high school, filterable by CCSS standard and mathematical practice.
• Formative Conversation Starters. This is our free resource for grades 2–8. Each grade-level document provides an overview of how to implement the conversations, problems to get the conversations started, questions, and possible student responses.
• Geogebra Open Middle Exercises. This site provides online, interactive problems similar to Marian Small’s open problems, organized by domain and grade band.
• NCTM Asking Questions and Promoting Discourse. This site provides a list of strategies and resources for supporting rich questions and conversations in your classroom. Links are provided to K–12 Notice and Wonder lesson plans designed to broaden student thinking and elicit conversations and creative thinking. A PowerPoint also provides tips for promoting discourse, including an overview of the five practices for orchestrating productive mathematical discussions.
• NCTM’s Game of the Year. Each year, NCTM creates a long-term, open-ended math challenge based around the numbers in the year. For 2024, the challenge is to use the digits in the year 2024, plus operational and grouping symbols, to write expressions representing the counting numbers 1 through 100.
• NCTM Notice and Wonder. This site contains a host of resources designed to support mathematical curiosity and engagement. Note that some resources require NCTM membership.
• NRICH. This site, developed by the mathematics faculty of the University of Cambridge, offers free curriculum-linked resources and challenging math problems plus low-floor, high-ceiling problems designed to engage students ages 3–18. There are teacher, student, and parent sections of the site, all of which contain problems and activities organized by grade ranges and content.
• One, Two…Infinity. Marian Small’s website lists her various publications related to enriching math activities and open questions. The presentations section provides copies of PowerPoints organized by grade band or mathematical topics, and there is also an open problem of the week. These presentations are loaded with free examples of open questions. You can also watch a free webinar where she discusses open problems on NCTM’s website.
• Openmiddle.com. This site contains a large number of printable K–12 open problems searchable by grade, domain, and Common Core standard. Student sheets can be printed in English, Spanish, and French.

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“Shhh.” “Quiet down.” “Please listen.” These are frequent refrains in the classroom as teachers deliver lessons and maintain an orderly environment. Quiet time is indeed an essential part of most school days. There are times, however, when encouraging students to talk is valuable, even essential. The writing process presents especially good opportunities for conversations.

I recall one year when I was teaching fourth grade and reading through students’ first drafts of fictional narratives. One draft that stood out belonged to a student I’ll call Jonathan. It was seemingly a jumble of ideas that didn’t come close to telling a coherent story. I thought Jonathan had either not understood the task or had given it minimal effort, and I was certain that this would come to light when I conferenced with him. I had learned the value of the social classroom and was eager to get Jonathan talking.

Getting students talking

Positive interactions are part of a supportive classroom environment, which is recognized by experts in the field as essential to writing development. Positive interactions during the writing process, between teachers and students or among students, help build a supportive writing environment.

The writing conference between teacher and student in particular can serve as a useful formative assessment tool, helping to reveal areas of strength and needed support, thereby informing instruction. We recognize the value of student discourse as formative assessment. Just as important for the student, though, is the role of the writing conference as a catalyst for reflection. Research supports reflection as a practice for improving not just a particular writing piece but also students’ ability to generalize effective strategies and apply them in the future. What a great reason to get students talking about their writing!

A few months ago, my colleague Julie Richardson introduced us to the Big Ideas for Growing Writers. Framed as five easy-to-remember questions, these Big Ideas are available in a handout for teachers and another for students. (If you haven’t downloaded those yet, please take the time to do so now. They’re free!) The questions are as follows:

1. Why am I writing?
2. Who are my readers?
3. What am I writing?
4. How am I presenting my ideas in writing?
5. How am I using the writing process?

The Big Ideas are formative conversation starters: they can serve as springboards for conversations with students about their writing and writing process.

What follows are some critical points to consider as you prepare to have these formative conversations with students during whole- or small-group instruction, during one-on-one writing conferences, or with peer feedback groups.

How can I find time for these conversations?

Each formative question in the handouts is designed to take place within a five- to fifteen-minute time frame. You may begin by conferencing with a small group of students while others work independently or with peers.

Once students start to become familiar and comfortable with the process, encourage them to use these questions with one another during peer discussions while you conference with others one-on-one or in small groups. Even a few minutes of one-on-one discussion with the teacher can be impactful for students.

How do I group students?

When creating small groups, use data, such as previous conversations and other formative assessment measures, to group students around specific goals, for example, the goal of considering the needs of the audience or integrating evidence to develop ideas. Groups should be flexible and short term; adjust as students demonstrate progress or the need for more or less intense support.

When creating peer groups, make sure students have clear roles that capitalize on their strengths and that provide opportunities for growth. For instance, students who enjoy playing with language and word use may be grouped together to share ideas and further their repertoire of words and phrases. A student who is writing for a particular audience, such as their peers who enjoy gaming, could grow in audience awareness by conferencing with students who are part of that audience group.

How do I focus the conversations?

The five Big Ideas are designed to provide a measure of focus for each conversation. It will often be necessary, of course, to narrow the conversation further, but avoid the urge to try to address multiple areas of focus in a single conversation. Establish the protocol of brief, focused student conferences for maximum impact.

How do I make peer discussions meaningful?

It’s important to establish practices and expectations for making peer writing conferences effective. Many best practices for assisting peer writing conferences are the same as those you’d likely implement for any type of peer work.

Whether peers are working in small groups or pairs, ensure that everyone knows their role in the conversation and what that role entails. These will include at least one writer and one facilitator, and perhaps a recorder and one or more listeners. Ensure that students rotate roles, of course, but note that they might not need to rotate within every session; it may be more effective and practical to rotate roles on different days.

Ensure that students have the materials they need to support peer conversations. This will likely include the student-friendly version of the Big Ideas linked above. Other resources may include frameworks you’ve developed for capturing feedback, a note-catcher form, general group-work protocols, student-friendly rubrics, and graphic organizers and mnemonic prompts.

How do I prompt reluctant students?

Before initiating writing conversations, it is important to have established a supportive classroom environment, as described above, and to have begun forming positive personal connections with students. Still, you’ll find that some students are eager to talk about their writing process and products, but many will need additional prompting. Be prepared to ask follow-up questions as needed to generate thoughtful dialogue, such as:

• Can you tell me more about that?
• It seems like you’re really thinking about this. What are you thinking?
• How did you arrive at that conclusion?
• Is there another way to approach this goal?

These kinds of follow-up questions are useful for guiding discussions between students as well. Include them in the materials you provide to support peer writing conferences, as they can support both the writer and the listener in generating conversation.

Remember to provide adequate think time to allow students to respond and avoid jumping in with immediate comments and feedback.

In closing

Back in that fourth-grade classroom, I sat with Jonathan for a one-on-one discussion about his narrative. I asked him to explain the story to me, and he launched into a detailed, excited description of the tale he was attempting to tell.

When I realized that he did indeed have a well-developed narrative in his mind, I explained to him that much of the story was in his head but not on paper and that his audience would need more details to be able to follow along. I asked many pointed questions to uncover specific details about the story. A few conversations with Jonathan made a world of difference for him, helping him fill in the missing parts of his story and ultimately end up with a piece he was proud of. He later added illustrations and turned the story into a picture book! I’m glad I was able to get Jonathan talking about his writing.

This school year, don’t forget to ask all your students to speak up!

The post Speak up! How getting students to talk more can improve their writing and writing process appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Understanding when and how to use data in education can be intimidating. I’m here to help.

In my post titled “K–12 data leadership: Be the change for your school community,” I listed seven steps that can help school leaders gain confidence and use data effectively. In my previous post, I explored the importance of two of them: rewriting your identity and self-reflection. Now I’d like to dig into the benefits of starting small and seeking professional learning.

One small step

Most of us are familiar with the famous words Neil Armstrong uttered as he hopped off the lunar module and became the first person to set foot on the moon: “One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.” Since then, there have been many iterations, but the saying always manages to convey the same idea: small steps are mighty.

When making a change in a personal habit or routine, we are often told to start small and keep our goals manageable. Growth is not one of those home renovation shows where they completely gut and renovate an entire house in a 30-minute episode. In reality (not reality TV!) a project like that takes months. And going room by room, rather than tackling a whole house at once, gives people the opportunity to catch their breath and assess with intention. Similarly, approaching data in education in more efficient and productive ways takes time.

When I work with school leaders, I orient them to a MAP® Growth report that has become a personal favorite: the School Profile report. Imagine taking the roof off your school and being able to look down into the building. That’s exactly what this report provides. Starting with a bird’s eye view allows you to look at overall trends, successes, and areas of need. From there, you can drill down to look into specific grades and even classrooms, so you can get a better look at what’s contributing to—or limiting—growth and achievement. The Class Profile report will come in handy then. It’s a teacher-level report you can use to have empowering conversations with your teachers. There are additional reports you could look at, of course, but starting with just two or three and diving deep with them will provide the foundation you need for robust data conversations that don’t overwhelm.

Another benefit of starting small, besides the lighter lift, is the ability to pivot as needed. If I decide to make a change to the light fixtures I selected for the kitchen, for example, it is much easier if I’m tackling my home remodel one room at a time. Starting small when strengthening your relationship to data will enable you to make decisions in real time and keep you well within your bandwidth.

Invest in your future as a data leader

Let’s stick with the remodel theme. As good as I am at home projects, I keep a comfortable budget handy for those moments when the scope of a project goes beyond my expertise. Once terms like “wet saw” and “sheetrock” start to appear in my Google search, I know it’s time I call the pros. The same way I would reach out for assistance to make sure my home project gets done efficiently and with integrity, you, as a school leader, should consider professional learning to enhance your skills.

In my first post discussing the importance of data in education, I referred to the moment in the movie 28 Days when Sandra Bullock is forced to wear a sign around her neck that says, “Confront me if I don’t ask for help.” School leaders often feel as though they need to either have all the answers or appear to have them. It is a burden placed on leadership that can feel more like a heavy mantle than a badge of honor.

I’m here to tell you that the leader who acknowledges an obstacle, blind spot, or general hang up and seeks out opportunities to learn and develop those skills is a true, reflective leader. In fact, thanks to my role as a trusted professional learning consultant at NWEA, I’ve had many conversations with school and district leaders that have led to a request for professional learning support. We offer a variety of professional learning experiences to help get you on your way—and keep you on the path—of data leadership. Visit our website and reach out to your NWEA contact to learn more.

Seeking professional learning can help you gain the confidence and know-how you need to use data in education confidently and efficiently. It also comes with some pretty fantastic unintended side effects. For starters, the people we meet in professional learning sessions are often there for similar reasons and often share a similar background, so there’s an opportunity to learn from new friends in a new environment. Additionally, professional learning can create the conditions for partnership and deeper exploration with the consultant leading your session. My relationships with school leadership have been the foundation for many fruitful conversations, including what comes next in a professional learning journey.

The only way out is through

Whether data feels as complicated as a full home renovation or a simple decor upgrade to you, it is important to start small and find help. Keep the scope of your learning and the growth journey you are on reasonable and in clear view. Adjust to fit your bandwidth, and make small adjustments as needed so you don’t get overwhelmed and give up.

Not if, but when you come to an obstacle that feels especially prohibitive, don’t turn back. Reach out to the professionals—as often as needed—who can walk with you along your path and keep you on track. More often, you’ll develop a working relationship, where your professional growth becomes their professional priority and pleasure. Even Dante needed Virgil.

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We all agree time spent practicing reading is crucial for young students, but which types of texts should we use, and for whom? When are decodable texts appropriate? And when should we provide students time with a wider variety of leveled texts? I’m here to help you understand the strengths and drawbacks of decodable and leveled texts—and when to use each.

What is a decodable text?

Although many texts are marketed as decodable texts, not all are created equal. “Decodability” is a term that refers to the number of words in a given text that students have been taught with corresponding phonics patterns and irregular words. If a text set is marketed as decodable text, you should ensure the order in which the set introduces phonics patterns and high-frequency words matches the scope and sequence of your phonics curriculum. If there is a mismatch, the decodable text set will not be decodable for your students.

For example, if a student has learned all short vowels and most common consonant sounds, the sentence “Sam lifts a big bag and fills it to the brim with grain” should be mostly decodable. However, the “ai” in “grain” and the words “a,” “to,” “the,” and “with” would not be, as they include phonics patterns that likely have not been taught, like the /oo/ in “to” and the /th/ in “with.” That’s because neither is a short vowel or common consonant sound. These high-frequency words and the phonics pattern “ai” spelling long A would need to be pre-taught to make this text 100% decodable. If none of these were pre-taught, this text would be only 61% decodable and most likely not as helpful for highly successful practice opportunity.

Why and when are decodable texts helpful for instruction?

Decodable texts are a perfect tool for reinforcing a taught phonics skill or pattern. They are necessary for fluency and application opportunities for students who have been introduced to a new phonics skill in whole-group or small-group instruction or during an intervention.

After you introduce a new phonics skill and provide practice opportunities to read and spell words in isolation, a decodable text is a logical and appropriate next step. Using a longer text with sentences or paragraphs that include a high proportion of practice opportunities with the new phonics skill can help your students build fluency with their new learning in the context of a connected text.

For example, if I am in the fall of kindergarten and have introduced the most common sounds for the letters S, A, D, P, I, N, and C, following my scope and sequence, my next lesson is /t/ spelled with the letter T. I will begin by practicing reading and spelling words like “at,” “sat,” “pat,” “pit,” and “tap.”

Students will stretch each word, write blanks for sounds, then fill in each with the letter that spells the sound. I will then have similar CVC words with /t/ and previous sounds they have learned, one at a time, on the board for students to sound out and blend together. Finally, I will provide my students with more practice, so they not only remember the sounds associated with the letters, but also become more fluent with those sounds in a short, aligned, and highly-decodable text. This may be a book with the sentences “Sam taps. Pat taps. Sam and Pat tap, tap, tap! Pat and Sam spin and spin!” and an illustration showing two friends tap dancing on a stage. Alternatively, I could ask students to read with partners after they read with me initially, and I could provide a blank space instead of the illustration for students to draw what they pictured while reading the text.

Note: Some programs teach consonant blends, such as “sp” or “bl,” as separate lessons. However, if students have learned both sounds in a blend, they can sound and blend together to form the spoken sounds /sp/ as in “spin” or /bl/ as in “blot.” Therefore, there is no need to waste precious instructional time on the many combinations of consonant blends in separate lessons. Consonant diagraphs, on the other hand, are two letters that combine to form a different consonant sound than they do separately, such as C and H in /ch/ or P and H in /ph/. These would need to be taught explicitly for students to understand the new, unexpected sound that is formed.

What is a leveled text?

Any trade book or text can be leveled. There are different leveling systems that use features of the text— such as word and sentence length, unique words, or other factors—to assign a “level.” Most of the time, as levels get higher in number or letter, texts are more challenging to both decode and comprehend.

Leveled texts aren’t inherently aligned to a particular phonics skill. Instead, they contain an amalgamation of phonics skills that are typically increasing in complexity as the levels increase. Some leveled texts that are part of a comprehensive literacy curriculum include certain focus words, such as high-frequency words and/or vocabulary words, that have been previously introduced in the whole group lesson to reinforce these concepts in connected text.

Why and when are leveled texts helpful?

Decodable and leveled texts are not the same. Leveled texts do not have the same purpose as decodable texts. They are not meant to practice a specific phonics skill. Instead, leveled texts can be useful to practice generalizing phonics skills already taught, high-frequency words previously introduced, and specific vocabulary from prior lessons.

Recent research indicates teachers using leveled texts should preview the text to ensure students have a base of knowledge of the phonics patterns included, meaning that they can read the text with about 93–97% accuracy to maximize student growth in reading fluency. Leveled readers should be chosen purposefully to align with the generalization stage of learning to read (so, after students have acquired a base level of knowledge of phonics included in the texts, as shown by reading with 93–97% accuracy). Consider also aligning with the content focus to help students generalize new vocabulary, high-frequency words, and/or knowledge across subjects and throughout the school day.

Please note that the information on leveled texts presented here does not apply to leveled texts that are predictable texts. Predictable, or repetitive, texts are typically found in the first few levels of most organized leveling systems, for example, Levels A–D in Guided Reading levels. These texts are not appropriate for students to learn to acquire new phonics skills or practice generalizing phonics patterns to new words. Because the texts at this stage have predictable and repetitive sentence stems, they can encourage students to use the picture, first letter(s), or context to guess at some words without looking closely at the letters within the word to confirm or change these predictions. Instead, these predictable texts may be more appropriate for shared reading, modeling rhyming during a poetry unit, or making inferences or predictions about the text. For more information, check out Spelfabet, a demonstration by Australian speech pathologist Alison Clarke.

A benefit to using leveled texts, rather than high-controlled decodable texts, is that students begin to learn to utilize their set for variability. That’s a term researchers use for a student’s ability to flex the pronunciation of a word they have decoded into one they recognize in their oral vocabulary. For example, if a student hasn’t yet learned that the letter A following a W typically spells the sound /ŏ/, they may first decode the word “wasp” in the sentence “The wasp stings the pig” as rhyming with the word “clasp.” However, if they know that a wasp is a stinging insect, they may use their set for variability to flex the pronunciation to the real word, “wasp.” Encouraging students to flex sounds during reading, and providing a range of texts to read, not just highly controlled decodable texts, can allow students to grow their phonics flexing muscles, thus jumpstarting their self-teaching abilities.

It is important to ensure students have a base of foundational phonics knowledge before asking them to generalize their skills to build fluency in leveled texts. However, without wide and varied text practice, students may not be exposed to enough word types to jumpstart this self-teaching and phonics flexing muscles. Be aware of that during your lesson planning.

The graphic above on instructional hierarchy was created by NWEA and adapted from Norris Haring and Marie Eaton’s “Systematic instructional procedures: An instructional hierarchy” in The Fourth R: Research in the Classroom. It illustrates different student learning needs and aligned teacher actions at each stage.

Decodable texts would fit well during the acquisition stage of learning and bring students into the fluency stage. Since the goal is to move through the generalization stage and into future literacy independence, leveled texts are an appropriate and necessary part of an early reader’s literacy learning journey.

Recommendations and next steps for teachers

If you’re a teacher, I encourage you to take inventory of your texts for teaching phonics skills. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What types of texts am I using to support this acquisition of introduced phonics skills and assist students in building fluency with those phonics skills?
• Do I have decodable texts for students to practice the specific phonics skills aligned with my phonics scope and sequence?

Next, take inventory of your library for students to practice reading a wide variety texts. Ask yourself:

• What types of texts am I using to support generalization and improve my students’ ability to flex sounds?
• Do I have other text types, such as leveled texts, that align to my students’ reading accuracy of 93–97%?

Finally, ensure students have ample opportunity to read a variety of texts every day. Ask yourself:

• At what point today did students read texts with teacher guidance to practice and receive feedback on new skills or challenging texts?
• At what point today did students read texts with peer feedback to build fluency and understanding?
• At what point today did students read texts independently to extend fluency practice on previously introduced texts or practice their skills?

Recommendations and next steps for leaders

If you’re a school leader, there’s a lot you can do to support your reading teachers in using decodable and leveled texts appropriately.

First, ensure your teachers have the following types of texts for optimizing student literacy success:

• Decodable texts that align with their adopted phonics scope and sequence
• Leveled texts that align with their content topics or ELA high-frequency words and new vocabulary

It’s important that you ensure predictable texts are not part of early literacy word recognition instruction.

Next, I encourage you to check out our evidence-aligned professional learning offerings on Early Word Recognition, Advanced Word Recognition, and Building Fluent Readers for more extended learning opportunities for your entire school staff.

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“In conversation, do you listen, or do you wait to talk?” Over the years, this question has appeared in many different contexts for good reason: research shows that only about ten percent of us listen effectively. Why? Because being a good, active listener is really hard! The great news is that making even small changes in how we listen can make a big difference. The business-focused article “What is active listening?” has a lot of great information about how to practice active listening (including how to become the epically named “trampoline listener”). So what does listening have to do with the MAP Growth Class Profile report? A lot, it turns out.

Listening to you really matters

Being active listeners is an essential part of what makes everything work here at NWEA. You give us so many classroom- and district-tested ways to improve teaching and learning, for everyone. Your thoughts and opinions help drive our innovations.

The reports generated by MAP® Growth are a great example: your input has helped to build the full suite of profile reports that provide essential information for making crucial decisions, from the district view to each individual student. The first phase of our mission to improve MAP Growth reports—the Student, Class, School, and District profile reports—is now complete.

Let’s take a quick look at how your feedback made the MAP Growth Class Profile report even more helpful.

Older? Newer? Yes!

The MAP Growth Class Profile report is available to all educators, but it’s been specifically designed for teachers. We know from the feedback that teachers find it helpful for analyzing each class’s achievement data and identifying specific subjects or content areas where the entire class may benefit from additional instruction. But we also heard that there were some older MAP Growth reports—specifically the Class report and the Class Breakdown report—that displayed data in a way teachers really liked.

That’s why we took the most important parts of the older Class report and Class Breakdown report and transferred them into the newly upgraded Class Profile report. These two new visuals help teachers better understand and support their students by clearly identifying where the whole class could use more instruction and how students are grouped based on achievement levels.

We have heard you and have taken the best parts of those older reports to provide you with exactly what you’ve asked for: reliable, quickly digestible information in a single, class-level report.

Get a clear view of where your class is in their learning

There’s quite a bit more work that’s been done “under the hood” in response to what you’ve told us. The updates to the MAP Growth Class Profile report have made it easier to:

• Quickly see the academic diversity of your class. The report provides a comprehensive view of achievement levels by instructional area, allowing you to tailor your teaching strategies to meet individual needs.
• Optimize classroom time. Is there a specific instructional area that requires more attention? With the improved report, you’ll know exactly where to allocate additional class time.
• Identify students for retesting. Was a student’s test paused, suspended, terminated, or not started? You can see this at a glance.
• Detect rapid guessing. MAP Growth leads the way in determining if a student was rapid guessing and the results are clearly indicated on the report.
• Develop flexible learning groups. You can see students grouped by their instructional area score, a solid first step in forming flexible learning groups.

Thank you for your wisdom

Please keep your feedback coming! We will continue to listen as we keep growing and learning the best ways to help you make decisions that create better outcomes for all students.

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Who has better reading comprehension of a text, the student with “advanced reading skills” or the one who has a wealth of knowledge about the topic?

If you’re familiar with the Baseball Study, then you know this is a simple question with a complex answer—and important implications for how we understand learning and literacy. This study, conducted in 1987, found that having more background knowledge in a specific topic can be more predictive of a student’s success in comprehending a written text on that topic than having a high score on an overall reading comprehension test.

In the academic setting, we often call background knowledge a “shared academic vocabulary,” and it’s such a critical component of reading comprehension—and learning overall—that NWEA included the teaching of academic vocabulary as one of the Transformative Ten strategies that can be found in some of our nation’s highest-performing schools. These strategies emerged from High Growth for All, an NWEA research project that examined instructional practices in a handful of the country’s highest-performing schools.

Here are a few tips for making better use of the simple but powerful practice of teaching academic vocabulary to improve reading comprehension and achievement.

1. Keep word lists front and center

To succeed with grade-level content, students need a basic set of tools for approaching and understanding the curriculum in front of them—and this includes subject-specific academic vocabulary that helps them feel informed, up to speed, and ready to learn. Whether you’re teaching literature or mathematics, creating word lists and making them readily available to your students will greatly increase their preparedness for new material.

And it’s not just students who benefit from word lists. You, too, can use them as reminders to use the terms regularly yourself and avoid taking your own background knowledge for granted. We all fall back on our own speaking patterns, which may or may not be helpful to students as they work toward specific learning goals. By creating—and continuously referring back to—word lists that are explicitly connected to the concepts you’re teaching, you can help put your students on a level playing field where it’s your efforts to build a shared academic vocabulary, rather than students’ individual background knowledge, that determines their outcomes and growth.

2. Embrace teachable moments

In the High Growth for All project, NWEA researchers found that the most effective teachers make a habit of creating specific opportunities for students to learn new vocabulary terms. In humanities and mathematics alike, these teachers regularly focus on introducing new words that will allow students to actively participate in all the conversations and academic exercises to follow.

Whether you’re teaching literature or mathematics, creating word lists and making them readily available to your students will greatly increase their preparedness for new material.

Sometimes, however, learning opportunities arise outside of the structured spaces planned by teachers. When students come across a word they don’t know—whether they bring this to your attention themselves or you simply intuit that there’s something they’re not grasping—take a minute to pause and assess. Take these gaps in understanding seriously, as even a single word could be critical in helping students successfully interpret a text or complete an activity. You might be on a roll with your lesson plan, but these little interruptions represent teachable moments that you can use to your advantage by discussing a word’s meaning and adding to your prominently displayed word list.

3. Make the most of morphemes

Because it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of words in the English language, breaking them down into their functional and meaningful parts—or morphemes—can help make vocabulary instruction a more manageable process with plenty of “aha” moments.

For example, a student may never have seen the word “intractable,” but if they learn that the morpheme “tract” means “to pull,” then they can infer the meaning of “intractable” to mean, roughly, “you can’t pull it.” In this way, understanding morphemes can help open a lot of doors for students who may not be familiar with certain words but know where to look for clues as to the words’ meaning.

As Margaret McKeown, senior scientist and professor emerita at the University of Pittsburgh, explains in a short video on early vocabulary development, “Morphology is one of those resources where if you’re familiar with word parts, whether they’re prefixes, suffixes, or roots … those can help you either infer the meaning of a word, or they might help you figure out the pronunciation of a word that you might realize, once you’ve said it to yourself, you actually know! But you just didn’t recognize it in print.”

4. Encourage curiosity about words

One of your best assets in the effort to expand the way you teach academic vocabulary is the natural curiosity that kids bring to everything they do. You can tap into this curiosity and get kids interested in—even excited about—the new words they encounter as they approach new subject material.

Along these lines, I highly recommend keeping a tab open for the Online Etymology Dictionary, a website that’s a lot more fun and engaging than its name might suggest. Simply type in any word, and you’ll get a solid explanation of where the word originated, why it’s spelled the way it is, and what other words it’s related to.

It’s not always easy to make sense of the English language (consider the different pronunciations of “though,” “through,” “cough,” and “rough”), but the goal here is not to solve every mystery but, rather, to encourage and reward curiosity. Research suggests that nurturing curiosity in this way can have a major impact on what students are able to comprehend. And with the right resource at your fingertips, you can always respond to students’ questions about particular words with, “I don’t know. Let’s look it up together and find out.”

It starts with you

Because we can’t expect students to understand words that we don’t actually use ourselves, the critical first step in teaching academic vocabulary is simply to model the vocabulary we need them to know. Your students might think you put that big word list on the wall for them, but it can be just as valuable a resource for you. And with these vocabulary terms front and center, you can then tap into professional development resources to strengthen your pedagogical practice.

The post 4 ways to teach academic vocabulary and help students master grade-level content appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

The road to COVID academic recovery is far from over. That’s the sobering conclusion of a new research brief on student learning following COVID-19 school closures, from NWEA researchers including Megan Kuhfeld and myself, Karyn Lewis.

The research analyzed scores from approximately 7.7 million US students in grades 3–8 who took MAP® Growth during the 2023–24 school year. We found that students were learning and growing, but at rates that fell short of pre-pandemic levels. Based on the latest data, the average student requires the equivalent of 4.8 months of additional schooling to catch up to pre-COVID levels in reading and 4.4 months in math.

These findings come at a particularly important moment. Over the course of 2020 and 2021, Congress invested $190 billion to help schools return to normal operations and to address student learning loss. Recent research suggests that money helped, but with the last of the money expiring this fall, our findings show that student growth rates continue to lag and that kids remain far behind their peers from just a few years ago. It will take significantly more money, focus, and interventions to get students fully back on track.

New data: How did COVID affect student learning?

In the spring of 2022, we were happy to report that student growth had returned to, or even exceeded, pre-pandemic rates. While the road to full recovery looked long, there were at least initial signs of a rebound as schools returned to their normal operating conditions.

But momentum stalled in 2023 as students struggled to sustain that higher rate of growth. This year’s results are just as alarming. Our research found that achievement gains in 2023–24 lagged pre-pandemic trends in all but the youngest cohort of students, falling short of pre-pandemic averages by 1–21% in reading and by 2–14% in math.

As noted by the Washington Post in their coverage of our release, the NWEA results are broadly in line with what other interim test scores are showing. There are slight variations across multiple measures based on grade level and magnitude of the need, but the broad story is consistent that students, particularly the most marginalized students, need much more support.

These findings present a less optimistic picture of COVID academic recovery compared to reports using state assessment data. Interim assessments and state summative tests serve different purposes and measure achievement with varying levels of specificity. Interim assessments, like MAP Growth, are designed to provide more detailed, frequent insights into student progress throughout the year, allowing for a continuous measurement of growth and achievement. This can highlight more nuanced trends and immediate impacts. In contrast, state summative tests occur once a year and categorize achievement into broader levels, like below basic, basic, and proficient. This lack of nuance may mask important changes in achievement for students who are further from benchmarks. The differing methodologies and purposes of these assessments likely play a significant role in the observed discrepancies in recovery data.

Another key difference is how our team tracks recovery. State summative tests typically examine COVID impacts cross-sectionally. For example, how does the achievement of third-graders in 2024 compare to the achievement of third-graders in 2023? In contrast, since MAP Growth is administered multiple times throughout the year, we can use longitudinal models to understand how cohorts of students are progressing toward recovery. For example, how much progress did this year’s third-graders make from the year before? This approach captures more incremental changes and trends that state assessments might miss.

COVID achievement gaps remain, especially for marginalized groups

At the end of the 2023–24 school year, across all grade levels, our research estimates that the average student will require the equivalent of 4.8 months of additional schooling to catch up to pre-COVID levels in reading and 4.4 months in math.

The averages hide differences across grade levels and student groups. For instance, middle school students have lost more ground on MAP Growth than younger students have, and low-income, Black, and Hispanic students remain the furthest from making a full COVID academic recovery.

Paying off the COVID generation’s “educational debt”

Society owes the COVID generation of students a great educational debt, and it is a debt they are now carrying with compounding interest. Achievement disparities that predate the pandemic have been starkly exacerbated over the last four years, and the latest NWEA data shows that marginalized students need much more support to get back on track.

The effects of COVID continue to reverberate, even for the youngest students entering the education system years after the initial onset of the pandemic. Instead of treating COVID recovery interventions as temporary crisis-mitigation tactics, policymakers should be thinking about how to make targeted academic supports, such as high-dosage tutoring and summer programming, a permanent part of our new normal.

COVID academic recovery efforts will get much harder going forward as the federal relief dollars expire, but providing students with evidence-based intervention strategies is the only way to make meaningful progress.

To learn more, watch our webinar Special briefing: Recovery still elusive on demand.

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At the end of the school year, I found myself among my team of teachers, all of us with happy tears rolling down our faces. Our students had seen immense personal and academic growth. We were a brand-new team of teachers and instructional coaches. Shared data cycles had just become a mandate across our school. At that tear-filled meeting, our team lead shared a quote from Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly: “If you are not in the arena, getting your [butt] kicked, I am not interested in your feedback.”

I think of that quote often as a coach who supports teams. A coach must be in the arena getting their butt kicked, but they are not the main act in the arena. Instructional coaches come to the arena with plans and sneak attacks. They can see the arena from a vantage point a teacher cannot. Below is a guide for instructional coaches to help you stay in the arena and empower the main act: the teachers.

Step 1: Get clear on roles and structures

An instructional coach has their feet bridging two different roles: building leader and classroom teacher. It is easy for administrators and teachers to see a coach as “the fixer” and set the coach up to be the leader of the teams. But a coach is not the leader of a team of teachers. Conversely, they are also not just “the note taker.”

To set your teams up for success, you need to make sure everyone knows their roles.

Action 

1. Advocate. For yourself: Get ahead of the game by meeting with whoever leads each team and communicating what you will do in each meeting. Ask what they see your role as being and find a common ground so you are a valuable member of the team. For the team: Are there structures in place where there is clear time set aside for teams to meet and clear expectations on what could be done in those meetings? Is there a clear leader and, if there is not, are teams equipped to run meetings collaboratively? For teacher leaders: Do the leaders of the teams have time for coaching on leading effective teams? Are there clear resources in running shared data cycles? Is there time for teacher leaders to meet with and learn from other leaders?
2. Show your role with your body. Turn off the radio, close your computer (unless it’s absolutely necessary), and participate in any team time as an active member.
3. Come ready with questions. Here are some questions that could help guide teams into clarifying roles: What roles do we need to have a successful meeting? What strengths does each teacher have on this team? How does each teacher want to improve their collaboration skills? What does the team think is the best course of action? What went well in this meeting and what would the team like to do differently next time?

Step 2: Coach and advocate for shared values and expectations

Often, when teams get together, it feels like a waste of time to spend any of our precious minutes setting up norms and expectations—or getting to know each other as a team. You cannot have a thriving team culture and effective, student-focused, life-giving team time without everyone on the team working to uphold what the team values. As a coach, it is your role to validate and possibly coach a team lead in setting up a thriving team culture.

Action

1. Start with a connection. This could be achieved by asking the group the same question every time or having some other opening activity you do consistently. Ritual and a soft start set the tone of safety and equity of voice in a meeting.
2. Have values and norms visible. Make team meeting minutes come to life by placing your values and norms at the top of the document. If teams meet in the same space, also print them out and hang them on the walls. Having shared values and norms visible gives a positive reminder to teams of what they value and how they will act in a way that upholds their values. A common example I have seen is time and talk values. For example, “We will be done with this team time in 45 minutes no matter what.” While that specific example could go many ways, I have seen a simple statement like that kick teams into effective and efficient meetings because it was a shared value for the team.
3. Advocate. Get team members training in project and team management. I was fortunate enough to work in a district that paid for my training in SCRUM and Adaptive Schools. I still use resources from an Adaptive Schools live binder when planning any meetings or professional development.

Step 3:  Help teams find focus for the year

Backward planning is ingrained in every teacher when planning for their classroom, but for some reason, it goes out the window when it comes to teams of teachers. I worked with a team that had a goal that followed this framework: “By May of 2022, students will _____ and we will _____.” They referred to that goal every time they met. Individual teachers knew how to access the goal outside of meetings and regularly referred back to it in their own planning time.That team absolutely knocked their goal out of the park and felt invigorated by their focus.

Action

1. Run a protocol. Remember, you are not the leader, but you could be a guest speaker with some focused coaching work. Use a protocol for teachers to find focus. Remember to include checkpoints and measurements and to predict possible roadblocks and what the team might do to be proactive about them.
2. Use this time to listen. This is a great time to mine possibilities for coaching cycles that are chosen by the teachers. Listen to them, and in the next coaching conversation say, “I heard you mention this in our team meeting. Do you want to work through that with me?”

Step 4: Be proactive with the “What about…?” questions

I was an electives teacher for many years, so I have lived in a world where the typical team structures might not work or there are many missed opportunities to get teachers together to plan for their students. It is both awesome and kind of lonely being in the “What about…?” group. “Oh, yeah. What about SPED? How will this affect their schedule?” is often said when it is too late to change a decision that has already been made.

The teams that do not fit the mold at your school, and even those teams of one, still need support and guidance.

Action

1. When planning for team time, think through the constraints that SPED & electives face. Ask these teams what they’d like team time to look like. Connect them to other teachers so they are not an island. Support them in planning special events to uplift the entire school. Communicate with them what core teams are doing.
2. Get teams to talk to other teams. This one looks like, “Oh, yeah. What about when our sixth-graders become seventh-graders?” Our schools are a continuum. A sixth-grader does not remain a sixth-grader for the rest of their life. To support collective efficacy, we must look beyond the grade and content we teach. What skills are teachers seeing that are working? What is not working? How can we improve the continuum? One of the content teams I was a part of had appointed team members as liaisons. They were expected to regularly communicate with another grade level or special interest team and report back at team meetings what was going on in worlds outside of their team.
3. Purposefully plan professional learning with teams in mind. This one looks like, “Oh, yeah. What about this professional learning coming up in 10 minutes? Should we just group teachers randomly?” This is a missed opportunity to support teams. If you are not using your professional learning time to purposefully group, I encourage you to make time for like groups, unlike groups, and random groups to plan together.

Get in the arena

While you can and should be proactive and advocate for the teams you work with, sometimes setting up teams of teachers for success is simply being in the arena and facing whatever comes at you in the moment. When instructional coaches are in that arena, the number one tool in your toolbelt is your listening skills. It will show your teachers that you’re on their side.

To learn more about instructional coaching services available through NWEA, visit our website.

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More and more, math teachers are being called upon to “make the learning relevant” and provide real-world context and problem-based learning. This raises some questions: Pragmatically, is math irrelevant? More esoterically, what is “real”? And, most famously, “When will we need to know this?”

Most math teachers have been here before. We’ve all transposed the names of our own students for those in a word problem. We’ve all used our school community goings-on as fodder for plot lines: “If 89 middle schoolers are traveling on buses to Outdoor School, and each bus can transport 35 students and four chaperones.…” But how “real world” are we really getting?

We—Kailey Rhodes and Kristen Tsutsui, math teachers and authors of this blog post—wanted to know teachers’ experience with real-world problem-solving, what’s going well, and what’s in their way. So we surveyed some. In this post, we’ll walk you through what we asked, learned, and think as we move forward—and we’ll also share the resources our teachers shared with us. But first, let us introduce you to an official definition of real-world context in the math classroom.

The PISA Mathematics Framework

PISA is an international assessment administered to 15-year-olds globally. In their 2022 Mathematics Framework, PISA explains the underpinnings of their assessment as it relates to math literacy, reasoning, and problem-solving. It also stipulates that to uplift these underpinnings, mathematics problems should be presented in real-world contexts: personal, occupational, societal, and scientific.

Educators, take a moment to read the descriptions of these contexts. As you read, ask yourself the question we asked in our survey: “Which do you naturally find yourself gravitating toward in your classroom?”

• Personal: “Problems classified in the personal context category focus on activities of one’s self, one’s family, or one’s peer group. Personal contexts include (but are not limited to) those involving food preparation, shopping, games, personal health, personal transportation, sports, travel, personal scheduling, and personal finance.”
• Occupational: “Problems classified in the occupational context category are centered on the world of work. Items categorized as occupational may involve (but are not limited to) such things as measuring, costing, and ordering materials for building, payroll/accounting, quality control, scheduling/inventory, design/architecture, and job-related decision-making. Occupational contexts may relate to any level of the workforce, from unskilled work to the highest levels of professional work, although items in the PISA survey must be accessible to 15-year-old students.”
• Societal: “Problems classified in the societal context category focus on one’s community (whether local, national, or global). They may involve (but are not limited to) such things as voting systems, public transport, government, public policies, demographics, advertising, national statistics, and economics. Although individuals are involved in all of these things in a personal way, in the societal context category, the focus of problems is on the community perspective.”
• Scientific: “Problems classified in the scientific category relate to the application of mathematics to the natural world and issues and topics related to science and technology. Particular contexts might include (but are not limited to) such areas as weather or climate, ecology, medicine, space science, genetics, measurement, and the world of mathematics itself. Items that are intra-mathematical, where all the elements involved belong in the world of mathematics, fall within the scientific context.”

Which context did you most resonate with? If you were to focus on one context per quarter, how would you order them? What is your biggest struggle with real-world context and problem-based learning? How do you bring the “real world” inside your classroom?

We surveyed a focus group of math teachers, from kindergarten to IB, to see what they thought.

Survey says!

When we asked our teachers, “Which do you naturally find yourself gravitating toward in your classroom?” personal and scientific contexts were the winners, with societal coming in fourth. Our guess for this is that societal is not only ever-changing but is also often politically adjacent, something educators can, understandably, be wary of approaching.

Naturally, personal real-world math context offers an entry point into students’ interests, which is paramount in the math classroom. One teacher said, “Good projects that connect to the curriculum and also interest the students are worth their weight in gold. I really wish publishers did a better job of planning good projects; in most books I’ve used, the projects, if they exist at all, are an afterthought and poorly done.”

When it comes to other contexts, like societal, the bullseye of curriculum connection, student interest level, and math teacher time is a hard one to hit. As one teacher said, “With more time I would like to start new math topics with ‘real world problems’ and have the students brainstorm what knowledge would be useful to solve them, building resilience in the face of complex problems. However, these kinds of freeform explorations take time that I often feel like I don’t have in my class.”

This theme of “not enough time” appeared often, with teachers expressing a desire for more real-world presence, including cross-collaboration with other colleagues. A teacher said, “I have tried to coordinate with science classes to talk about the mathematical aspects of science concepts they are learning, but it can be hard to coordinate and map those kinds of things onto my own curriculum.”

This was echoed in the teachers’ comments, along with many wishful statements about what they “would do…if.”

With all the time and resources, what would teachers do?

We asked teachers to describe their dream scenario: what they would do if they had more resources, time, and permission. In most responses, what stood out was teachers’ love for math’s interconnectedness and innate curiosity. Some dreamed big:

• “An interdisciplinary project across all subjects that would allow students to see how math applies to all facets of the world”
• “Something like ‘a history of mathematical thought,’ bringing history, culture, psychology, ecology, science, and engineering into the curriculum”
• “Students being given the opportunity to explore a problem they are passionate about and explore ways that mathematics can be used to help solve it”
• “Students working alongside professionals in various math-related fields so they can see, firsthand, how the math they are learning is currently being used”

It’s clear that teachers want to provide classroom experiences that both underscore math’s omnipresence in the world around us and ignite students’ interests. It’s also clear that when your survey takers have to type qualifiers like, “But this would take a lot of time” and “We don’t have the resources for this,” the “real world” is actually what’s in the way. So, what can be done?

From ideal to real: Helpful tips & a relaxing thought on problem-based learning

No one knows better than math teachers that you can’t add time to your school day.  But, through our interactions with teachers, we walked away with some resources and tips to share with you. Here are the gems:

1. Split it into quadrants. Most teachers surveyed would order their quarters and contexts like this: first quarter, personal; second quarter, societal; third quarter, scientific; fourth quarter, occupational.
2. Switch with science. One teacher said this: “Actually switch classes with a science teacher to reiterate how what they are learning in science is related to what we do in math. And then they can come to my class to do the same so they can really understand the connection.”
3. Draw a parallel. “Have a project that seems like it might belong in an arts classroom, like creating a piece of clothing,” another teacher suggested. “They have to use multiple modes of mathematical knowledge to do this, like unit conversions (centimeters to inches to yards), spatial constraints (if fabric is a certain size, can I fit my pattern in it? How big do the pieces have to be to fit on the body?), and area (how much fabric do I need?).”
4. Estimate. “I use Estimation 180, but I gamify it to address average, mean, median, and mode. I have students secretly record their estimations, and I write them all on the board. We discuss the average classroom guess and how close our range is. Estimation is everywhere.”
5. Level up. “I’ve been using Skew the Script to heighten engagement for all my students and teach them about larger global issues affecting society. Their After The AP Data Science Challenge aims to solve the real (unsolved) problem of finding a model to predict the best and worst colleges for conquering student debt.”
6. Build the roster: “Try to arrange a handful of yearly speakers and field trips you can count on to bring the math to life. My husband is a civil engineer and uses the Pythagorean theorem. You’d be surprised how many folks would love to come in and talk to a math class—with your teacher guidance and enthusiasm, of course.”

And now for the relaxing thought: Start small. As with any endeavor in the classroom, no matter the discipline, the key is to work incrementally. We already know how important increments are, right, math teachers?

What is “real,” anyway?

Let’s return to the age-old question of, “When will we ever use this?” It plagues math teachers perhaps more than any other discipline, and the task of “real-world” problem-solving often feels like a “gotcha” moment. The fact is, sometimes, we math teachers don’t have a great real-world example of dividing negative fractions in our back pocket. But does that mean that it isn’t worth learning? Must every concept in math be nested perfectly within the “real” world?

In one particular mic-drop moment, one of our teachers shared, “I think the label ‘real-world’ has been used extensively in math education, and I’ve found it a bit frustrating. In many regards, math is the least ‘real’ discipline we teach children. It is, largely, the art of abstraction! That it is ‘real’ is in many ways the least interesting and important thing about it as a system of thinking, and this is often lost when continually looked at with the question ‘When will we ever use this?’”

Maybe when we’ll “use this” is when we’re thinking through a problem with many facets and variables. Math is, after all, less of a “what” and more of a “how.” How should we go about solving this? How do we use computational thinking to solve problems? How do we spiral what we already know with what we don’t?

We’re teaching kids how to think—and isn’t that the most real-world skill we can possibly teach?

To learn more about how NWEA can support you in teaching math, visit our website.

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If you’re like me, the first time you heard the term “number talks,” you assumed it referred to simply talking about numbers. Anytime my students and I discussed numbers in the classroom, like when we did fact fluency, I thought we were having a successful number talk. However, there’s more to them than that.

As students in all grades work through increasingly complex computations, they must develop flexibility with numbers and use various strategies to solve a problem. Number talks can be a powerful strategy to help them be successful.

What are number talks?

Number talks are brief classroom conversations of about five to fifteen minutes centered around mentally solving purposefully crafted computations. Whoa. That’s a mouthful, right? Let’s break that down a bit.

• They’re brief. Number talks should be no longer than 15 minutes.
• They use mental math only. Part of the goal of number talks is to help students think actively about math, so no paper and pencil are required, as we want to avoid students attempting a procedure to solve the problem at hand.
• They are for purposefully crafted computations. This means we can’t throw just anything on the board and make it the basis for a number talk. The problems we pick for our students must elicit specific strategies and thinking and, therefore, must be preplanned.

To learn more, I encourage you to read Number Talks: Whole Number Computation by Sherry Parrish.

Why are number talks beneficial?

What makes number talks so great? During a number talk, students have the opportunity to make their thinking visible to their teacher and their peers through verbal explanations of the processes they used to solve a problem.

As students articulate their own thinking, peers have a chance to listen and understand. They can then either connect or challenge a classmate’s thinking. This allows the student who shared their thinking aloud to make any necessary adjustments. All students benefit from this type of active engagement, as they can take away new strategies from the conversation.

Number talks are a way of developing mathematical ways of thinking in our students, as my colleague Ted Coe describes in “We all need mathematical ways of thinking: An ‘out of proportion’ example.”

Number talks in action

To give you a better sense of what a successful number talk can look like, I’d like to share about a time I was working with a group of fifth-graders on spiraled skills, that is, skills that continue to repeat from one grade level to the next but with increasing complexity. The spiraled skill these students were working on was subtraction with regrouping.

One student had a whiteboard and wrote the problem we were working on: 100,000 – 97,250. He wrote it vertically, and I observed him accurately begin on the right and subtract 0 from 0. But then he began crossing out all the zeros in 100,000 and writing new numbers for them right above them. I started a number talk with him to learn more about his thinking.

I began by emphasizing that we should set the marker down so we could focus on understanding and solving the problem in our head. Then I said, “I see you’ve crossed out several zeros. Would you mind explaining why?”

Student: Well, I know 0 – 0 is 0. That part is easy. I also know I can’t take 5 from 0, so I have to borrow 1 from the next door neighbor. Since they’re all 0s, they turn into 10s except for the last digit, which becomes a 9.

I was more confused than before, so I asked more questions.

Me:  Where did you get the 9?

Student: That’s just what you do when it’s all 0s at the top.

The student said the answer was 13,840, so I used this to further our conversation.

Me: If I were to take away 250 from 97,250, how much would we have?

Student: 97,250 minus 250 is 97,000.

Me: Okay, great. Let’s just keep that 250 over on the side for now and focus on the other numbers we have. Tell me the problem again, without the 250.

He wrote it vertically, and as soon as he got to the 7, he started borrowing from the zeros at the top again. I asked him to put his marker down and think through the problem with me. We focused on the zeros in both numbers and making both the large figures easier to manage.

Student: I know that 97 is 3 away from 100, so 97,000 is 3,000 away from 100,000.

Me: Very good! So we know we’re working with 3,000 now. What about the 250 we put over to the side?

Student: We subtract that now?

Me: You’ve got it. Let’s see if you can also do that mentally.

Student: Okay. I know 250 is 750 away from 1,000. I still have 2,000 more. So 3,000 minus 250 is 2,750?

Me: Amazing! Now, let’s compare that to your original answer of 13,840. How do these answers differ?

Student: Oh, 13,840 is way too much. How did I even get that?

Me: Sometimes, when we follow steps without thinking through their meaning, we get results that are way off. And since we’re focused on remembering the steps versus what they mean, we also don’t notice when an answer is way off.

I met with the fifth-grade team and shared the experience I had with this student. After asking the team what their current numeracy routines looked like, I gathered enough information to support the need for number talks. I shared this strategy with the team and connected with the instructional coach to support effective implementation. There’s no better segue into a new implementation than seeing the need based on student results. Teachers can’t be everywhere at once, so they were beyond grateful that I could observe and provide helpful information on better serving their students based on their current challenges.

Tips for success

Trying any new practice can be challenging. I often find it helpful to bounce ideas off a colleague first, so I recently spoke with Cody Martin, assistant principal at Eddins Elementary in McKinney, Texas, to get his thoughts.

When incorporating number talks in your math classroom, we encourage you to consider the following:

1. Curate problems you use for number talks. Pick problems that will call on students to use specific mental math strategies you want to introduce or reinforce.
2. Align to grade-level expectations. Prioritize number talks that help you and your students focus on developing and mastering grade-level skills.
3. Focus on understanding student thinking through purposeful questioning. You might consider using our formative conversation starters for math. If you find yourself doing most of the talking during a number talk, I encourage you to embrace the awkward silence. This can give kids the time they need to understand and communicate their thinking.
4. Deprioritize getting the “right” answer. Accurately solving a math problem is important, of course, but the goal of number talks is to improve students’ mathematical thinking. Make exploration the most important part of the process.
5. Aim to make student thinking visible to peers by writing it on the board for everyone to see. That can facilitate having a conversation in groups or as a whole class.
6. Create a safe space. During number talks, it’s important for students to feel like they can make mistakes without being judged. They should also feel like they can take as much time as they need to arrive at an answer.
7. Support a lively debate. Through intentional student discourse, students can self-correct, agree with a peer’s thinking, or even respectfully challenge a classmate’s reasoning. This can help them learn to choose the most efficient strategies, better understand their own reasoning, and be actively engaged.

Learn more

To learn more about number talks and how they can support you and your students, I encourage you to refer to the following:

• “4 ways to encourage math talks”
• “Cultivating number sense among middle and high school students”
• Number talks videos on YouCubed

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Another school year has ended and many students across the country are enrolled in summer programs. At NWEA, we have long been champions for using the summer months effectively. Regardless of the tests used to measure it, student learning tends to slow down, or even backslide, during the summer. Some student groups—especially rural students, English learners, and students with disabilities—lose even more ground.

But implementing effective summer programs is hard. Staffing challenges, burnout (for both students and staff), and the stigma of summer school can all affect how many students have access to summer programs and the quality of their experience. Fortunately, the research team at NWEA recently dug into studies on effective summer programs and found important takeaways for school and district leaders.

Here are five keys to effective summer programs.

1. Focus: Decide what your summer program is meant to accomplish

Unlike other academic recovery strategies like high-dosage tutoring, summer school programs often have a wide range of goals. Some focus solely on academics, like reading and math, while others promote positive behavioral outcomes, like student engagement and social-emotional skills. These are all laudable goals, but district leaders may have more success if they narrow their objectives.

For example, summer literacy programs have been found to increase reading achievement by a meaningful amount, especially for younger students in earlier grades. Similarly, summer math programs increase math achievement. However, the gains in these subjects tend to be concentrated in the program’s focus area. This may sound obvious, but policymakers should use summertime to target specific instructional gaps for particular students. If requiring summer program participation for students in need of additional instructional time, policymakers should ensure students are receiving additional support in the area or areas most important for their success.

2. Time and dosage: Prioritize more learning time to see bigger gains

Last year, NWEA researchers were part of the Road to Recovery evaluation study that found that summer learning programs boosted student learning in math, but those gains were proportional to the amount of instructional time students actually received.

In other words, if district leaders want to see consistently positive outcomes, they need to offer summer programs with sufficient instructional time. Research suggests those programs should be greater than three weeks, with at least three hours of instruction per day.

3. Targeting: Identify the students who need the most support

Districts with limited resources might be tempted to target summer programs to low-income students. But the research is not a slam dunk on this point. Summer programs are particularly beneficial to low-income students in reading, but they offer similar benefits in math to students across the income spectrum. Moreover, it’s not necessarily the case that low-income students suffer larger declines than their higher-income peers in the summer months.

Another line of research, however, suggests that students who gain the most during the school year tend to lose the most during the summer months. This may be a counterintuitive finding at first, but NWEA research has found that English learners and students with disabilities fit this pattern. These students benefit the most during the regular school year and tend to suffer the largest declines in the summer months. The lesson for district leaders, then, is to target summer programs based on academic disadvantage rather than income.

4. Curriculum: Use high-quality instructional materials

Given the short duration of summer programs, school staff will have only a limited time to prepare. As such, they need to be equipped with high-quality curricular tools and lesson plans.

The research base confirms, unsurprisingly, that summer programs are more effective when they use an evidence-based curriculum. And, ideally, the curriculum that educators use during summer should be the same one they use during the regular school year. School and district leaders can leverage the tools available to evaluate quality, such as approved state lists, to provide districts with access to high-quality instructional materials in the summer in addition to the school year.

5. Family engagement: Make parents and guardians allies

Parents and guardians are not always fully aware of how their child is performing, and they don’t always know about additional learning opportunities, such as free summer programs.

District leaders worried about low participation or engagement rates should take a closer look at their family engagement efforts, including hosting information sessions and conferences, sending daily text messages, or calling home to discuss absences. Messages emphasizing the importance of attendance can be particularly effective. Daily communication between teachers and families has been shown to increase on-time homework completion and reduce classroom behavioral issues. State leaders can help here, too, by revisiting parental engagement policies, guidance, and funding levers to better support districts in their efforts to support family.

In closing

When done well, summer programs can make a significant impact on academic and non-academic outcomes for students. The five steps outlined here are important places to start.

Read our full research brief for more practical guidance on designing high-quality summer programs.

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I am on a mission to inspire school leaders to push past their own limitations. We are at an exciting time in education, where assessment and other education data can lead to breakthroughs and make ordinary practices and experiences extraordinary. Assessments need to be given with enthusiasm and fidelity, and the results—all that data—studied and incorporated in the same way. This is all part of building your data identity as a leader.

In my first post about data identities, “K–12 data leadership: Be the change for your school community,” I highlighted seven steps that can help you become a strong data leader. Here I’d like to unpack two of them a little more:

• Rewrite your identity
• Self-reflect throughout

Allow me to reintroduce myself

To start to develop ourselves as data leaders, we may need to start by examining our data identity.

When I began my journey from math novice to math expert, my first step was to take a look at my math identity. For years (nearly my entire life, in fact), I had looked at myself as on the outside of math. Some of that identity may have been steeped in reality; I did struggle at times to keep my head above water in math class. But some of that identity may have been created by other factors that kept me stuck, like negative self-talk, shame, and fear. I felt that I should have been good at math, that my friends were better, and that my teachers would think less of me for asking questions. All this, unfortunately, became my own obstacle.

When I accepted a position teaching middle school math, I had to rewrite who I was as a math person, and that meant healing old wounds and silencing an old story. I knew my students would suffer if I carried my old math identity into the classroom, that it would create a collective weakness through transference, that my Achilles heel would become their Achilles heel. So I made a list to help me clearly capture my math identity and also hold me accountable in the ways I could rewrite it. Here are just a few of the beliefs I wrote down, along with the new beliefs I wanted to eventually hold instead:

• “I am not a math person” became “I am a math person. To feel more confident, I just need help with…”
• “My colleagues know more about math than I do” became “I want to find people with whom I can learn and collaborate.”
• “I am fearful and embarrassed to ask questions” became “Questions are necessary for professional growth, and I will ask them as often as I need to.”
• “As a student, my teachers made me feel bad for not being good at math” became “I will never make a student feel less than for not knowing something. I will be the teacher I never had.”

Change didn’t happen overnight, but the thing about small shifts is that they come with a certain momentum. Once I got going in the right direction, got over the hump, so to speak, the reimagining became easier. I found a great group of teachers with and from whom I learned and felt inspired. They hadn’t known me in my previous life as a “non-math person,” and I capitalized on that fresh start. I also took direction from school leadership and jumped at the opportunities for professional learning, knowing that intentional opportunities to learn and grow weren’t always guaranteed.

What are your beliefs about data and how do they shape your data identity? What would you like your beliefs to be instead? I encourage you to spend some time jotting your ideas down. That can give you a better sense of both where you’re starting from and what to aim for.

Take a look at yourself and make a change

As the distance between years spent in the classroom and years as a school leader grows for me, so does the tendency to forget some of my day-to-day teaching practices. Reflection, a foundational human skill, is so deeply ingrained in teaching, but it can easily be forgotten at the curbside when the car (to extend the metaphor) comes to whisk you to the leadership level. Part of that is because reflection takes time and, typically, something concrete to initiate it, such as an assessment. Teachers can’t run away from reflection because it is an immediate next step following lessons, tests, meetings with families, and other regular duties. But at the leadership level, sometimes the practice gets lost.

Once I was well on my Math Identity Redefining Tour, I made sure to keep myself grounded in the work by reflecting as often as possible.

Journaling became a big part of my life. I heard read rave reviews about The Five-Minute Journal, a daily commitment journal, which for a beginner made the task manageable and enjoyable. By starting and ending the day in a state of reflection and gratitude, I was able to keep myself centered and sight small shifts for the next day. I loved this structure so much that I committed to four years of it. Once I knew journaling was a habit, not a temporary fix, I moved away from a structured journal to a notebook. I’d often go back and revisit dogeared pages, and when appropriate I’d share my reflections with colleagues and friends to spark discussion. Sometimes, speaking vulnerabilities, hard truths, and hard-won lessons out loud cements them into your foundation.

When I wasn’t holding the mirror up to myself, I was thrusting myself into situations that forced reflection by making me “get comfortable with being uncomfortable,” as the saying goes. I’d sign up for the first intervisitation of the semester, open my classroom to high level observations, and seek professional learning that required me to turn-key the session. I’d open myself up for constructive feedback and I’d use those experiences to keep the mirror shined up and ever present.

Self-reflection action steps

I encourage you to find a daily reflection habit. Journaling, as I mentioned, is a great entrée to self-reflection that can fit into most people’s schedule. There a variety of journaling styles, so finding something that matches your personality shouldn’t be too difficult. More recently, I’ve moved to a grid notebook, so that I can compute in neat boxes as needed, but once upon a time a sketchpad was my go-to book because I needed space to doodle freely.

Podcasts are also a great way to keep you in the work. When I am home or traveling, I’ll find a few that provoke my thinking without exhausting me mentally. I keep them on in the background while I am going about my routine, and I am always pleasantly surprised when my ears pick up on something I should pay attention to.

Rewriting your data identity takes time

If you’ve ready any of my previous posts, you’ll be familiar with the grace I give to all human development processes, especially the journeys we embark on as adults to make ourselves better personally and professionally. Growth isn’t essential to our survival in the ways food and shelter are, but in my opinion, they are essential to our “thrival”: the full expression of living.

Breaking up with your former self is a worthy endeavor if it leads to a better version of you. But build some grace into this process. Don’t pick new habits with a heavy lift or that cause emotional fatigue. That’s why I liked journaling so much; it is a part of our collective social emotional lexicon and deeply supported in all circles. Reflection for an educator, a necessary component of growth, should feel like professional self-care. The confrontation that comes with honest reflection will be the first step toward these small shifts.

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There are times I look back on my adventures as a classroom teacher and pat myself on the back. And there are other times I look back and wish I had a redo.

To be honest, I always felt like I was swimming upstream as an educator: lesson planning, participating in professional learning communities, conforming to the district’s focus on test preparation (redo, please!), addressing parent questions and student conflicts. I was busy.

Research on ways to improve my practice sat perpetually on the back burner. The closest I got was checking out the school library’s copy of The Reading Teacher magazine, and even then, I mostly focused on the classroom activities. Now that I’m in a different role in education and have time to avail myself of research, I’ve discovered that teaching reading and writing in a connected manner was one of those things I should pat myself on the back for. Writing and reading skills both stand to benefit when we have students write about what they read.

Reading and writing go hand in hand

Steve Graham, a prominent researcher who focuses on writing instruction, has written extensively about “the reciprocal relation that exists between reading and writing.” In an article from 2020, he explains that when students receive and apply writing instruction, their reading ability improves, and as students become more fluent and comprehending readers, their writing ability also improves.

This claim is well substantiated: Graham and some of his colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of studies that examined 47 literacy programs that balanced reading with writing, meaning both were taught about equally, with neither exceeding 60% of instructional time. The researchers wanted to learn whether those programs with a dual focus on reading and writing improved students’ reading and writing performance overall. And guess what? They did.

Even though I was unaware of any research on the subject when I was in the classroom, there were many reasons I chose to have students write about what they read. And now I know from the work of Graham and his colleagues that these practices were sound.

The benefits of integrating writing and reading instruction

One of my favorite ways to pair reading and writing instruction in my classroom was to invite students to write about assigned reading. I would do this for both fiction and non-fiction reading we’d done—and for pieces of varying lengths, too. Here is why I found this practice to be so beneficial:

• Writing about published works facilitates reading comprehension and reveals text connections. Having students write about what they read gave me insight into what they understood about a text, how it impacted them, and how they connected to it. Even in elementary grades, kids were eager to share their thoughts with me and with their peers, and writing gave them a way to do that.
• Published works can become mentor texts. Opportunities to have students write about what they read let me see if students were able to model good writing that had been evident in a book or article we had focused on. If the author used similes or metaphors, for example, we discussed those when we read. We talked about why authors used figurative language and how it impacted the text and the reader. If the text was informational, we discussed important academic language, what each word meant, and why authors used “big words” when discussing a subject. Then, when students wrote about those texts, I got to observe them following the model of the author, which helped them understand things like an author’s purpose, an author’s craft, genre, and text structure.
• Professional writing can model sound grammar and syntax. When students wrote about what they read, I could even see how they noticed grammar and syntax that had been modeled by the author. I would then encourage the use of those elements of writing and have them practice using them the way the author did, or in new and creative ways.
• Other people’s writing can generate ideas for student writing. The mental blocks so commonly prevalent with students seemed to lessen when they didn’t have to grab something out of thin air to write about. Writing about reading gave them something to glom onto.
• Writing about what we read can improve engagement while reading. I strived to get to know my students, as my colleague Kayla McLaughlin describes in “4 ways to get students excited about writing.” I would choose highly engaging books my kids would be interested in. Does this mean the only writing they ever did was text based? No. There are many types of writing, and students must be able to approach them all with confidence. But it does mean that almost every text had accompanying writing work and that the texts were designed to appeal to my students.

When to incorporate writing tasks

Deciding when to incorporate writing is an important part of your lesson planning. There are great opportunities for writing before your students read a text and during and after, too.

• Prereading: Ask students to write about a topic you will be getting ready to read about. My students loved the book Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. The historical context of the Dust Bowl encouraged thinking about human consequences on the environment, the verse invited discussions about form, and the themes of hope and perseverance got us thinking about empathy. I posed different questions for students to answer prior to reading depending on what aspects I wanted to focus on. For example, if I wanted to focus on the science in the book with my fifth-graders, I would ask them to share things humans have done that have harmed the planet in their writing log. If I wanted to teach the difference between poetry, narrative, and informational texts with my fourth-graders, I would ask them to write descriptions of each of those forms. In both cases, writing before we did our reading gave me a good sense for our starting point ahead of my lessons.
• During reading: Quick writes can be effective during reading to help students reflect and give you insight into current understanding. These can be in response to guided questions, such as “Which character do you like best so far and why?” They can be answered in just a couple of sentences to help build student confidence and comfort with writing.
• After reading: Most of the time, I would give students prompts after reading, but sometimes, they were so fired up they just wanted to get some thoughts on paper. I found it useful when they were extra passionate about something to allow them to discuss it with a partner first; otherwise, the writing could be all over the place. I encouraged them to use evidence from the text to support their main points, rather than relying on their emotional reactions only, which they quickly realized strengthened their writing.

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Informal and quick writes are valuable and have their place in your classroom. We also know from research that the process behind writing is as important as the product created. An intentional, formal process encourages deep analysis and critical thinking. Researchers David Galbraith and Veerle Baaigen refer to writing as a “knowledge-transforming” process because it activates our recently acquired knowledge and helps encode that knowledge into our memory. That’s why we have designed guidance to support you in encouraging students to think not only about what they focus on when they write but also how a sound process can help them achieve their goals. NWEA calls this guidance a writing plan, and we have outlined expectations specific to grade bands: K–1, 2–5, 6–8.

Regardless of which grade band document you open, you’ll see questions that guide students to think about purpose, audience, type of writing, organization, and the writing process. The K–1 band keeps things basic so students can better understand what to think about before writing. As we move to the 2–5 and 6–8 bands, more detail is given, especially regarding the writing process. So, for example, K–1 students will focus on keeping calm, which we know is important for beginning writers who are fearful that they don’t have enough of a grasp of spelling and grammar to get their points across. Then, in grades 6–8, students are encouraged to advance to thinking about who their writing community includes and the more exacting steps they may take as part of the process (e.g., setting daily goals, avoiding distractions, reading a draft aloud to catch typos).

The consistent focus across K–8 in our writing plan tools emphasizes that process writing can—and should—be a part of the curriculum at all grades. The changing level of sophistication across K–8 shows that the writing process should always remain developmentally appropriate.

Another thing to note: Our writing plan tools don’t just apply to the ELA classroom. Several studies, including by Graham, have shown the benefits of writing in other disciplines, like science, history, and math, because that writing deepens students’ learning of the specific content being taught. Regardless of your content area, we encourage you to explore how you can use our writing plan tools in your classroom.

A note on writing and assessment

If your school uses MAP® Growth, you might be wondering how an interim assessment like MAP Growth fits in. While MAP Growth doesn’t assess writing, it does assess reading.

MAP Growth provides a RIT score for the reading domain. Knowing a student’s reading RIT score is lower than the proficiency norms for their grade level would be helpful when you think about what their writing scores might look like on your state summative. If the score is low, I encourage you to use formative assessment to further determine how best to differentiate instruction and build those reading and writing connections. For example, if your Class Profile report shows students’ RIT scores are low in vocabulary, choose books rich in academic language or that include figurative language in meaningful ways. Spend instructional time talking about the meaning of those words and the impact of the words on the text. Then have students write using the academic language or using figurative language to make their points.

MAP Growth also includes a language usage test that will give you insight into students’ strengths with grammar and conventions.

In closing

If you currently teach reading and writing separately, there’s no better time to reflect on how to have students write about what they read. That way, you won’t have to look back later and wish you, too, could have a redo.

I encourage you to explore opportunities for writing before, during, and after reading a text and to turn to our writing plan tools for support, including beyond the ELA classroom. Together, formative and interim assessment can help you get a good understanding for where students are in their growth as writers, and they’ll give you the information to course correct as needed.

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Suppose someone asked you to answer, in one word, what an assessment should ultimately provide. What would you say? Maybe “results?” Or “direction?” Or, better yet, “truth?” Though there are no wrong answers, here at NWEA we would probably say, “clarity.” (Though “truth” is a very close second!) Why? Because without a clear picture of where a student is, determining effective next steps for growth usually means guessing. Clarity is essential. The same is true for commonly used phrases, like “norm- vs. criterion-referenced in assessment.”

We think it’s important to clarify any misinformation that’s circulating through the assessment world. The idea of “norm- vs. criterion-referenced tests” has been making the rounds once again and it’s worth setting the record straight. So let’s get right to it: The first thing you should know about this subject is there is no such thing as a “norm-referenced test.” Or a “criterion-referenced test.” And certainly not a “norm- and criterion-referenced test.”

“I think this is a really large fundamental assessment literacy piece that is very misunderstood by many, many people,” says Adam Wolfgang, director of product management at NWEA. “The idea of there being an assessment that is either criterion- or norm-referenced is a myth. The assessment itself is neither.”

Norm- vs. criterion-referenced: What’s the difference?

The truth about all of this is that “norm-referenced” and “criterion-referenced” refer to ways to compare student scores, not tests. A norm-referenced comparison looks at a student’s performance in relation to that student’s peers while a criterion-referenced one gauges a student’s performance based on grade-level proficiency. Just about any major assessment available today uses both norm- and criterion-referenced measurements. Let’s take MAP® Growth as an example.

All of MAP Growth’s questions are intentionally written to be aligned to individual state standards. (For more on this, I encourage you to read our white paper “MAP Growth linking studies: Intended uses, methodology, and recent studies.”) So each question is querying if a student knows the content required for grade-level proficiency—a criterion-based measurement. The full results of the assessment (for MAP Growth, the RIT score) are then compared to students who are similar to our test taker—a norm-referenced comparison.

There is no such thing as a “norm-referenced test.” Or a “criterion-referenced test.” And certainly not a “norm- and criterion-referenced test.”

When we start looking at what is behind those comparisons, there are definitely important differences between assessments. For example, MAP Growth regularly tests the most students, so that norm-referenced comparison (between students) draws from the world’s largest pool of student data. But, again, almost every assessment out there uses both norm- and criterion-referenced measurements. Focusing on this can become a serious distraction from two much more important questions we should be asking: How much can you trust your assessment? Can your assessment effectively guide instruction? Let’s explore the answers.

Question 1: How much can I trust my assessment?

MAP Growth assessments are intentionally calibrated to balance precision, the length of the assessment, and its ability to diagnose.

This balance is designed to provide the most accurate information in approximately 43 questions, or a class period. We could easily double the number of questions but have instead designed our balance in response to what educators have clearly told us: assessments need to provide accurate information within a reasonable amount of time—especially for younger students.

This balance is also important because of its precision and ability to diagnose. For example, if a student tested with MAP Growth both today and tomorrow, the results would be within three points on the RIT scale. Other tests fall in the 9–10 point range, which is a substantial enough difference to prompt incorrectly placing students in an intervention program. Educators trust MAP Growth because it’s accurate.

Question 2: Is my assessment data useful for making decisions about instruction?

NWEA president Chris Minnich is known for saying, “A test alone never changed a kid’s life. It’s what happens after the test that matters.” This is the key, right?

Case studies from large and small, rural and urban districts continually show how MAP Growth informs actionable next steps. But there’s actually a deeper question here, about choice: Does your assessment let teachers use their expertise to choose what to do with the data? Or are you locked into a predetermined, one-size-fits-all path?

We believe in choices here, and we know our partners do, too. That’s why there is a seamless connection from MAP Growth to the widest range of learning tools from over thirty of the world’s leading instructional providers. Here’s how it works:
You know how to best meet the needs of your students. We’re here to help you get the best information to move your students forward.

What’s important to you?

Let’s finish up here with one final question: If you had only three words to describe qualities you value most in an assessment or instructional provider, what would those words be? There are no wrong answers, of course, but what we have talked about here might be pertinent:

• Clarity from truthful, helpful information
• Trust in accurate results that value your time
• Choices that respect your knowledge and expertise

As always, thank you so much for everything you do every day to move your students forward and prepare them for their next great adventure. And, OK, one last question that I am not even going to bother to answer because it is so obvious: Is there anything more important?

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Have you ever had one of those experiences where you use a word and soon realize your listener had a completely different interpretation of it? One of the most memorable of those communication breaks happened to me when my wife and I were newly married. We talked about how our apartment needed cleaning, then set off to do exactly that. I went after the irritating clutter; she went for the dirt. To me, “clean” meant getting things in order. To her, it meant wiping down baseboards. I hadn’t even noticed the baseboards. Ever. And I certainly didn’t think her notion of “clean” was as pressing as mine. We thought we were talking about the same thing, but we each meant something quite different. It led to a playful routine where we would stop and play a quick round of “what I said vs. what you heard” when we had unexpected responses from each other during conversations.

Words are funny that way. We like to think that the other person is hearing certain words in the same way that we mean them. We want our meanings to be shared. Often, though, that is simply not the case. And while misunderstanding each other’s meaning of the word “clean” is innocuous, other occasions of mismatched meanings could be far more, well, meaningful.

Formative conversations can illuminate student understandings

In educational settings, formative conversations can serve to help teachers and students better understand each other, just as my wife and I have tried to do since that fateful cleaning day. Consider the mathematics classroom. There are all sorts of ways people might talk past each other. The word “fraction” is a great example. When I say that word, I have a certain meaning that is grounded in how I think about that term. My listeners, on the other hand, all bring their own ideas to it: I might be thinking about a fraction as a point on the number line. Someone else might be thinking about circular foods. Another might be thinking about part/whole relationships while yet another might completely shut down due to a history that lacks any healthy, meaningful ways to think about fractions. It might look like we are talking, but given our different meanings  one might argue there is very little communication actually taking place.

To enable true communication, we must establish that we are meaning the same things.

“There are certain kinds of higher order thinking that only really express themselves when we talk to each other,” says former NWEA researcher Chase Nordengren while describing the strategy of using student discourse as formative assessment. It’s the ninth of ten transformative instructional strategies grounded in his research into what approaches work best in high-growth schools.

Chase is right on in the study’s accompanying white paper when he calls out that “getting students talking to one another is one of the most important things that can happen in any classroom.” The need to “facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse” is also strongly urged by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). It’s one of the eight mathematics teaching practices listed in their Principles to Actions document. I often emphasize that meaningful mathematics discourse must focus on mathematical meanings. That is, to enable true communication, we must establish that we are meaning the same things. The trick, however, is to find ways to get such conversations going and to know what to listen for.

How to improve communication with formative conversations

In line with Chase’s take, my colleagues and I thought about the formative space as a valuable place to drive powerful conversations. After considerable effort, we ended up building a series of eBooks called Formative Conversation Starters that are available for free on the NWEA website. There, we provide what we call “Big Ideas to Nurture Standards Sense-Making,” or BINSS, as a high-level framework of things to listen for, along with clusters of questions that invite opportunities to uncover meanings.

For example, when it comes to fractions, we aimed to highlight the importance of thinking about fractions as a number on the number line: “Fractions: A fraction is a single number. It is a number just as 1, or 100, or 37,549 are, and it has a location on the number line. Students should be able to think of a fraction as a number and treat it as such. The fraction  can be thought of as  copies of , where  is the length of a single part when the interval from 0 to 1 is partitioned into  parts. Two fractions are equivalent when they share a location on the number line.”

Then, we provide question clusters that poke at the big ideas. The clusters are organized around individual grade-level tasks, but instead of asking what mathematics is directly needed to answer a given task, we ask about the other mathematics that also plays a role. A particular task may focus on a single idea, but it will require meanings and ways of thinking from a collection of mathematical ideas. Our aim is to never let go of those other big ideas.

Here’s one set that invites conversation from page 16 of the eBook for grade 3:

• What is a fraction?
• Is a fraction two numbers or one number?
• What other words do we use with fractions? What do they mean?
• What do the and mean in the fraction ?

The intent is that these create opportunities to share ways of thinking and meanings. They should be non-threatening in delivery. Try them for yourself. How would you answer these questions? How do you think your students might answer them? Also, if your content area lies outside of mathematics, how could the guidance offered in the eBooks apply to your discipline and classroom?

Regularly revisit big ideas—and prioritize conversations

There are 10 BINSS overall in our Formative Conversation Starters series that focus on things like comparisons, operations, and proportional relationships. The wonderful thing about the mathematical ideas in these documents is that they never expire (unlike other things in math). The question clusters in third grade, for example, could be used in any later grade. In fact, when I wrote some of the middle-school level clusters, I had my former college students in mind. They work well with adults, too, as we all need to find ways to uncover how we are thinking and to clearly communicate our meanings.

I encourage you to give Transformative Ten strategy #9—Use student discourse as formative assessment—a try as you support high growth for the students in your classroom. Feel free to use our mathematical tools to help make it happen and to explore the countless ways the principles could apply in ELA and other classrooms, too.

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In “5 grounding tenets for successful instructional coaching relationships,” my colleague Lindsay Deacon explored the five grounding tenets that shape effective instructional coaching: prioritize agency, offer partnership, center on equity, honor experience, and foster relationships. As virtual instructional coaching becomes increasingly prevalent, it’s essential to consider how these tenets can be effectively applied in a digital context. While the core principles remain the same, their implementation requires thoughtful adaptation to the virtual environment.

Tenet 1: Prioritize agency

This first tenet centers on empowering teachers to be active, valued, and equal members of an instructional coaching relationship and to make the most of professional learning opportunities.

Virtual application

Empowering teachers to prioritize their professional learning in a virtual setting involves providing flexible and accessible resources. Coaches can use various digital tools to offer personalized support that fits a teacher’s schedule and preferences. The key difference from in-person coaching is the need to be more proactive in offering diverse and easily accessible resources to accommodate varying levels of comfort and familiarity with technology.

Strategies

• Asynchronous learning opportunities: Create and share video tutorials, articles, and online courses that teachers can access at their convenience. This differs from in-person coaching, where learning might occur more synchronously.
• Virtual check-ins: Schedule regular, flexible virtual meetings to discuss progress, set goals, and address any challenges teachers might face. Virtual check-ins should be more frequent to compensate for the lack of physical presence and spontaneous interactions. Aim to check in at least once a week, even if it’s just a five-minute chat. Consistency is key.
• Digital collaboration tools: Utilize platforms like FigJam, Miro, Mural, or Kami to collaboratively work on plans and projects, ensuring teachers have a say in their professional development journey. These tools help maintain an ongoing collaborative environment, unlike sporadic in-person meetings.

Reflection questions

• How can I leverage digital tools to honor and value the skills, knowledge, and talent of those I coach?
• How can I ensure that my virtual coaching practices enable others to grow and achieve their potential?

Tenet 2: Offer partnership

As Lindsay explains in her post, “Coaches and teachers must work together toward a common goal: student learning.” Functioning as a team can make instructional coaching infinitely more successful.

Virtual application

In the virtual realm, fostering a collaborative coaching partnership requires intentional communication and shared digital spaces. Unlike in-person coaching, where non-verbal cues and spontaneous conversations play a significant role, virtual instructional coaching relies heavily on structured communication and regular check-ins to maintain a strong partnership.

Strategies

• Joint virtual planning sessions: Use video conferencing tools to co-plan lessons and strategies in real time. This approach can mirror in-person collaborative planning sessions, with the added benefit of allowing you to record sessions for future reference.
• Feedback loops: Implement regular feedback mechanisms through digital surveys, emails, or discussion boards to maintain a two-way dialogue. This ensures continuous engagement and responsiveness, which can be more challenging to gauge without face-to-face interaction.
• Co-teaching opportunities: If feasible, join virtual classrooms to co-teach or observe virtually and provide immediate, constructive feedback. Another alternative is to utilize recording and analysis using a “look-for” protocol. This can be done individually and then collaboratively discussed. Utilizing a “look-for” protocol can help teachers focus on specific information rather than superficial critiques. If you don’t already have tried and true “look-for” protocols, Corwin has a helpful one to assess student behavior and another teachers can use to assess instruction.

Reflection questions

• How can I use virtual tools to recognize that working together is essential to creating anything significant?
• What does taking joint responsibility look like in a virtual coaching environment?

Tenet 3: Center on equity

Our busy schedules can sometimes make it easy to overlook the importance of equity in instructional coaching. But as Lindsay rightly asserts, “Teaching is extremely personal, and coaches must be able to enter their work with an asset-based mindset.”

Virtual application

Equity in a virtual coaching context means ensuring that all teachers have access to the resources and support they need to succeed, regardless of their technological proficiency or access. The virtual environment can amplify existing disparities, so coaches must be vigilant in addressing these challenges.

Strategies

• Technology support: Provide training sessions on using virtual platforms effectively to ensure all teachers can fully participate. This might include offering one-on-one tech support or creating how-to guides and FAQs. However, keep in mind that technology is a tool for learning, not a learning outcome.
• Resource distribution: Ensure that digital resources are accessible to all, considering potential barriers such as accessibility needs, time constraints, and language barriers. This could involve providing resources that are compatible with assistive technologies, making resources available on demand to accommodate teachers’ schedules, and providing translations or resources in multiple languages.
• Personalized coaching: Tailor coaching sessions to meet the specific needs of each teacher, acknowledging and addressing their unique challenges. In a virtual setting, this means being more flexible and adaptable to different time zones, schedules, and levels of digital fluency. It may also mean offering materials in multiple formats to cater to different learning styles.

Reflection questions

• How can I develop better virtual connections to—and concern for—those I coach?
• How do I demonstrate the worth and dignity of those I coach through virtual interactions?

Tenet 4: Honor experience

One of the biggest benefits of instructional coaching is the opportunity to tailor the experience to the unique individual you’re working with. Understanding a teacher’s experience in the classroom is critical.

Virtual application

Honoring experience in a virtual setting involves creating relevant and practical learning experiences that translate well into the digital classroom. The lack of physical presence requires more creativity in making these experiences engaging and effective.

Strategies

• Interactive webinars: Host webinars that allow for interactive participation, such as Q&A sessions and breakout discussions. Unlike traditional workshops, these webinars need to be more dynamic to keep participants engaged. Incorporate multimedia elements, interactive quizzes, and real-world examples to enhance engagement and relevance.
• Virtual peer observations: Facilitate opportunities for teachers to observe other classrooms virtually (in real time or recorded). Encourage teachers to share insights, resources, and experiences related to their students’ needs and learning outcomes, fostering collaboration and collective problem-solving. This provides valuable cross-learning opportunities.
• Case study analysis: Encourage teachers to engage in case study analysis, where they examine specific teaching scenarios, strategies, or student outcomes within their classrooms. They can reflect on these cases, analyze what worked well, identify areas for improvement, and share their insights. Virtual platforms can facilitate the sharing and discussion of these case studies more broadly and effectively.

Reflection questions

• How do I foster authentic and supportive virtual experiences to encourage teachers to experiment, explore, and take risks?
• How do I encourage those I coach to practice the skills they are learning so they can achieve mastery in a virtual setting?

Tenet 5: Foster relationships

“When coaches anchor their work with teachers in a respect that is fostered by actively listening to each other,” Lindsay explains, “they will develop a reciprocal, trusting relationship where the outcomes truly matter to both the coach and the teacher.”

Virtual application

Building and maintaining strong relationships virtually requires a deliberate effort to establish trust and rapport through consistent and meaningful communication. Without the benefit of face-to-face interaction, coaches must be more intentional in creating opportunities for connection.

Strategies

• Regular virtual meetings: Schedule consistent virtual meetings to check in, listen, and provide feedback. Frequency is key to compensate for the lack of casual, spontaneous interactions typical in an in-person setting. Consistency helps build routine and reliability. Have a clear agenda for each meeting but allow flexibility to address immediate concerns or questions from the teachers.
• Personal touches: Use personalized messages, video calls, and digital notes to show genuine interest and care. Small gestures, such as remembering personal details and celebrating successes, become even more important virtually.
• Virtual social gatherings: Organize informal virtual gatherings or coffee chats to build a sense of community and connection. These gatherings can help recreate the camaraderie of in-person interactions and reduce feelings of isolation.

Reflection questions

• How do my virtual interactions exhibit respect and personal regard through listening, questioning, and providing feedback?
• How do I use language that demonstrates a belief in the contributions of those I coach in a virtual environment?

In closing

Transitioning to virtual instructional coaching presents unique challenges and opportunities. By applying the five grounding tenets—prioritize agency, offer partnership, center on equity, honor experience, and foster relationships—coaches can continue to provide effective, meaningful support in the digital realm. Embracing these principles ensures that virtual coaching remains impactful, helping teachers grow professionally and enhancing student learning outcomes.

As we navigate this digital shift, continuous reflection and adaptation will be key. Let’s commit to using these tenets as our guide to create resilient and responsive virtual instructional coaching environments where all educators and students can thrive.

To learn more about instructional coaching services available through NWEA, visit our website.

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As summer sets in and routines change, you might be thinking about how to support your kids in holding onto the academic gains they made during the school year. According to the National Summer Learning Association, which invests in summer learning to help close opportunity gaps, all students experience learning loss when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer months. For more on this topic, I encourage you to read “Summer learning loss: What we know and what we’re learning” by NWEA researchers Megan Kuhfeld and Andrew McEachin.

8 great resources

The following are eight of my favorite ways to support summer learning at home—or while you’re on vacation!

1. Summer reading programs. Many libraries and bookstores offer summer reading programs to encourage kids to read during the summer months. Check out what’s available to you locally
2. “Five was to promote endless summer reading.” This Teach. Learn. Grow. blog post by NWEA literacy expert Julie Richardson provides practical advice on engaging kids of all ages with reading this summer.
3. How to support reading at home: A guide for families. This compilation of Teach. Learn. Grow. blog posts will help you support younger kids in continuing to develop their reading skills.
4. How to support writing at home: A guide for families. Just like the compilation listed above, this eBook can help you encourage your child to keep practicing writing this summer.
5. Summer Boost. This site is full of worksheets, games, workbooks, activities, lesson plans, and more that can help you put together fun exercises to keep your kids reading, writing, and practicing their math skills this summer.
6. Khan Academy. You probably know about Khan Academy as a math resource. But did you know they have reading, writing, and science courses, too?
7. PBS Kids for Parents. Designed to support parents and caregivers of kids up to age 8, this site is full of valuable resources for supporting math, literacy, and science summer learning but also emotional regulation and social skills development.
8. Get outside. Experiential learning is also something you can encourage over the summer. Local field trips, camping, and museums are all great ways to connect your child with their surroundings and nature all while practicing literacy and math skills and having fun as a family. Where will you and yours go?

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For years, MAP® Reading Fluency has provided teachers with critical insights into their students’ reading skills. Now, MAP Reading Fluency with Coach helps them go the extra mile with targeted practice students can complete independently and in as little as 30 minutes a week.

The best part? Coach provides personalized tutoring automatically, saving teachers time while giving young readers exactly what they need.

About MAP Reading Fluency

MAP Reading Fluency is a K–5 reading assessment designed to be administered three times a year. We recommend testing in the fall, winter, and spring.

In just one class period, MAP Reading Fluency allows a teacher to assess an entire class in both English and Spanish. Objective data shows teachers exactly where their students are in their reading journey so they can differentiate instruction effectively and successfully. MAP Reading Fluency also identifies students showing characteristics of dyslexia, so they can be given the reading support they need.

How MAP Reading Fluency with Coach works

Administering MAP Reading Fluency hasn’t changed with the addition of our new coach feature. What’s different is what happens with the results.

MAP Reading Fluency with Coach facilitates differentiating instruction

Understanding the data from any assessment is only half the battle. Teachers also need to be able to confidently use that data to differentiate instruction so all the students in their class can meet learning objectives.

Differentiation can be immensely time consuming, of course, especially for newer teachers still developing their practice. This is where MAP Reading Fluency with Coach shines. Using data from the assessment, it automatically places kids in personalized learning pathways that offer targeted microinterventions grounded in the science of reading. The microinterventions address skills in the following areas:

• Decoding
• Comprehension
• Vocabulary
• Phonological awareness
• Sight recognition

We recommend students spend about 30 minutes a week completing these practice activities, alongside whole-class instruction. Two fifteen-minute or three ten-minute practice sessions are a great way to give students frequent exposure and ongoing support. The coach supports students in both English and Spanish with orthographic mapping activities, word definitions, background knowledge, and more. Meanwhile, teachers gain additional data to support them in differentiating instruction and meeting learning goals. Several reports are available after students complete as little as one session with the virtual coach:

• Tracking report: Allows you to view the status for each student and assign assessments.
• Progress report: Lets you see individual student reading performance over time, including oral reading metrics.
• Skills Status report: Identifies very specific skills students are developing and mastering, such as particular consonant blends in phonics.
• Skills Diagnostic report: Provides a holistic view of each student’s reading development. This report is particularly useful for MTSS teams.
• Badging report: Lets you view and award badges as a way to celebrate student success and encourage healthy competition.

Learn more

To hear more about MAP Reading Fluency with Coach, we encourage you to watch our on-demand webinar Sneak peek: MAP Reading Fluency with Coach. We also recommend our professional learning workshops that zero in on best practices for using MAP Reading Fluency with Coach and the most essential reports for teachers. Download our professional learning fact sheet to see what’s available, and talk to your principal or NWEA sales representative about options for bringing professional learning to your school.

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I will never forget the day I was hired as a teacher. There was one position open in a local school, and the principal was excited to offer me the job as I had been a student teacher and then a substitute there. I walked the fifteen minutes from my home on that hot, late summer New York City day, passed through those big red doors, and waited in the office for my name to be called. Soon enough I was informed of an open sixth- and seventh-grade 12:1 math position. Could I teach students with IEPs? Sure thing. Could I teach math? You betcha. The principal and I shook hands and he congratulated me on becoming the school’s newest faculty member.

The moment I emerged from those metal doors and began the walk back home, the reality of the situation hit me: I had just been hired as a math teacher. I did not grow up a “math person.” While I was in the higher performing classes due to tracking, as a student, math was my Achilles heel. It was the one subject that perpetually held down my overall average, the one subject I needed a tutor in, and the one subject that made me sweat and dread school. But here I was, about to become a math person, whether I liked it or not.

As every teacher knows, that first year was a trial by fire. I struggled to keep my head above water those first few months. Then, one day, I gave myself a firm talking to. I confronted my negative disposition toward math, which had been exacerbated by years of struggle and disconnect between me and the subject. I told myself that I was a math person, that this shift, this work, was essential, and that I was going to rewrite my math story.  A few years later, I had become a leader in the department, and my classroom was often showcased during high-stakes school visits and highlighted for its innovative lessons. When I left the classroom many years later, I felt a deep sense of pride for all I had accomplished. That inner sixth-grader who, once upon a time, failed math couldn’t have been more proud.

Often, when we face necessary “evils”—uncomfortable systems or processes or subjects that we can’t live with or without—we defer to old habits. When presented with that first teaching assignment, I really wanted to melt back into my old ways of interacting with math: ignore, procrastinate, or just get by. However, I knew my students would suffer if I didn’t show myself some tough love.

I now have the pleasure of working with school and district leaders in my role at NWEA as a senior professional learning consultant. In this capacity, I am able to have robust, honest conversations with those who are responsible for the health and growth of a school and its community. We speak frankly about K–12 data leadership, the things that are working, and the obstacles to progress. Year after year, I’ve heard the same responses from school leaders: they know their assessment reports are important, but they’re just not a “data person.” Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Data is essential

Stay with me while I lean into a metaphor many of us can relate to.

Imagine you go for a routine physical. The doctor is out of network, but you’ve weighed the cost of a visit and deemed it valuable since they are a leader in their field. A week later, you receive your results: a carefully packaged, in-depth summary of your current health. The doctor has even taken the time to provide a few suggestions based on your results. You get the folio and toss it in your trunk, your linen closet, your kid’s toy chest. For weeks. You just don’t have the time for it; it’s too much to read and you feel fine, for the most part. But, why? There’s no point in going to a doctor if you aren’t going to acknowledge your results in a timely manner and make changes, however small, based on their recommendations.

The same goes for K–12 data. What is the point in administering an assessment if the data isn’t going to be used to its fullest potential? Data is essential, but it can feel like a necessary evil if your default disposition is to ignore, procrastinate, or just get by. While it doesn’t take much to go from data novice to data rockstar, the first step to overcoming any obstacle is to admit that there is one in the first place.

Self-assess to get started

If you feel as though you may need to refresh your data aptitude, or if you find yourself rethinking your data habits as you read this, you’re off to a good start. Self-reflection is a necessary prerequisite in any growth process. To begin, I encourage you to ask yourself questions such as the following:

• Do my teachers and teacher leaders see me as a role model in data implementation?
• Do my teachers and teacher leaders view me as enthusiastic and interested in our data?
• Do I promote a school culture where teachers understand the value of data in meeting the needs of students?
• Am I confident in my ability to lead data-driven discussions across teams?
• Am I confident in my understanding of my school’s data?

7 steps to becoming a data leader

If you’d like to get started on your journey toward highly effective K–12 data leadership, here are a few steps that will guide you in the process.

1. Rewrite your identity. First, consider yourself a data person. Envision the type of leader you would like to be: confident, fluent, and both empowered and empowering.
2. Start small. Don’t attempt to tackle all your school’s data at once. That would be the same as adopting all your doctor’s recommendations at once. While it is good practice in theory, real success and shifts in habits happen gradually. Pick a few data points, such as the MAP® Growth School Profile report, and pair it with attendance reports or feedback from teachers regarding new resources.
3. Seek professional learning. In the movie 28 Days, Sandra Bullock must wear a sign around her neck that says, “Confront me if I don’t ask for help.” I always thought that was brilliant because most people consider asking for help a sign of weakness, despite the countless ways we give the opposite message to our students. Many school leaders feel they must know all the answers, or be perceived to, and that can become a tricky, limiting, and isolating space to occupy. NWEA offers a variety of professional learning experiences to help get you on your way—and keep you on the path—of data leadership.
4. Build a team of thought partners. Share your newfound knowledge and enthusiasm with a team of key players in your district or building: principals, assistant principals, instructional coaches, subject leaders. It takes a village. They might even be able to provide additional insight you may have otherwise overlooked.
5. Hold yourself accountable. Old habits have a way of creeping back in without notice, so hold yourself accountable to a consistent, committed mindset. If you find that it is difficult to commit to the work…
6. Find a mentor and be a mentor. Committing to habit change is easier when you’re in the work with someone you value and trust. Being accountable to a colleague and having them be accountable to you is a surefire way to make sure you are surrounding yourself with people who will support and enhance your growth.
7. Self-reflect throughout. Just because the process began with self-reflection doesn’t mean the practice should be left in the rearview mirror. In the same way teachers are encouraged to constantly use data, observations, conference notes, and all their experiences to make changes and confront obstacles, so should you—and often.

Feel free to personalize these tips; they’re just suggestions to help you on your way. To hear a bit more about data leadership, watch the video below.

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At its core, education is about the teaching and learning process. How do we teach the necessary literacies, content knowledge, critical thinking skills, and habits of mind deemed essential to prepare our children for productive, fulfilling, and engaged lives? How do we know whether students have learned what was taught and to what degree? Formative, summative, and interim assessment strives to answer these questions, providing valuable insights on the degree to which the teaching and learning process succeeded.

That said, there is often confusion as to what types of assessments are administered when, what data they provide, and how they benefit teachers, students, and families. Here’s a quick rundown on the three main assessment types and what they are used for.

Formative assessment guides learning

Formative assessment includes sharing learning goals, modeling what success looks like, and giving clear, actionable feedback to students. By design, formative assessment:

• Has an explicit connection to an instructional unit
• Should never be used for grading
• Consists of many kinds of strategies, and can be as informal as asking a well-crafted question—and using the evidence collected from the question
• Helps educators guide the learning process, rather than measure student performance
• Provides students with data they can use to determine where they are in their learning, set goals, monitor their learning progress, and serve as instructional resources for their peers

Summative assessment certifies learning

Generally, educators administer a summative assessment near the end of an instructional unit to help them answer the question, “What did students learn?” All sorts of different assessment instruments are used for summative assessment, including:

• End-of-unit tests and end-of-course tests
• Performance tasks/simulations
• Portfolios
• Oral examinations
• Research reports
• Standardized state summative assessments

Despite the array of possible summative instruments, it’s the state summative assessments that often come to mind. Federal educational policy requires data collected from these tests to be used for accountability purposes; other high stakes are associated with summative assessment, such as selection, promotion, and graduation. Legislators also use state summative assessment data to communicate the state of education to the public.

Since summative assessment happens so late in the instructional process, the most effective use of its test data is more evaluative than instructional. For teachers, data can help guide decisions, such as grades for a course, promotion to the next grade, graduation, credit for courses, and more. Summative assessment data also plays a role at the administrative level, where it can be used for planning curricula, determining professional development needs, and identifying the resources and federal assistance a district needs to flourish.

Interim assessment guides teaching and learning

A wide middle ground exists between teachers’ day-to-day formative assessment of student learning and the formal protocols of state summative assessment. This middle ground offers opportunities—captured under the umbrella term “interim assessment”—to gather information about many things that are relevant to the teaching and learning process, including:

• Individual and collective student growth
• Effectiveness of teaching practices, programs, and initiatives
• Projection of whether a student, class, or school is on track to achieve established proficiency benchmarks
• Instructional needs of individual students

Educators can use interim assessment in a formative way to directly guide instruction. When this happens, data aggregation is considered the key difference between formative and interim assessment. This ability to aggregate data at critical points in the learning cycle allows interim assessment to have a broader set of purposes than both formative and summative assessment. As a result, interim assessment is the only type of assessment that provides educators with data for instructional, predictive, and evaluative purposes.

To understand the value of interim assessment, it’s helpful to understand its variety of purposes. One is to provide educators insight into growth patterns in student learning. Growth can be calculated from student achievement scores taken at logical intervals, such as fall to spring, or fall to fall, or whatever makes the most sense for a district. Many educators use a fall-winter-spring schedule when administering MAP® Growth, our interim assessment. The seasonal system permits enough instructional time between test administrations to allow educators to calculate growth in learning with statistical confidence.

Another purpose of interim assessment is to help teachers make decisions around differentiating instruction. If the assessment is adaptive, those decisions can better serve all the students in the class, not only those who are ready to learn at grade level. Within any given classroom, teachers will have students who are ready to go deep with concepts, be challenged, and apply and expand their learning. Conversely, there will be other students who need to learn foundational concepts and skills before they’re prepared for grade-level concepts and skills. Interim assessment can help identify gaps so all students have the opportunity to grow, no matter where they are starting from.

These missing foundational concepts and skills may be from the previous grade, or even further back. The gaps provide an enormous challenge for teachers whose only information on their students relates to specific grade-level content. For the students who are ready to be challenged, what are they ready to be challenged by? And for the students who are not prepared to learn grade-level standards yet, where are they in their learning?

MAP Growth quickly and precisely targets every student’s level of achievement—including students performing at, above, or below grade level. Interim assessment does more than help teachers instructionally. It also supports students in looking at their own growth: where they are and want to go, what their goals should be, and what an action plan for learning looks like. The other purposes of interim assessment are predictive and evaluative. Its data can help educators predict student performance on important markers and evaluate whether teaching strategies, programs, and curricula are effective.

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Using assessment data to differentiate instruction can seem like a daunting task. My initial resistance to data originated from a hesitance to disrupt the flow of my classroom; appearing as intentional “chaos,” my lessons were chock-full of academic discourse, dynamic collaboration, and purposefully planned activities. But as a New York City model teacher, not only was I expected to be using assessment data to differentiate instruction, but I was also expected to set an example for best practices.

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In the 2003 film Love Actually, the ever-rumpled Hugh Grant informs the audience that “Love, actually, is all around.” As someone who loves to write and always strives to be better at it, bear with me as I take that quote and attempt to spin it in my own way: A writing community is, actually, all around. We can help young writers create a classroom writing community and then help them expand it ever outward to support their growth in a manner that is warm, flexible, and readily available.

It is often tempting to take an overly formal approach to writing. While the writing process is a critical tool for developing writers, there is no need to instill in them the idea that they need to send a formal invitation, written in calligraphy, to ask someone to provide feedback about their writing.

What, after all, is the goal of having a writing community? At its best, the community will support every writer by providing suggestions for improvement, ideas about new approaches, and even refinement of the topic or specific wording choices. This support can take many forms and can be approached in a variety of ways.

Lead by example

A powerful way for educators to nurture young writers is to provide ample opportunities for writing, but also for them to show themselves as writers. In the 2019 article “Changing how writing is taught,” Steve Graham advocates for teachers to see themselves as writers and to model their own active engagement in the writing process. He notes that this requires a level of vulnerability, but that it is also a tool to show students that it takes practice and thoughtfulness to hone the craft, a craft in which there is always room for more growth.

How can a teacher open the door to allow students the opportunity to understand the teacher’s thinking as the teacher writes? Using a “think aloud” is a great way to do this. Consider a history teacher who needs to explain different types of governments the class will be studying over the course of a year. That teacher may begin by saying something along the lines of, “I listed this type of government first because it is at the center of what we are studying this year, though it is not what we will encounter first chronologically.” This is a way of demystifying a lesson plan and inviting students in.

Remind students that everyone has a writing voice and a writing identity that are worth sharing and developing.

If a teacher is vulnerable and open, it creates a stronger sense of safety for students who may be hesitant to share their own writing. It also makes writing seem a bit less formal and scary. As educators, we likely share our own written words regularly with our class. Why not pull back the curtain? Doing so shows our students that even a sentence or a list on a board is an act of writing worthy of note and examination.

Use peer feedback

When we think of a writing community in the school setting, we likely picture a teacher-organized peer review activity. The teacher pairs students or organizes them into groups, and they take turns reading or listening to each other’s works. Then they share their thoughts, and the more earnest (or perhaps punitive) peers will whip out their metaphorical red pens and share feedback.

Students may need help starting and continuing these dialogues. Consider providing conversation starters for them to use. Even something as simple as, “One part of my writing that seemed to go more slowly than other parts was…” or “I think my opening paragraph could be more….” If an exchange does not flow smoothly, students can turn back to these conversation starters to continue their collaboration.

Be sure to add in prompts that force students to focus on points of pride, for example, “I was so happy when I…” or “I really liked the sentence where I….” This allows them to remember successes and to also illuminate accomplishments that may help their peers consider their own work. Peer feedback has benefits for all involved but has also proven to be particularly valuable for students learning a second language—even more valuable than teacher feedback.

To provide more structure and guidance, a teacher can assign a particular area of focus for any peer review work. “Review each other’s work and provide feedback” is likely far too broad an instruction, particularly if the class is only 45 or 50 minutes. Give students more guidance, or weed out elements that are not going to yield helpful results. If you want student discussion to have greater depth and meaning, ask them to focus on structure or tone, for example. Consider giving them conversation starters such as, “The type of structure I used for this essay was…. I chose this because….”

This is not to say that they cannot give each other feedback on grammar and mechanics, but these young writers will benefit more from feedback about the arguments they are making or the organization of their work. It helps the receiver as well as the provider to think about writing at this level rather than about input that can come from spelling and grammar check tools available in word processing programs.

Another way you can guide peer review sessions is by building student awareness of mentor texts. When students are exposed to clear, effective, and powerful writing, they can start to learn by example. I promise that I am not being paid by the estate of Ray Bradbury when I say that when I attempt to craft figurative language, I think about his stunning writing in Something Wicked This Way Comes. While I will never have his gifts, I have a lofty target at which to aim. I was lucky enough to read this work at a young age and to see how powerfully a writer can manipulate words and pages. If students read the same mentor texts, they start to build a shared vocabulary around writing they can use when “coaching” each other.

It is vital to monitor how students are providing feedback, of course. As I mentioned earlier, sharing your writing is an act of vulnerability. If we want students to become more comfortable doing this, we have to make sure the experience is as positive and productive as we can make it. Especially if the feedback comes early in the writing process, students likely are not sharing Pulitzer Prize–ready work. Remind students to frame feedback in clear but gentle ways, and model this for them consistently. “Your sentences are a hot mess” is likely to damage a young writer; “I’m not sure I quite understand what you mean in your second sentence” is gentler while still guiding the writer to reflect and revise.

Embrace an audience of more than one

When a student thinks about their writing community, the person they probably think of first is their teacher. While teachers can and do provide valuable insight, there is a danger of inadvertently leading students to think that the only audience for their writing is the teacher. This can stifle student voice and growth if the student forgets that generally, when we write, we hope to reach more than one person.

And what if that one person has a narrow idea of what constitutes “good” or “acceptable” writing? In life beyond school, we sometimes write to an audience of just one, but students need coaching about considering broader audiences. If you want them to write particularly to your preferences, establish that via a rubric or a structured document of that nature. Bear in mind, though, that your preferences may not serve them well with future teachers. Not all teachers love humor in writing, or a distinct voice. Help your students think more broadly, which means you will have to think broadly as well.

It is also important to remind students that writing is not only the act of sitting in a classroom writing an essay or responding to a text-dependent analysis question.

Over the course of a year, students should also have opportunities to experiment with different styles of writing and to consider different audiences. Help them think about what this means and brainstorm together (once again, modeling vulnerability) what successful writing might look like for the audience in question. Even better: Find members of that audience and ask them what appeals to them in writing. Those people then become members of the writing community, too, providing insight and guidance that young writers can carry with them as they progress with their craft.

Think creatively about the writing community

While teachers and classmates can provide valuable feedback, a gift we can give young writers is to help them realize that a writing community can take many forms. If I turn and ask a colleague to review an email I wrote to see if it makes sense, I have brought them into my writing community. If I do a “think aloud” about an essay I have to write about character growth in a play, the person listening to me ramble has become a part of my community. If I read aloud to my dog, who is surely just waiting to hear the words “treat” or “walkies,” I could even say I have brought him into my writing community. (Okay, sure, this is really just me talking to myself, but humor me.) Students should be encouraged to engage others in providing feedback to their writing. Siblings, friends, invested adults—these can all become part of our writing communities.

I think something offputting, or at least intimidating, about creating a writing community is the idea that it means you hand over your work, either in physical or electronic form, and you wait for the recipient to read and critique it. While this mode of feedback can be extremely helpful, it requires a level of formality that is not always necessary. Support your students in being creative about when and how they ask for feedback from their writing community. Does one sentence of an essay feel clunky to them? Have them ask someone if it makes sense. Are they struggling to clarify the argument they are trying to make? Encourage them to bounce it off someone else and ask them if they can explain what the writer believes or is postulating. Students don’t have to have every person engage in a thorough analysis of an entire piece of writing.

I also encourage you to support your students in asking others what they think makes them good writers. Perhaps one student has a good ear for dialogue and can help their peers with that at some point. Perhaps citations come easily to someone else who is willing to review those. We all have different strengths and interests in writing; pulling in people with a wide range of skills makes a writing community diverse and flexible.

Shaping a writing identity

A teacher—I would argue almost every teacher—has an opportunity to play a pivotal role in the development of a student’s identity as a writer. Many students may be resistant to this idea, thinking they can only deserve the title of “writer” if they reach the pantheon of famous writers who dominate bookshelves and pedestals within the canon.

We can make the title of “writer” less intimidating and remind students that everyone has a writing voice and a writing identity that are worth sharing and developing. It is also important to remind students that writing is not only the act of sitting in a classroom writing an essay or responding to a text-dependent analysis question. We write more than we think we do: when we send emails, when we post to social media, when we send text messages, or even when we jot down reminders to ourselves. With everything we write, we are expressing something of ourselves. What could be more worthwhile for educators to nurture?

So, forget Hugh Grant. Forget your latent rage toward Alan Rickman and how he treated Emma Thompson’s character in that movie. A writing community is, actually, all around. We all have a voice and identity as a writer, even if we have not yet pinpointed it. Help your students embrace that writing identity, and use their writing community to help them allow it to shine through in all of their work. Model this as an educator and your young writers will, whether they thank you or not, benefit from it.

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Over the years, I’ve experienced some amazing displays of learning. I’ve taught preschool, led elementary after-school programs, run summer programming for middle-schoolers, tutored and coached high-schoolers, been a college faculty member, and volunteered in adult education. Across these settings, I’ve encountered people who advanced their own learning in unique ways. And I’ve always found it interesting to ask, how do they do it? What motivates their self-directed learning?

If you’re also curious about what drives students as they learn, you could dive into academic research on the psychology of motivation and learning. It’s fascinating. But if you want to skip ahead and observe what some of this research looks like in real life, there’s no better place than a certain sixth-grade math classroom in Schiller Park, Illinois. This classroom features a self-directed learning model in which students work autonomously, consult and collaborate with each other, and draw support from their teacher.

In fact, self-directed learning works so well in this particular school that NWEA made Schiller Park the centerpiece of its High Growth for All research project. Based on what’s working in successful schools, this project aims to give educators tools and insights to tackle inequities in the classroom and enter a new era where all students attain the growth they deserve.

High Growth for All is based in rigorous research, but it’s not just a theoretical framework. It’s the foundation for a suite of best practices called the Transformative Ten. In this article, I’ll explore one of these transformative strategies that has worked in Schiller Park and many other places: creating opportunities for self-directed learning.

The building blocks of self-directed learning

Many teachers have seen with their own eyes that students who engage in self-directed learning can make great progress. But how does it work? To understand this, let’s unpack the psychological model behind this practice: self-determination theory, as laid out in the 1970s by Deci and Ryan and elaborated on by many other researchers since.

There are many touchpoints you can use to make sure self-directed learning takes place in a context of collaboration, sharing, support, and alignment.

Deci and Ryan built their theory on one big insight: while external factors can certainly help motivate people—who doesn’t like earning a paycheck or getting good grades?—the most meaningful and lasting sources of motivation typically come from within. And when we explore what fuels and sustains this sense of motivation, we find three main components: autonomy, relatedness, and competence. These are the building blocks of self-directed learning.

Let’s consider each of these components and explore how you can begin putting them to good use in your classroom. I’ll also note some potential barriers and how you can surmount them.

The power of autonomy

We don’t need research to tell us what teachers find every day: intrinsic motivation is the key to autonomy. Of course, there are always external expectations in place, and students will often gain satisfaction from meeting or even exceeding these expectations. But as you tap into students’ own inner drives, their capacity for self-directed learning increases dramatically.

That’s because students love to direct their own development through their interests and needs, and this is especially true as they get older. If we want them to really embrace the learning process and their own pursuit of it, setting them up to work autonomously, based on their own interests, is the way to make this happen.

Here are some practical ways to promote autonomy in the classroom:

• Get to know your students and their personal interests. When you have a sense of what your students care about and you can connect their interests to the task at hand, that’s a great way to supercharge learning. (This is especially true of writing, as my colleague Kayla McLaughlin notes in “4 ways to get students excited about writing.”)
• Recognize students’ successes. When students are encouraged to celebrate and reflect on their own successes, they come to think of themselves as successful—and they expect that success will continue to be theirs. This kind of mentality, in which students have the confidence that what they need already lies within them, is key to autonomy.
• Know when to turn things over to your learners. The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model framework explains why, how, and when to grant students responsibility for their own learning. You can put this framework into practice by frequently considering when learners are ready for you to turn over a task to them. It might be within a unit, within a term, or over the course of a whole school year—and, of course, it will vary from one student to another. As you engage in this reflection consistently, you’ll set your students up for successful, sustainable self-directed learning.

Relatedness is all about connection

School is a social environment, and students have a deep-seated need to form and maintain relationships—with their peers, certainly, but with teachers as well. When we draw on this need for relationships, we can find new ways to promote self-directed learning that will happen not in isolation, but in the context of a social and collaborative environment.

Why does this context matter? Because without these social bonds, students have a harder time accessing the support and help they need—and these are necessary in the classroom, especially in the context of self-directed learning. So how can teachers promote relatedness?

• Demonstrate respect for students. Know more than just their names. Know who they are. Include many opportunities for students to find themselves represented in what they’re learning.
• Connect with students. Provide frequent chances for students to show you their personal connections to and interest in what you’re teaching.
• Focus on culture and climate. Create a classroom culture that encourages students to interact with and support each other, while avoiding competitiveness and any social divisions that may erect barriers between students and the support they need to fulfill their own potential for self-directed learning.

Competence: The art of having what it takes

Does a student have the knowledge, judgment, and skill needed to pursue a given task? That, in a nutshell, is the definition of “competence.” A competent student has what it takes to achieve a reasonable goal set out before them. And when that sense of competence is developed, they often feel a sense of mastery over their learning.

However, any student can have the wind taken out of their sails. If a task is too challenging or advanced, or if they receive negative feedback (or no feedback at all, which can sometimes be even worse), their sense of competence can take a hit. As doubt creeps in, self-directed learning may stall. Here are some ways to build and sustain competence in your students:

• Establish and share clear criteria for success. Students need more than an ultimate goal or endgame. They need continuity between the present and a successful future. To accomplish this, create rubrics to outline criteria for success and, more informally, plan a series of conversations or check-ins to help students focus on progress toward learning targets.
• Think ambitious, but achievable. If you give a learner something that is genuinely too hard for them or that they’re not ready for, your effort to instill competence and confidence may backfire.
• Trust the data. As you build students’ capacity for self-directed learning, you’ll need reliable information about what they know and how they’re growing. Data from assessments like MAP® Growth can help you track students’ accomplishments as you implement a self-directed learning approach in your classroom.
• Trust your own expertise. Your own training and experiences provide essential information about how to support your students. As you reflect on what you know about them and use formative assessment to learn more, you can help students achieve and maintain a strong sense of competence in their own capacity to learn and excel.

But the standards! (and other concerns)

As students travel their own personal learning paths, you may find yourself concerned about how to keep all that learning aligned to the standards you’re expected to address. How can you be sure every student is engaging with grade-level content that aligns to standards and not clicking through content that’s only tangentially related to the standards, if at all?

There are three main steps to addressing this proactively: be clear, implement structure, and gather feedback consistently.

• Be clear. State your standards and goals clearly and directly at the outset, both for yourself and your students. Make sure every learner understands the assigned task before engaging with it. If you achieve clarity at the outset, you’ll be prepared to let students do their own thing. You could think of it in the context of the backward design process: start with where you want to end, and then plan learning backward from there.
• Implement structure. Students learn best when they have a dependable routine to follow. As you focus everyone on the same shared goals, targets, and standards—and the same shared academic vocabulary—think about developing a predictable cadence that you can repeat again and again. Stick to this process as you introduce and work through new tasks.
• Gather feedback consistently. Remember, a learning process has an arc. It’s important to spend time with what happens in the middle, not just the beginning and the end. Implement regular check-ins at the individual, small-group, and whole-class level—whatever it takes to get a sense of how students are doing and where they might need to be redirected. Toward the end of the time you’ve allotted for an assigned task, be sure to get a sense of where your students are in their learning, whether that’s built into the technology you’re using or achieved through other formative assessment strategies.

On their own, but not alone

Even when equipped with the tips and best practices I’ve shared, teachers may think, “Self-directed learning sounds great, but if I set my students loose to do their own thing, how in the world will I keep them on topic and on task?” It’s important to remember that self-directed learning is not necessarily an entirely independent process.

Whether it’s engaging students in a discussion about the class’s shared academic vocabulary, checking in with individual students, or taking the pulse of small working groups throughout the classroom, there are many touchpoints you can use to make sure self-directed learning takes place in a context of collaboration, sharing, support, and alignment. With each task, emphasize how, as your students direct their own learning, each one of them is helping to push the group toward achieving shared academic goals, mastering the standards, and accomplishing successful outcomes they can all be proud of.

In the end, remember that self-directed learning is about practical approaches to autonomy, relatedness, and competence. As an educator, you’re the expert on what works for your students in your specific classroom. Trust your training and experiences as you implement these strategies for self-directed learning, and your students will thank you for the opportunity to author their own experiences.

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If your child takes MAP® Growth at school and you’re not sure what it’s for or how it works, we’ve got you covered. Here’s everything you need to know, from what it is to how teachers use it to help your child learn.

MAP Growth defined  

MAP Growth is an interim, responsive, computer-based assessment for K–12 students. That’s a really dense definition. Let’s break it down.

• Interim: The test is taken up to three times a year, usually at the start of the school year, halfway through, and near the end. This lets teachers get clear snapshots of how students are doing often and early enough that they can adjust their lesson plans as needed.
• Responsive: Each question on MAP Growth is generated based on the question—and answer—that came right before it. If a student gets it right, the next one is harder. If they get it wrong, the next one’s easier. Students can’t ace the assessment, even if they’re answering questions well beyond their grade level correctly.
• Computer-based: This just means kids take MAP Growth on a computer. Long gone are the days of filling in bubbles on a sheet of paper.
• Assessment: An assessment is a test. MAP Growth is a test, plain and simple. While students don’t get a grade on it, they do get a score, which makes it possible to plot their growth over time, whether that’s a single school year or several years in a row.

Kids can take MAP Growth in math, reading, language usage, and science. Your child’s RIT score reflects how they did on the test. (That acronym stands for Rasch Unit, a concept that gets pretty technical pretty fast. In the mood to geek out? Wikipedia to the rescue!) Your child’s RIT is the number that lets teachers know how much a student knows and how much they are growing academically over time.

MAP Growth is a unique testing experience for kids because they don’t pass or fail. In fact, for teachers to get that accurate measurement of what each kid knows, students will get about half the questions wrong. That doesn’t mean their score doesn’t belong on the fridge (it does) or that cracking open a celebratory pint of ice cream is out of the question (in fact, we strongly recommend it).

How teachers use MAP Growth

There are many ways that teachers across the world use MAP Growth data, but the most popular way to put the data to use is by looking for trends and commonalities in a class of students and then adjust plans to help ensure extra instructional time is spent on the most important learning opportunity areas. For example, a teacher might look at MAP Growth reports and notice that their class has higher than average scores in algebraic thinking but lower than average scores in geometric thinking. This insight enables the teacher to adjust their plans over the next few weeks or even months to spend a little extra time each day on math exercises that build skills in geometric thinking. These kind of strategic shifts in how to allocate classroom instructional time can have a huge impact over the course of a school year, and they have a direct impact on improved learning outcomes for all students.

Get ready for testing

You’re an essential part of your child’s learning support system. To help them get the most out of MAP Growth, here are some things to try—and just one thing to avoid.

• DO read everything your school shares with you about MAP Growth. Your school is the best place to get answers about things like testing days and times, technology issues, and other logistics.
• DO talk to your child’s teacher about what to expect leading up to, on, and after testing day. In most cases, when teachers use data to inform or guide their teaching, they’re using a lot of data from a variety of sources, including from daily classwork and observations. Ask your child’s teacher how MAP Growth data fits in. If they don’t share a Family Report with you at your next conference, ask them for one.
• DO help your child prepare. That’s “prepare,” not “study.” Students shouldn’t study for MAP Growth, but it’s always good to know what to expect. A little confidence building can help nervous test takers feel more at ease, too. Read “Preparing for MAP Growth: 20 tips for families” for more details.
• DO check out our Family Toolkit. Videos, guides, and more will let you dig even deeper with MAP Growth. Our student and family checklist is particularly helpful.
• DO see what it’s like to take MAP Growth. Driver’s ed is great, but nothing beats getting behind the wheel. Try our sample tests and get the same experience your child will (and remember, there is no passing or failing MAP Growth, even if you’re a grown-up).
• DON’T view your child’s RIT score as a grade. Your child’s MAP Growth RIT score isn’t a grade. It’s a single data point that helps their teacher know how much they know and how they are growing academically. It’s there to inform a teacher’s instructional decisions at the class level, not to label or pigeonhole your child.

Lastly, a moment of gratitude

Families have always been central to every student’s MAP Growth journey, so as you’re going through the process with your child—from setting meaningful goals and tracking their progress to celebrating their growth—crack open a pint of ice cream just for yourself. The time, commitment, and love that you put into supporting learning is incredible.

For more on MAP Growth, watch our informational video below.

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For most of the 1990s and early 2000s, the percentage of eighth-graders taking Algebra 1 rose steadily as schools and districts encouraged more students to take advanced math courses. Then, after warnings that some students had been promoted too soon to be successful, the trend began to reverse. Nationally, we’re now back to the same levels as we were two decades ago. The result is that students who are ready for algebra in eighth grade aren’t taking it, with detrimental effects on their academic trajectories.

While the research is mixed on universal “algebra for all” policies, it is clear that for students who can be successful, taking Algebra 1 by eighth grade has real advantages. Those include higher achievement scores in later years, a higher probability of additional advanced-course taking, and higher college readiness scores.

The essential question for policymakers, then, is how to tell when students are ready for algebra. How can the system nudge them into more advanced coursework—and avoid placing them into classes for which they are not yet ready? While the issue is complex, we have examples of the types of tools that may be helpful in screening students for readiness and policies that can ensure they get opportunities to enroll in rigorous courses for which they are prepared.

Enrollment trends and the policy debate

In 2012, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) long-term trend assessment asked students about their mathematics course enrollment. The result was an all-time high of 34% of 13-year-olds nationwide taking Algebra 1. Unfortunately, when this same question was asked again in 2023, that number had dropped to 24%.

Schools should use multiple data points—including grades, other assessment results, and student interest—to get the most complete picture of likely student success in advanced math courses.

When we look at state-specific data, the numbers can be even more alarming. In Texas, for example, the percentage of students taking Algebra 1 and scoring proficient on the state assessment at the end of the year dropped from 62% in 2019 to 46% in 2022.

Alongside this sharp decrease in enrollment, the policy debate over when students should enroll in Algebra 1 has reached new intensity. Nowhere has the conflict been more heated than in California, where policymakers and advocates disagree about whether it should be standard in eighth grade or ninth. The disputes revolve around the tension of all students having access to advanced math courses, with a particular focus on enrolling students in classes for which they are ready.

Measuring readiness for Algebra 1

At the heart of this national conversation is the essential question of how policymakers, district and school leaders, and even individual classroom teachers can tell when students are “ready” for algebra. Assessments of student progress, including MAP® Growth, can be helpful indicators of readiness, in addition to other measures. Similar analyses could be done using other assessment tools.

In response to numerous requests from our partners, NWEA has released new guidance on how to use MAP Growth for placement decisions. Our guidance is based on multiple studies on what prior spring math scores put a student on track to either receive a proficient score on an end-of-course (EoC) test of Algebra 1 content or earn a “proficient” grade at the end of an Algebra 1 course, defined as a C or better. Our analysis found that students who received a MAP Growth RIT score in the range of 235 to 238 in the spring of seventh grade had a greater than 50% chance of passing an EoC assessment, or of earning a C or better in an Algebra 1 course. This accounts for roughly one-third of eligible students.

Placement decisions are more sound when they are based on multiple measures. Assessment data is useful in that clear linkages can be drawn between results and other outcomes of success, like future test scores and passing grades in key courses. However, whenever possible, schools should use multiple data points—including grades, other assessment results, and student interest—to get the most complete picture of likely student success in advanced math courses.

The risks of poor placement policies

Although implied, it is helpful to state the explicit risks brought about by poor placement policies. On the one hand, setting a bar that is too high excludes students who could be successful in a more rigorous course and excludes them from all the benefits that come from completing Algebra 1 in eighth grade. On the other hand, setting a bar that is too low sets students up to fail, frustrating them along with their teachers and families, and perhaps even discouraging the pursuit of rigorous academic opportunities in the future. Thus, the balance is incredibly important and worth getting right.

As an additional consideration, policies that require students (and/or their parents or guardians) to express affirmative interest in advanced math courses or that rely on teacher recommendations have been shown to result in the systematic under-enrollment of historically underserved students. So, imperfect as they are, policies that automatically screen students for likely success and enroll them in rigorous courses are more powerful in ensuring equitable access to these opportunities.

State placement policies

Given the data on declining enrollment in eighth-grade algebra, particularly for historically underserved students, policymakers have been taking action. Numerous states have enacted policies in recent years to automatically place “ready” students in Algebra 1.

In 2017, for example, North Carolina passed a law requiring that all students who score at the highest level on a state test be placed in an advanced math course the following year (unless they opt out). Known as automatic enrollment, such policies remove the need for teacher, student, or parent initiative when placing kids in advanced math courses. Since the law was implemented, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of students who are placed in advanced math courses in North Carolina, and in 2023, more than 95% of advanced-scoring eighth-graders were placed in such a course.

In 2023, Texas did something similar by requiring all school districts to enroll each sixth-grade student who scores in the top 40% of their fifth-grade state math assessment in advanced math courses. This was done with the explicit goal of enabling those students to enroll in Algebra 1 in eighth grade. Note that the choice of focusing on the top 40% matches our research findings, and perhaps other analyses, which show that approximately 40% of students are “ready” for Algebra 1 in eighth grade.

Federal legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate to incentivize such policies. Districts that receive funds under the proposed Advanced Coursework Equity Act would be required to screen students and automatically enroll them in advanced math courses with a specific focus on eighth-grade Algebra 1.

In closing

While we don’t yet have definitive research about whether Algebra 1 policies result in higher student success rates, they’re clearly having the desired effect of increasing the number of students enrolled in advanced math courses.

There can—and will be—debates over exactly how to determine readiness. In the interim, all schools should proactively screen students and automatically enroll them in eighth-grade algebra if they believe students can be successful.

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Do you wonder how to help students build their reading fluency? We recently spoke with Jan Hasbrouck, a researcher, author, leading expert in reading fluency, and co-developer, with Gerald Tindal, of the oral reading fluency norms. Our goal was to better understand important nuances and distinctions when thinking about reading fluency and building fluent readers.

“Fluency is not fast reading. Fluency is fluent reading,” Jan told us. “The biggest misconception around fluency is that we want students to read faster and faster.” But speed for speed’s sake isn’t a worthwhile goal. “We should think about getting students to the point where their reading mirrors spoken language,” Jan explained. “That’s what our brains understand. And that facilitates comprehension.”

To hear more about building fluent readers from Jan, watch our video below.

What is reading fluency?

Reading fluency is comprised of three parts: accuracy, rate, and expression (sometimes referred to as prosody). Although all three components can be measured, most oral reading fluency assessments focus on the predictive skill of automaticity. Automaticity, in turn, is made up of the most predictive two components correlated with later reading success: reading accuracy (the percentage of words read correctly out of the amount of total words attempted) and reading rate (the number of words correct per minute).

An oral reading fluency assessment, such as the oral reading fluency measure in MAP® Reading Fluency, is the quickest way to screen students to determine if immediate intervention is needed. Without early intervention in place, research suggests student phonics and fluency gaps will continue to widen and students will continue to fall behind grade-level expectations.

How do I use oral reading fluency data?

If a student is low in accuracy while reading an on-grade-level passage, this signals that the student needs acquisition-level instruction and has difficulty with decoding words. A brief screening with an oral reading fluency measure can help you determine if any students are below grade level in accuracy when reading a grade-level text. After the screening, you can assess phonics patterns not yet known and group students accordingly to effectively intervene and teach specific phonics skills.

Here is a list of common actions teachers may need to take, followed by tips on how to go about them:

1. Identify students with word recognition needs. Use a universal screener that delineates between word recognition and language comprehension difficulties, such as MAP Reading Fluency.
2. Assess student knowledge of phonics patterns. Use a phonics and/or spelling diagnostic survey to assess phonics skills that students have and have not yet mastered.
3. Group students for intervention based on data. Form groups of 3–5 students who have similar phonics needs.
4. Begin intervention at the first commonly missing phonics skill. Align student needs with the phonics scope and sequence of your intervention program.
5. Monitor progress. If students are not making expected progress, adjust the intensity of the intervention. Ensure groups are flexible and aligned to student needs.

If a student is low in reading rate but not in reading accuracy, this signals the student needs fluency-level instruction and requires more guided practice with reading connected text. One way to provide this is to do a first read and to scaffold learning anytime the student misreads a word. The feedback provided should be the least amount of prompting needed for optimal student learning. For example, if a student misreads “wage” as “wag” and does not self-correct, the teacher may use a series of prompts, as shown here:

If at any point the student reads the word correctly, you do not need to provide the more extensive level of support and feedback. This way, the student is prompted to do the hard work of decoding and can gain the experience needed to increase their chances of applying this pattern to other words. If the student is given the word as a whole, they may be less likely to think about the unfamiliar pattern within the word and assimilate it into their understanding of how words work. You may then have the student start at the beginning of the sentence and read the word again in the context of the story.

If the word is a Tier 2 vocabulary word or a concept the student may not be familiar with, you may follow up with a student-friendly definition or example, such as “A wage is money you earn for doing work. If you work at a job, you are paid a (wage).” This may be done while keeping in mind the time constraints, the amount of context explaining the word within the text being read, and the importance of understanding the target word to the passage.

What should I do now?

In your journey of learning, growing, and shifting practices to align with research, remember to give yourself grace. Choose one thing to focus on at a time and partner with trusted colleagues to collaborate and seek feedback. Leveraging oral reading fluency data can help to tailor interventions to accelerate student progress. Rather than asking kids to laboriously sound out words or expend precious effort to read at an appropriate rate, prioritize improving their phonics and fluency skills, as this allows them to focus on, understand, and ultimately enjoy what they read.

Here’s a quick summary of what you can do when building fluent readers, whether you’re a teacher or a school leader.

Recommendations for teachers:

• Use oral reading fluency screening data to identify students in need of word recognition intervention. If students score low in accuracy (regardless of their score on rate), place students in a phonics-focused intervention group aligned with a phonics scope and sequence. If students score low in rate (and on or above level in accuracy), place students in a fluency-focused intervention group.
• Use least-to-most prompting and feedback to help students acquire skills faster.
• Monitor student progress and adjust intervention intensity as needed.

Recommendations for administrators:

• Ensure teachers screen students with an oral reading fluency measure three times a year, starting by the winter of first grade.
• Provide time for teachers to have high-quality, practical, and embedded professional learning in teaching word recognition and reading fluency aligned to the science of reading.
• Encourage collaboration by scheduling data meetings for teachers to discuss students’ data, needs, and progress toward goals.

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A few years ago, I came across “10 assessments you can perform in 90 seconds” by TeachThought and really enjoyed the formative assessment strategies they outlined. Using formative assessment strategies in class during instruction—or “simple assessments,” as they call them—is easy and provides the instant feedback teachers need to identify which learners need more help and adjust their instruction and lesson plans accordingly. Visit the blog above to get more detail on the following techniques:

1. New Clothes
2. Dos and Don’ts
3. Three Common Misunderstandings
4. Yes/No Chart
5. Three Questions
6. Explain What Matters
7. Big Picture
8. Venn Diagram
9. Draw It
10. Self-Directed Response

Combining these 10 with 10 others we’ve blogged about in the past gives teachers 20 great formative assessment strategies for checking on student learning. Be sure to click through to learn more about these formative assessment strategies.

11. The Popsicle Stick
12. The Exit Ticket
13. The Whiteboard
14. Corners
15. Think-Pair-Share
16. Two Stars and a Wish
17. Carousel Brainstorming
18. Jigsaw
19. ABCD Cards
20. Basketball Discussions

Want more? Here are seven more strategies you can use to elicit evidence of student learning.

21. Entrance Tickets. We’ve blogged about and explained the Exit Ticket, so why not have an Entrance Ticket? Here, the teacher asks a question at the start of a lesson, and students write their responses on index cards or strips of paper. Answers are used to assess initial understanding of something to be discussed in that day’s lesson or as a short summary of understanding of the previous day’s lesson. The teacher designs the lesson around the fact that information on student learning will be coming in at the start of the lesson and can be used to improve the teaching and learning in that lesson. Be sure to write the question so it is easily interpreted and analyzed, allows time for you and/or the students to analyze the responses, and leaves space for you to adjust the lesson, if needed.
22. Keep the Question Going. With this formative assessment strategy, you’ll ask one student a question and then ask another student if that answer seems reasonable or correct. Then, ask a third student for an explanation of why there is an agreement or not. This helps keep all the students engaged because they must be prepared to either agree or disagree with the answers given and provide explanations.
23. 30-Second Share. With this strategy, students take a turn to report something learned in a lesson for up to 30 seconds each. Connections to the learning targets or success criteria are what you’ll be looking for in the language used by the student. Make this a routine at the end of a lesson so all students have the opportunity to participate, share insights, and clarify what was learned.
24. Parking Lot. This is an underused strategy for students and one that can surface questions before learning, as well as during and after. This tool also offers an anonymous place for questions that may be directly related to the content or tangential to the current topic and provide insight into student thinking. Simply save a spot on your whiteboard to write down ideas or questions that aren’t completely relevant in the moment but should be revisited later.
25. One-Minute Paper. This might be considered a type of exit ticket as it is typically done near the end of the day. Ask your students, either individually or with a partner, to respond in writing to a single prompt. Typical prompts include:

• Most important learning from the day and why
• Most surprising concept and why
• Most confusing topic and why
• Something I think might appear on a test or quiz and why

26. 3-2-1. At the end of the learning, this strategy provides students a way to summarize or even question what they just learned. Three prompts are provided for students to respond to:

• 3 things you didn’t know before
• 2 things that surprised you about the topic
• 1 thing you want to start doing with what you’ve learned

27. Assessment Reflection. This strategy is a post-assessment reflection completed individually first and then shared in a small group. After an assessment, the teacher provides a list of questions so learners can reflect on their assessment experience. During group discussion, ideas are collected as new information to support students to better prepare for and engage in future assessments. Consider the following or similar questions. You might also use strategies such as Plus, Minus, Interesting, or Plus/Delta.

• How engaged were you with this assessment? Why?
• What did you feel most confident about? Why?
• What did you do that led to your success or confidence?
• What was the most difficult part of this assessment? Why?
• What would you do differently next time?
• What was the most confusing? Why?
• What do you know about the topic that the assessment didn’t allow you to show?

Dig in

All 27 of these formative assessment strategies are simple to administer and free or inexpensive to use. They’ll provide you with the evidence of student learning you need to make lesson plan adjustments and keep learning on target and moving forward. They’ll also give your students valuable information so they can adjust their learning tactics and know where to focus their energies.

If you’re not quite sure where to get started, the following discussion questions can help.

Questions for teachers

• How do you use formative assessment data to inform instructional decisions?
• How can formative assessment strategies foster a learning environment of collaboration and engagement?
• How do formative assessment strategies elicit evidence of student learning?
• What is one strategy you could try tomorrow and why?

Questions for leaders

• How do you use formative assessment data to drive school-wide instructional academic decisions?
• How can you model formative assessment strategies in staff meetings, PLCs, and meetings with teachers?
• What are three formative assessment strategies you could bring to your teachers and staff? Why do you feel these would be most effective at your school?

Get more formative assessment tips and tricks in our e-book “Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice.”

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It will not come as a surprise to any educator that students are diverse in what they know and can do. Take any classroom of 30 students and it will include those who have had dramatically different life experiences. It will also include students who are at very different levels in their math content mastery: what concepts they’ve already learned and what mathematical procedures they can apply.

A few years ago, Blaine Pedersen, now a psychometrician at NWEA, analyzed data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to see how many of the four international benchmark proficiency levels were present in an average American eighth-grade classroom. These benchmarks span the continuum of students who do not yet have basic knowledge of whole numbers and graphs up through those who can solve linear equations, understand linear functions and algebraic expressions, and interpret a wide variety of data to draw inferences. What percentage of American classrooms include students at all four of these levels? 35%. That’s right: one in three American eighth-grade classrooms includes both students who need help understanding whole numbers and students who are already algebra proficient. Prior research using MAP® Growth data has generated similar findings. In a study of two large districts, we observed that the range of student math readiness in a typical classroom spanned three to seven grade levels.

Challenging all these students and helping them grow is a difficult task for even the most seasoned educator. While much of the focus, both historically and post-pandemic, has been on how to best help learners who would benefit from extra support, this work calls out the fact that many classrooms also include students who are ready to move on to more advanced content. Many of the eighth-grade TIMSS classrooms mentioned above included students who were already proficient in algebra. Many more would be ready to learn algebra in eighth grade, even if they are not already proficient (perhaps as many as 40%, according to one study). And students who complete Algebra 1 by eighth grade (as opposed to ninth) often benefit by going on to take more—and more advanced—math courses. But placing students in Algebra 1 before they are ready can have negative consequences on their achievement. So how are schools to know when students are ready and would benefit from enrolling in Algebra 1? This is the topic of new guidance released by NWEA.

New guidance on using MAP Growth for Algebra 1 placement decisions

To answer this question, we first had to define what “success” in an Algebra 1 course looks like. While by no means an exhaustive or definitive list, we settled on two definitions to guide parallel analyses. In one analysis, we defined success as a score of “proficient” or “meeting standards” on a state end-of-course (EoC) exam in Algebra 1. These tests, given in states such as Ohio, Texas, and Georgia, are administered to students at the end of an Algebra 1 course as a kind of summative accountability exam specific to algebra standards. For the second analysis, we partnered with three NWEA school districts to collect data on Algebra 1 course grades. Although each district handled grading differently, in each case, we identified a grade above which we coded students as “proficient” or “successful” in Algebra 1.

While we believe MAP Growth can help schools make decisions about Algebra 1 placement, such decisions are always best made with multiple data points and from a strengths-based perspective.

With both benchmarks of success in hand, we were able to work backward to identify the MAP Growth 6+ math score a student needed to have earned the prior spring, that is, in the spring of seventh grade, to have a greater than 50% chance of scoring proficient on an EoC exam or in a course grade. While the exact score was slightly different depending on the metric of success (we discuss this more in the guidance document), even we were surprised by the consistency. Students needed to score around a 235 to 238 on MAP Growth in the spring of seventh grade to be on track to score proficient at the end of an Algebra 1 course. According to NWEA norms, this is roughly one-third of students in the spring of seventh grade, or roughly one-fifth of students in the spring of sixth grade.

Unpacking the guidance

Of course, there is nuance to this seemingly simple answer.

First, it’s important to emphasize the relatively low or inclusive cut score we used for our analyses. By looking for students who have a greater than 50% chance of being successful, in an average school, up to 50% of students who are placed in Algebra 1 will go on to not be successful in the course. Some schools might be uncomfortable with this and want to set a higher probability for success. And that’s fine! Our guidance describes how partners could adjust their placement criteria accordingly. But higher cut scores also mean some students who would have gone on to do well will be missed. This is why districts should think carefully about how to balance these competing priorities.

Second, especially regarding EoC exams, these recommendations are based on average growth over the course of eighth grade. Some students will grow more than average, and some will grow less. Schools can review historical growth for their own students and modify placement criteria accordingly. If students tend to grow at atypically high levels, students can be placed with lower scores. Conversely, if students tend to require extra supports, the decision might be made to only place students with higher scores (ideally also using other data points to make such a decision). Again, schools need to balance inclusiveness (i.e., lower cut scores for placement) with the instructional implications of needing to provide additional supports to students who might have gaps in their pre-algebra knowledge.

Third, our analyses assume a certain amount of instruction, that is, 28 weeks between fall and spring testing. Schools that have 32 weeks between testing events could admit students with lower scores because their students have more time to learn the content before any EoC testing or final grading.

And finally, while we believe MAP Growth can help schools make decisions about Algebra 1 placement, such decisions are always best made with multiple data points and from a strengths-based perspective. Some students will score lower than the benchmarks we’ve identified and will do very well in an algebra course. MAP Growth can help with that decision, but only educators have the complete picture.

Why does it matter?

The NWEA mission is partnering to help all kids learn®. We see the new guidance as directly contributing to this mission by helping schools identify students who would learn best in an Algebra 1 course. The identification process has important equity implications. Absent a universal and proactive screener for which students might be ready for such a course, the default is often relying on parent requests or teacher referrals. The result ends up being differences in enrollment by race or gender that cannot be explained by differences in test scores. An effective and equitable placement system will flag all students who are ready and would benefit, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, or zip code.

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Many of our earliest memories of school are about learning to read. Do you remember what your experience was like? Did you have a fairly smooth journey? Or did your “literacy story” include a lot of struggles along the way?

We know many students (including many adults) have faced major challenges when learning to read. The encouraging news is that teachers can now draw from the science of reading as they are helping students create their own literacy stories. But for school leaders, the science of reading may be just the beginning of an answer. They are often left with many questions and not a lot of support.

“Oftentimes, I feel like leaders have been left out,” says Beth Praska, senior professional learning consultant at NWEA. “Districts only have so much money, so they train the teachers. But leaders also need support.”

The essence of leading

NWEA hosted a webinar, The science of reading for leaders: Helping your teachers shift instructional practice, last year that answered many of the big questions leaders are asking. You’ll find a lot of the main takeaways below, but the whole webinar is absolutely worth watching. I also spent some time chatting with one of the hosts from the webinar, Luke Bell (NWEA’s manager of professional learning content design), as well as Beth. They have both been working directly with school and district leaders and provided a lot of great insights into how leaders can respond to these new challenges.

Let’s take a look at some of the main questions leaders are asking about the science of reading.

• What is the science of reading? We define the science of reading as the converging evidence of what matters and what works in literacy instruction, organized around models that describe how and why. “It’s not about a philosophy, and it’s not about a political perspective,” says Luke. “It’s about the emerging and essential evidence.”
• Where can I learn about the evidence? The What Works Clearinghouse publishes practice guides that not only distill the evidence but also take the crucial next step of offering specific recommendations based on the evidence. They are incredibly helpful, free to download, and a great resource for teachers to use in learning communities.
• What should I be looking for when reviewing instruction based on the science of reading? The simple view of reading is a model used by reading researchers all over the world. It’s a very concise equation stating that reading comprehension (RC) is the product of decoding (D) and language comprehension (LC), or RC = D x LC. All decoding/word recognition (D) instruction based on the science of reading should have an emphasis on sounds within words, a scope and sequence for taught phonics, and an application to connected texts.Language comprehension (LC) instruction should include complex texts for all students, support for students to actively develop language skills, and support for students to learn content knowledge and vocabulary.
• How do I know if it’s working? Part of building a culture of evidence-based practices is creating a culture that embraces data. Many of our partners rely on MAP® Reading Fluency to monitor progress in oral reading fluency, phonics and word recognition, and phonological awareness. Why these areas? The science of reading tells us that progress in these content areas matters for getting students to the goal of reading comprehension.

Creating better literacy stories

The shift to the science of reading is challenging work. But, as Luke says, we don’t need to “abandon everything we know about what matters and what works in literacy instruction to bring the science of reading to life.” It’s more about having conversations and changing one problematic instructional practice at a time. A helpful tool for leaders as they look forward is the 5Essentials® framework developed by the University of Chicago. It’s a research-based school improvement system that identifies the five key areas that matter most for school improvement. This is a great tool for helping leaders identify where to focus their literacy efforts:

• Effective Leaders who have a clear vision for literacy and rally others around that vision
• Collaborative Teachers who plan together to implement what works and what matters in literacy instruction
• Involved Families who become engaged through open communication and stories of student success with the science of reading
• Supportive Environment where every teacher has the tools they need to be successful in this shift to the science of reading
• Ambitious Instruction that challenges and inspires students to reach their full potential as fluent readers and successful writers

“There are so many things that the leader has to bring in, like clarity of a vision and a mission,” says Beth. Other initiatives may need to be reconsidered as the science of reading becomes the focus, and leaders must be ready to listen and respond to the real needs of teachers. Remember: The national story about literacy outcomes has been decades in the making. Current fourth-grade reading scores have not changed a lot since 1998. It’ll take some hard work to fully rewrite that story.

Partnering to help all kids learn

That’s our mission here at NWEA, and we’ve seen measurable results many times in our partner districts. MAP Reading Fluency and MAP® Growth can be game-changers, connecting precise student data to instructional next steps. And we know teachers thrive when they are supported in learning research-based practices within a connected system of professional learning, coaching, and data consultation. Ultimately, getting students to the goal of reading comprehension is not about just a product or a tool—it’s about the people in your buildings doing the work, every day. That’s why we’ve introduced a two-part addition to our early literacy suite called “Early Word Recognition.” The sessions go far beyond theory and into actionable, day-to-day insights that teachers can use long after they’ve completed the workshop. “Right now we have a lot of new teachers . . .  and it’s even more the onus of a leader to support these young teachers, especially in some of our states with teachers who aren’t even fully finished with their degrees yet,” says Beth.

Make sure to download the webinar resources—you’ll find a lesson-planning tool to support teachers in designing and planning phonics lessons and a learning-walk tool leaders can use to identify trends at the classroom, school, or district level.

The bright road ahead

“It is possible to teach the vast majority of students to read if we start early and follow the significant body of research showing which practices are the most effective,” says Luke. “Researchers now estimate that 95% of all children can be taught to read by the end of first grade.” That is a lot of literacy stories with wonderfully happy endings.

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It can be difficult to get students excited about writing.

Growing up, I liked to write. More specifically, though, I liked to write about things I liked. While I could crank out a decent enough essay like the best of them, my real passion was in creative writing. Buried in the depths of my office closet is a box holding over a dozen spiral-bound notebooks and hundreds of loose pieces of paper (all adorned with my middle-to-high-school handwriting) spinning elaborate tales of drama and adventure, mostly inspired by my favorite fantasy novels.

A few pieces, though, stand out. There’s the short story I wrote for my honors English class in tenth grade, when we were studying the works of Edgar Allan Poe. My teacher gave us the option to either write an essay comparing the themes in multiple examples of Poe’s work or to demonstrate our understanding of the class material by writing an original short story mimicking Poe’s style. I chose the latter. And I got an A.

Looking back at my high school career, I realize how extremely fortunate I was to have English teachers who understood the importance of “leaning in” and getting to know me as a person. The Poe assignment was one of many in which my teachers found ways to tailor writing tasks so that they felt more interesting and relevant. It was their ability to create buy-in on my part that resulted in my not only wanting to write for school but also in my learning to see myself as a writer both inside and outside of the classroom.

There’s a great deal of focus in writing instruction on making sure students consider their audience. Just as we want students to know their audience, however, we, as teachers, need to also know our students so that we can empower them to use their writing voices. Here are four tips on how to go about this in your classroom.

1. Assign authentic writing tasks

My colleague Julie Richardson recently wrote about engaging student interest with authentic writing tasks. Namely, she calls out the importance of having students consider what they want to accomplish with a particular piece of writing, in addition to what their teacher wants. This callout is in keeping with research by scholars including Steve Graham and Sarah Freedman, among others, that demonstrates the importance of considering what sorts of writing tasks students might engage in outside the classroom. Authenticity is an excellent way to get students excited about writing.

By integrating authentic writing tasks into your curriculum, you can help your students see the value in school-based writing. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Making a thank-you card for a friend or family member
• Using picture books to write simple stories
• Creating comic books or graphic novels
• Summarizing and critiquing movies or episodes of TV shows
• Documenting a family story or recipe
• Reporting on the unexpected origins of an everyday item
• Leaving effective online reviews for products
• Writing a cover letter for a potential job
• Drafting requests to state and local representatives

2. Get to know your students

To get started identifying authentic writing tasks for your students, ask yourself: who are my students? What drives and motivates them? What are their strengths? What are their opportunities for growth? Why should knowing how to write—and to write well—matter to them?

One simple way to start the getting-to-know-you process is by asking students to complete a writer reflection survey. This not only allows you, as the teacher, to learn more about how your students view and approach writing, but it also gives them a chance to self-reflect and consider, perhaps for the first time, how they view and approach writing.

To gauge shifts in students’ perspectives, I recommend administering your survey multiple times (e.g., once at the beginning of the year and once at the end, or between major writing assignments). Some examples of potential statements you might include, asking students to indicate their level of agreement from strongly disagree to strongly agree, are:

• I can stay focused when I write.
• It’s hard for me to remember how to spell words.
• I write differently depending on who will read my writing.
• I like adding extra features to my writing, like illustrations or labels.
• I know who I can go to for help with my writing.
• I usually understand the directions in school writing assignments.
• I see myself as a writer.
• I believe writing is important in everyday life.

For younger students, consider adapting your survey into a classroom activity that gets students up and moving around the room. Designate certain parts of the classroom as “response areas,” then read each statement aloud and ask students to walk to the response area that best matches how they feel about the statement. For example, students who strongly agree with the statement “I can stay focused when I write” might go stand by the back wall, while those who strongly disagree might go stand up front by the whiteboard, while those somewhere in between could stand in the middle of the classroom.

Note, however, that a survey such as the one described here is simply the beginning of an ongoing conversation you’ll need to have with your students as you discover more about who they are and how you can help them feel more confident as writers.

To keep the conversation going, consider asking students to keep a writing journal that they regularly share with you and in which you can provide feedback and answer questions. You might also incorporate peer review sessions into your lessons, as these sessions allow students to hone their writing skills and share their work with peers. Both of these approaches can get students excited about writing and help them begin to see themselves as writers who understand and appreciate the value of writing in their everyday lives.

3. Prioritize an asset-based approach

When getting to know your students, take particular care to use an asset-based approach; that is, do not mistake difference for “less than.” For example, you may have students in your classroom who are more comfortable and fluent expressing themselves in a language other than English. You might have students with disabilities like dyslexia, which can make accurate spelling a challenge. You might have students with ADHD for whom the act of sitting down and quietly drafting a paper is difficult. Does that mean these students have less potential as writers than their peers? Of course not! It simply means that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing instruction.

Multilingual students, for whom weaving together words from two or more languages can be as natural as breathing, should be allowed and encouraged to incorporate translanguaging into their writing process. Students with dyslexia or for whom spelling is otherwise a challenge should be provided access to accommodations like spell check and speech-to-text, which research shows can lead to improved writing outcomes. Students with ADHD, meanwhile, may benefit from more explicit guidance on what is expected, prewriting activities such as mind mapping, and having a larger writing task broken down into smaller micro-assignments, as noted by educator Tracy Collins on Edutopia.

The importance of an asset-based approach can’t be overstated and is an invaluable way to get students excited about writing.

4. Aim for inclusivity

Consider that you may also have students whose lived experiences are such that they don’t find some popular assigned prompts relevant. For example, a student who spent their summer at home or working to help support their family probably isn’t going to feel particularly seen if asked to write about what sort of vacation they took while school was out. A student with same-sex parents, if tasked with writing about their family, may wonder if the instructor has considered the possibility that not everyone’s family includes a mom and a dad and whether it’s safe (or even allowed) to talk about their home life at school. Similarly, a female student of color might roll her eyes at being assigned an essay on yet another book written by a white male author who lived in England hundreds of years ago and who never had to deal with the intersection of racism and sexism she faces on a daily basis, or to consider how living at that intersection shapes one’s lived experiences.

Once you’re aware of the multitude of identities in your classroom, you can tailor your writing assignments appropriately. For example, instead of asking students to write about where they may (or may not) have gone on summer vacation, you can ask them to write about the ideal summer vacation, that is, what would they like to do? Where would they like to go, and why? Similarly, if asking students to write about their families, make sure you’ve established that your classroom is a safe space in which diverse family structures are celebrated and are well-represented in the books or other written texts you analyze with your class. Finally, do an author audit of the books assigned as part of your curriculum. Are they all (or mostly all) white male authors? If so, look into alternative books that you could use instead that might be more interesting and relevant for your students. Not sure where to start? Try your school librarian, who will more likely than not be happy to help!

In closing

It can be challenging to get students excited about writing. But as those delivering and differentiating the curriculum, it’s vital that teachers consider the needs, interests, and identities of their students. It is only by knowing them well that you can assign truly authentic writing tasks.

When choosing prompts and designing assignments, I encourage you to make a habit of asking yourself, how can I make this something my students want to write about? How can I cultivate a sense of community in my classroom so that each student-writer can show up comfortably and confidently as their whole, authentic self?

You may also wish to read through NWEA’s stances on writing, which contain a wealth of research-backed information demonstrating what effective, equitable writing instruction looks like.

As noted at the beginning of this article, it can be difficult to get students excited about writing. But if you’ve ever seen that spark in a student’s eyes the moment they realize they’re a writer, then you know it’s well worth the effort to try.

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The classroom assessment standards published by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (JCSEE) are designed to support teachers in assessing student mastery. As educators, we’re all very familiar with content standards, and we understand that we are to teach these standards and assess them for mastery. But let’s talk about that last bit, “assess for mastery.”

When I think back to my eighth-grade math classroom, I remember how I would measure students’ progress toward mastery: I would break standards up into separate learning targets, and those learning targets provided me with a progression for each standard so I could scaffold instruction for my students. But what about the assessments that I gave to determine mastery along the way? I know I designed many opportunities for my students to demonstrate their learning, but did I really have evidence of conceptual understanding that would support students’ growth as standards became increasingly complex? And if I was using standards to effectively teach content, why was I not using standards to effectively assess content?

The classroom assessment standards, first published in 2015, would have helped me in assessing my students more confidently. They provide the necessary foundation for developing and implementing quality classroom assessments, and they are meant to guide current classroom practices so we can positively impact students’ learning. They’re organized into three domains—Foundations, Use, and Quality—and they are the only standards approved by the American National Standards Institute.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the standards and how you might use them in your classroom to further student learning.

A summary of the classroom assessment standards

When we take a closer look at the three domains of the classroom assessment standards, we find six Foundations standards. These provide the starting point for developing and implementing sound and fair classroom assessment.

• Assessment Purpose
• Learning Expectations
• Assessment Design
• Student Engagement in the Assessment
• Assessment Preparation
• Informed Students and Parents/Guardians

The ultimate goal of classroom assessment is to inform teaching and further student learning, so when the intent of the assessment is clear, we are able to effectively align our instructional practices with our classroom assessment practices. The foundation standards articulate the importance of providing multiple opportunities to engage students in demonstrating their understanding, while also stressing the importance of clear communication processes.

The classroom assessment standards have five Use standards that cover everything from understanding how students did to providing feedback and planning instruction following an assessment:

• Analysis of Student Performance
• Effective Feedback
• Instructional Follow-Up
• Grades and Summary Comments
• Reporting

When there are productive methods for analyzing student performance, there are opportunities for providing students with effective feedback. Feedback helps kids understand where they are academically and encourages them to use that information to move their learning forward. The Use standards also allow teachers to adjust their current instructional practices to better support students’ efforts, and they remind us to ensure any grades associated with assessments are provided to students in a timely manner and truly reflect mastery of the content.

Finally, five Quality standards focus on providing fair and accurate feedback to all students:

• Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
• Exceptionality and Special Ed
• Unbiased and Fair Assessment
• Reliability and Validity
• Reflection

As assessment practices take place in the classroom, it is imperative that students from varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds are provided with adequate opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge. Similarly, students with exceptionalities may require differentiation, and assessment practices should be adjusted accordingly. When they are free from bias, fair classroom assessments ensure there are no tasks that might unfairly impact student performance. Assessments should also consistently provide dependable information that supports the interpretation of each student’s academic knowledge and skills. Ongoing reflection and revision of classroom assessments are best practices to ensure that all methods used to assess students’ learning continue to provide fair, useful, and accurate information.

The classroom assessment standards in action

The classroom assessment standards cover a lot of ground, and I often find that sharing an example from my personal experience can help bring them to life and make it easier for educators to see how they can support them in their classroom.

In 2017, I was serving as an instructional coach in Texas, where I live. Some of our grade-level teams were giving practice STAAR tests, our state assessment, to determine how ready students were for the actual state assessment that would be given later that spring. After the assessment was administered, teachers began analyzing the data and quickly became discouraged by the number of tutoring groups needed for several essential content standards. My role was to work alongside the team of teachers and offer the lenses of collaboration and inquiry. Both then and now, it became clear that focusing on the Foundations and Use standards could help us better serve our students in the time leading up to the real STAAR testing day.

As a discussion developed about why students did not perform as well as we expected on the practice test, the question of purpose emerged, and mixed purposes began to surface. Some teachers explained that they wanted to give the practice assessment to determine how close to passing students were. Other teachers wanted to know which standards their students had mastered so they knew which standards to focus on reteaching. A third group of teachers wanted to have their students practice taking a timed test using test-taking strategies. It was quickly evident that the purpose of the assessment was very muddy. That lack of clarity made next steps unclear, which caused some frustration during our data discussion.

The classroom assessment standards would have served this team of educators well had we had the opportunity to align our purpose ahead of time. The first Foundations standard, Assessment Purpose, asks us to determine why an assessment is needed before we actually begin assessing students, and it provides an opportunity to discuss how the assessment results will be used once we’ve collected the data.

As our data discussion continued, it became evident that several students did not master the most essential grade-level content standards. These particular standards had already been taught for an extended period prior to the assessment. This brought up the question, “How is everyone teaching these standards?” Each team member shared multiple resources and strategies, and differences in opinion on how these specific standards should be taught surfaced during our conversation as well.

The second Foundations standard, Learning Expectations, addresses the alignment of classroom assessment with instructional practices while providing clear learning expectations in student-friendly language. This would have benefited teachers and students at my school by allowing teachers to calibrate instructional strategies. It would also have helped ensure that students were given opportunities to learn in the same way they would be expected to demonstrate their learning on the assessment.

It was evident that our discussion and planning would need to continue during another planning period, so we continued our conversation then. We decided to share student work samples from the assessment at that meeting, and teachers shared their instructional practices with one another to discuss and evaluate their effectiveness. We wanted to ensure we wouldn’t be repeating ineffective strategies and improperly preparing students for success moving forward.

Foundation standard number four, Student Engagement in Assessment, allowed us to determine what exemplars should look like to students. For reteach lessons to be designed effectively, we realized, it was important to remember that students must understand what is expected of them through the illustration of quality work. We also leaned on the second standard in the Use domain, Effective Feedback, to ensure students were getting timely and useful feedback after we followed the first Use standard, Analysis of Student Performance. We committed to allowing more time for feedback when we designed the new lessons that would allow us to reteach the challenging standards.

Next steps

As you continue on your beautiful journey as an educator, I encourage you to think about how the classroom assessment standards could help you in your work. Ask yourself the following questions about your current practices:

• Do I provide a clear purpose for teaching and learning to my students?
• Are my classroom instruction and assessments aligned to this purpose?
• Do I use multiple pedagogical strategies to allow my students to demonstrate their understanding?
• Are my classroom assessment processes and decisions fair for all my students?
• Do I engage my students in assessment processes to keep them motivated and connected to their purpose and use?
• Am I assessment literate?

If you’d like more support with assessment, I encourage you to talk to your principal about professional learning opportunities, including NWEA offerings on assessment empowerment. Our sessions can help you understand the elements of a balanced assessment system, build skills in communicating the results of assessments, help you triangulate data to inform your instructional decisions, and make it easier to reframe assessments as opportunities for students to take greater ownership of their learning.

The following Teach. Learn. Grow. articles can also help you on your journey:

• “5 feedback game changers every teacher should try”
• “What is formative assessment?”
• “Formative assessment is not for grading”
• “12 common questions parents ask about MAP Growth”
• “16 resources for putting MAP Growth assessment data to work”

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When I first started teaching, I both looked forward to and dreaded the week break we got for Presidents’ Day. The break itself was fine, but afterward I knew I was heading into what I thought of as the spring rush. This period, between late February and the end of the year, became a race of “What do I have to get through before state testing?” and then, “How can I possibly get through the rest of the content in the last six weeks of school?” I can only imagine how heightened this rush is after the COVID-19 pandemic, given the well-documented learning loss. Thankfully, by taking on the approach of teaching to multiple standards, there are ways to lessen or even avoid the spring rush.

In this latest post in our series on our research-backed Transformative Ten teaching strategies, I will examine how Strategy 7, Teach from multiple standards at once, can not only help you get through your curriculum but also help you make learning stick.

About our research on teaching multiple standards

In his observations at Schiller Park Schools in Illinois, former NWEA researcher Chase Nordengren noticed that teachers used their supplemental-for-all learning block as a way of taking content that is typically taught at the end of the year and interspersing it throughout the year. By using a back-to-front approach, they took topics like data and graphing, which typically fall in the final units of the curriculum and introduced them during intervention blocks earlier in the year. Students then practiced these skills in centers and intervention blocks even while the whole class focus was on other standards.

This approach provided two key benefits. First, by its nature, it allowed students the opportunity for spaced retrieval practice. Research has found that for concepts to be embedded into long-term memory, learners must have the opportunity to practice repeatedly retrieving the information, ideally over a period of time. Secondly, by introducing these concepts earlier in the year, teachers found that students already had a basic knowledge of the content, allowing instruction to go deeper faster.

Of course, this can all work in the opposite direction as well. Students will benefit from spaced practice of content taught earlier in the year, so intervention blocks and centers can be used to both preview upcoming standards and revisit and practice previously taught content.

Leverage the structure of your standards

While it may sound overwhelming or even impractical to try teaching multiple standards at once, most college-and-career ready standards are designed to support such layering. Modern standards are typically designed to have both across-grade and within-grade coherence. In other words, the standards both build upon one another, grade after grade, and support one another within each grade.

As I discussed in a previous post, many college-and-career math standards identify major or focus standards that represent the most critical work of a given grade. The remaining standards often reinforce the major or focus standards. For example, in the Common Core, there are only two data standards in third grade, neither of which are considered major work. One standard introduces scaled bar and picture graphs and the other is about generating data by measuring lengths to the nearest half and fourth of an inch.

Because these standards are not the major work of the grade, curricula often place them late in the year. For example, in Engage NY’s third-grade curriculum, the data standards are covered in the second to last unit. However, each of these standards supports major work in other domains. For example, if you take the time to introduce scaled graphs earlier in the year, the content naturally supports the major work of gaining fluency with multiplication facts. As students read bar and picture graphs with scales of two, four, five, or 10, they gain practice multiplying to find the total number each bar or set of pictures represents. Not only does this give students different contexts within which to practice multiplication, it also builds connections between concepts.

I have discussed the importance of developing a connected view of content before. Having an interconnected schema, or web of concepts, helps students remember and apply content more easily. This is especially important in math, a subject many of us learned as a set of procedures with little or no connection or cohesion.

While it may sound overwhelming or even impractical to teach multiple standards at once, most college-and-career ready standards are designed to support such layering.

The other third-grade data standard involves measuring halves and fourths. Introducing the measurement component of this data standard during your unit on fractions allows for additional practice and reinforcement of the critical, and sometimes challenging, concept of fractions as numbers on a number line. The purposeful interconnection of standards also highlights why it is actually important to try to cover all the standards for your grade. Progressions documents, like those for the Common Core, can help you understand and leverage the coherence within the math standards to teach multiple standards.

By their nature, the ELA standards are highly interconnected and offer many opportunities for teaching multiple standards across the discipline’s domains. For example, selecting rich, high-quality, on-grade literacy texts allows for exploration of multiple comprehension standards as students examine theme, character development, language and style, tone, and structure. Indeed, solely teaching these components as isolated skills waters them down and negates the ultimate goal of helping students engage deeply with text to uncover meaning and purpose. To illustrate the interconnectedness of the standards, imagine trying to determine the theme of a story without also thinking about how the characters help develop the theme!

Literacy educator and researcher Timothy Shanahan, states that “units—and even individual lessons—will need to address multiple standards. The structure of the comprehension standards is less a detailed list of disparate items than an organized set of cognitive moves one might make in trying to understand a text.” Researchers Nell Duke and P. David Pearson also talk about the importance of working with multiple comprehension strategies at a time. In their paper “Effective practices for developing reading comprehension,” they step through five components of comprehension instruction, from explicit teaching and modeling of a strategy to collaborative and guided practice and, eventually, gradual release to independent use. However, they caution that “it is important that neither the teacher nor the students lose sight of the need to coordinate or orchestrate comprehension strategies. Strategies are not to be used singly—good readers do not read a book and only make predictions. Rather, good readers use multiple strategies constantly. Although the above model foregrounds a particular strategy at a particular time, other strategies should also be referenced, modeled, and encouraged throughout the process.”

Read around the room

Other subject areas, such as science and social studies, provide avenues for teaching multiple reading and writing standards. Shanahan cites a group of studies examining reading instruction within middle and high school social studies classes. The research found that when reading content area texts, applying the knowledge gained there to prior knowledge or to problem-solving activities increased content knowledge, content reading comprehension, and standardized reading comprehension.

Combining content-area reading and writing is also a powerful tool for learning. A meta-analysis of 100+ studies showed increased comprehension and learning of content when students wrote about texts they were reading. For younger students, writing summaries or retellings of a reading proved to be most effective, whereas deeper analyses or critiques were shown to be most effective with older students. Having students write summaries or analyses of science or social studies content that they have read can improve retention of the key ideas, give you another place to address reading and writing standards, and support the increased emphasis on nonfiction texts in college-and-career ready standards.

As you review your science and social studies curricula for the year, actively look for places to integrate your reading and writing standards. Check out Read Write Think’s strategy guide series on reading in the content areas and Reading Rockets’ content area literacy hub either to help you get started or to deepen your practice in this area.

Use project power

Project-based learning (PBL) is another approach for teaching multiple standards at once, often across several content areas. PBLWorks describes project-based learning as “a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge.” To be clear, engaging in project-based learning is not the same as doing a project. PBLWorks makes the distinction between a “dessert” project, one served up as a wrap-up of content taught during a unit, and true project-based learning, in which the project is the vehicle for teaching the content.

Implementing PBL with fidelity is not a light undertaking; it requires professional development to get started and up-front planning to ensure that a given project will provide appropriate opportunities to support the desired learning. Studies indicate that PBL is worth the up-front investment. A recent review of research found several studies showing that project-based learning aligns to ESSA Evidence Levels 1 and 2. One study involved a cohort of 48 second-grade teachers. Half of the teachers were given training, ongoing coaching, and resources in PBL and were asked to teach four project-based units related to social studies. The other group of teachers taught their regular social studies curriculum. The results showed that, when compared to the control group, the group engaged in PBL had a 63% gain in social studies knowledge, equivalent to about six months of greater learning, and a 23% gain in informational reading skill, equivalent to about two months of greater learning.

If you are interested in exploring PBL, there are plenty of high-quality resources online including PBLWorks’ guide to getting started, a compilation of PBL articles on Edutopia, Professor John Spencer’s PBL hub, and Magnify Learning’s PBL resource center.

Small steps can have a big impact

If you are still unsure about teaching multiple standards at once, try starting small. Look for places where your standards naturally dovetail and support one another. Or look for standards that have some relatively discrete concepts that can be introduced quickly and practiced before you dive into the full breadth and depth of the standard later in the year.

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Concerns about students losing ground academically during summer break go back at least a century, with early evidence suggesting that summer contributed to large disparities in students’ outcomes. This narrative spurred expansion of a variety of summer programs and interventions aimed at stemming summer learning loss.

However, in the last five years, there has been a spirited debate about two long-standing questions about students’ summers: 1) the degree to which test scores actually drop during the summer and 2) the degree to which summer break contributes to educational inequities. A new layer to this conversation is the response to the learning disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. School leaders and policymakers have used the summer break as a potential time for academic recovery. Summer programs have emerged as one of the most popular recovery strategies offered by school districts, with an estimated $5.8 billion of ESSER funds expected to be spent on summer programs by September 2024.

With more focus on the impact of summer on students’ learning and the potential to extend the school year, it is essential for educators, policymakers, and families to have an up-to-date understanding of the impact of summer breaks on students’ learning patterns. In this post, we aim to highlight what is known about summer learning loss by quickly summarizing recent research and posing some questions that remain unanswered about the role of summers on students’ learning.

Students’ test scores flatten or drop during the summer

While our initial understanding of summer learning loss dates back to studies conducted in the 70s and 80s, a recent collection of studies in the last six years provides a fresh look at students’ learning across summers using four modern assessments (ECLS-K direct cognitive tests, MAP® Growth, Star, and i-Ready) with large national (though not typically nationally representative) samples. See “School’s out: The role of summers in understanding achievement disparities,” “When does inequality grow? School, summer, and achievement gaps,” “Evidence of ‘summer learning loss’ on the i-Ready diagnostic assessment,” “Findings on summer learning loss often fail to replicate, even in recent data,” and “Inequality in reading and math skills forms mainly before kindergarten: A replication, and partial correction, of ‘Are schools the great equalizer?’”

Figure 1 compares the test score patterns across four different studies. Three important patterns stand out:

1. On average, test scores flatten or drop during the summer, with larger drops typically in math than reading.
2. Studies using test scores from ECLS-K:2011 show that student learning slows down but does not drop over the summers after kindergarten and first grade. However, research using interim and diagnostic assessments (MAP Growth, Star, and i-Ready) has found far larger summer drops across a range of grade levels.
3. Given the sizable differences in the magnitude of test score drops across tests, it remains uncertain whether summer slide should be considered a trivial issue or a serious educational challenge.

Figure 1. Comparison of summer slide estimates across datasets

Note: All estimates are reported as the total average summer test score change in standard deviation (SD) units relative to the prior spring test score. Whenever possible, we report the estimate that adjusted scores for time in school prior/after testing in the fall and spring. Sources: Author calculations based on data reported in ECLS-K:20210-11, MAP Growth, i-Ready, and Star.  

Who is most likely to show summer learning loss?

While all three diagnostic assessments show some degree of summer slide in grades 3–8 on average, the research community lacks consensus about whether summers disproportionately impact certain students. Paul von Hippel and colleagues have pointed out that whether and how much summers contribute to educational inequalities (across students of different income levels, races, ethnicities, and genders) depends on the test used to study students’ learning patterns. Nonetheless, we can present a few key patterns from this line of research:

• Learning rates are more variable during the summer than during the school year. See “School’s out: The role of summers in understanding achievement disparities,” “When does inequality grow? School, summer, and achievement gaps,” and “Inequality in reading and math skills forms mainly before kindergarten: A replication, and partial correction, of ‘Are schools the great equalizer?’”
• Gaps between students attending low- and high-poverty schools do not consistently widen during the summer. See “Is summer learning loss real, and does it widen test score gaps by family income?” and “Is summer learning loss real?”
• Test score differences between Black and white students hold steady or narrow during the summer. See “Do test score gaps grow before, during, or between the school years? Measurement artifacts and what we know in spite of them” and “When does inequality grow? School, summer, and achievement gaps,” though results can be sensitive to the metric and test used. See also “Black-white summer learning gaps: Interpreting the variability of estimates across representations” and “Findings on summer learning loss often fail to replicate, even in recent data.”
• The field cannot really explain why differences in students’ summer learning occur. See “Rethinking summer slide: The more you gain, the more you lose” and “Inequality in reading and math skills forms mainly before kindergarten: A replication, and partial correction, of ‘Are schools the great equalizer?’”

Planning effective summer programming

It is clear across recent studies that summer is a particularly variable time for students. Summer break is also increasingly a time in which districts are offering a range of academic offerings.

During summer 2022, an estimated 90% of school districts offered summer programs with an academic focus. However, evidence on the effectiveness of academic summer programs during and after the COVID-19 pandemic is limited. One study of eight summer programs in summer 2022 found a small positive impact on math test scores (0.03 SD), but not on reading. The improvements in math were largely driven by elementary students compared to middle schoolers. However, the effectiveness of these programs remained consistent across student groups, including race/ethnicity, poverty, and English learner status.

It is crucial to recognize the challenges associated with scaling up summer programs. In the districts studied, only 13% of students participated in the summer programs, which only lasted for an average of three to four weeks. Prior research indicates that for summer programs to yield measurable academic benefits, they should run at least five weeks with at least three hours of instruction a day. Additionally, getting students to regularly attend summer programs remains a significant hurdle. To address this issue, districts should actively recruit families to participate and offer a mix of academic instruction and engaging extracurricular activities. By adopting these strategies, districts can maximize the effectiveness of their summer programs and better support student learning during the break.

If you’re interested in learning more about effective summer programs, we encourage you to read the following:

• “Effective summer programming: What educators and policymakers should know”
• “Investing in successful summer programs: A review of evidence under the Every Student Succeeds Act”
• “Analysis: Summer learning is more popular than ever. How to make sure your district’s program is effective”
• “The impact of summer learning programs on low-income children’s mathematics achievement: A meta-analysis”
• “The effects of summer reading on low-income children’s literacy achievement from kindergarten to grade 8: A meta-analysis of classroom and home interventions”

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In a conference room in Columbus City, Ohio, a team of three instructional coach leads—Karen Fiedler, Jen Erickson, and Roni Becht—engage in a team-building activity involving a unique deck of cards. This activity aims to help the coaches identify their core values and motivators. As they intentionally listen to each other’s card results, laughter fills the room: their results are strikingly similar. This strong alignment of core values comes as no surprise considering the success they have collectively achieved in building an effective instructional coaching program over the course of three and a half years.

Over the past decade, instructional coaching positions have been established in numerous districts with varying levels of success. Columbus is an urban capital city, and Columbus City Schools serves a diverse student population of nearly 46,000 students across 117 schools. Despite facing significant challenges, such as a post-pandemic budget shortfall, a teachers’ labor union strike, and a change in superintendent, the instructional coaching program has remained a constant source of professional learning and capacity building for the school-based coaches and teachers they support.

What has set the Columbus City instructional coaching program apart? How have they achieved multiyear success and managed to retain instructional coaches at a rate of greater than 80% (a role that often experiences extremely low retention rates in other geographies)? The coach leads from Columbus City recently shared their advice, wisdom, and lessons learned with me.

As designated point people for instructional coaching in their district, the Columbus City leads serve as ongoing professional development facilitators, communicators, and trusted advisors to other instructional coaches. They also coordinate and manage the planning and alignment of their district’s instructional initiatives, mission, and vision. Coach leaders can be administrators, but in many systems that is not necessary or appropriate. In either case, their role should be clearly defined with sufficient time and resources to develop an effective instructional coaching program.

1. Understand priorities

To influence the larger system effectively, coach leaders must work together to gain a clear understanding of the priorities and goals of district leaders. When designing professional learning and setting coaching goals, it is essential to ensure that the objectives align with a district’s priorities. Regular retreats and planning sessions should be scheduled to analyze coaching program data, goals, and alignment with the district’s initiatives.

Columbus City coach lead Jen describes how her team continually worked together to align the role of school-based instructional coaches with the bigger picture of the district’s long-range goals for coaching. In addition to providing opportunities for whole-group professional learning with the school-based coaches, the leads carved out regular time to meet virtually and in person. “We built in protected time for our core team to synthesize and design what the needs and outcomes would be,” she explains.

Research supports the importance of aligning coaching goals with district priorities. For an instructional coaching program to become successful, it cannot live in isolation and, instead, must align with the overall goals of the school or district. By understanding and incorporating the priorities of district leaders, coach leaders can ensure that the instructional coaching program is well-aligned and focused on achieving the desired outcomes.

“First and foremost, you must decide what you want the outcome of the coaching to be because the term ‘coach’ is extremely expansive and used interchangeably to describe various roles in schools,” Roni advises. “Once you understand the priorities and goals of hiring coaches, you can build your coaching model to satisfy that purpose.”

In Columbus City, the lead team formally defined the role of the coach at the internal level so that principals had more clarity on how coaches should support teachers in their learning needs.

2. Consult experts

As the Columbus City coach leads strategically worked to build the capacity of the instructional coaches they served, they also knew they needed their own unique professional development in coach leadership. To complement the in-house professional learning and on-site support, they also sought outside expertise from Jim Knight’s Instructional Coaching Group and NWEA, among others. This robust approach ensured that coaches at all levels of experience could receive differentiated, experiential learning as they formed a district-wide culture of coaching.

Roni describes the value of ongoing, sustained professional learning for coach leads: “For me, it’s been crucial to reflect on our team success and connect what the team is working toward.” Karen agrees: “Even when times are challenging, I leave inspired and ready to incorporate new ideas into coaching conversations.”

Upon reflecting on how consulting an external expert supports her own coaching practice, Jen explains that “Working with our own coach helps me unpack current dilemmas and, in turn, my approach to coaching focuses on hope.”

3. Build relationships

While building relationships with teachers is important, instructional coaches also need to work alongside school and district leaders. Establishing positive relationships with key decision-makers allows for effective communication of the barriers and successes of coaching. Coach leaders should seek opportunities to engage with leaders by attending district events or inviting them to witness coaching in action.

To establish and maintain trusting relationships across their district, the Columbus City coach leads strategically delegate responsibilities based on their individual strengths, and they offer a variety of methods for school-based coaches to get support. This includes monthly in-person workshops focused on coaching skills and knowledge, site-based visits for one-to-one coaching, and virtual office hours. “It’s not always perfect, but our teamwork strives to be productive, innovative, and creative,” says Roni on their approach to supporting coaches.

As the focus of their coaching model has always been building capacity across the district, they share a story of observing a veteran coach reaching out to support a new coach. Research conducted by Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan emphasizes the importance of relationships in leadership. They argue that effective leaders build strong relationships with colleagues and stakeholders, which in turn leads to greater support and collaboration.

By forging relationships with district leaders, coach leaders can gain their trust and support, enabling them to influence the larger system effectively. The Columbus City coach leads developed a system to strategically communicate important coaching updates and stories of coaching success with administrators to offer as much transparency as possible.

4. Embody a “way of being”

In Columbus City, the coaching framework includes a “way of being” component for all coaches to draw from in their daily coaching conversations with teachers. At its core, this looks like withholding judgment, seeking to understand, building emotional connections, redirecting destructive conversations, and building trust by treating others as equal collaborators. Roni states, “The power in having a ‘way of being’ means you don’t talk about it. You just do it.”

Coach leads have offered on-site workshops to develop a collaborative vision for their “way of being” as well as offer opportunities for coaches to engage in roleplay and peer coaching to practice their “way of being.” They have also drawn inspiration and guidance from coaching experts, such as Elena Aguilar’s Bright Morning team and the NWEA instructional coaching team.

In conclusion

The work of Columbus City Schools instructional coach leads—Karen, Jen, and Roni—demonstrates how the role of a coach lead can bridge the gap between the day-to-day work of instructional coaches and the priorities of district and instructional leaders, ultimately leading to improved student learning outcomes. In Columbus City, where there have been many competing initiatives over the years, the coach leads remain focused on the primary outcomes of coaching by continually reflecting and planning for the bigger picture. “You have to stay the course,” Karen says. “All these other initiatives are coming at you and will impact the way you are designing your program. You have to continually be asking, ‘Does this further the purpose of the outcome coaching model?’”

By establishing clear connections between coaching objectives and district priorities, consulting experts, cultivating relationships with decision-makers, and embodying an authentic culture of coaching in daily practice, coach leaders can influence the larger system and ensure support and sustainability for an instructional coaching program.

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Just like doctors checking a patient’s chart, teachers use assessment data as an academic temperature check. Teachers identify students’ needs, charting growth over time and ensuring that students get the ongoing support they deserve on their learning journey. But if teachers, like doctors, want to go beyond “do no harm,” they need tips for using data to drive instruction.

But what if we snoozed through the data-literacy portion of our teacher-training? I’m joking: like many teachers, neither I nor Ashley Cruz, NWEA professional learning consultant, received any such training—despite our medical counterparts doing so.

Assessment data is a prescription, and teachers need help reading the handwriting. I sat down with Ashley to talk through her best teacher tips to strengthen this teacher muscle and make it a more seamless part of the profession.

What is data-driven instruction?

Before I was ready to dive into the benefits of data-driven instruction, I asked Ashley to give me a definition. She explained that data-driven instruction is when teachers continually incorporate student assessment data into their instructional ecosystem to make district-wide and student-level shifts based on data over time. Let’s pull out some phrases to make this easier to understand:

• “Continually incorporate.” Student test scores are not static. MAP® Growth, for example, is often administered three times a year, which gives teachers multiple student data points in specific instructional areas. If teachers aren’t updating their knowledge of what students need, they are missing opportunities to help their students grow.
• “Instructional ecosystem.” Test scores and student data are important, yes, but teachers know this is one component of many. Learner context, such as student rapport and relationships; family situations; and student strengths and growth opportunities evaluated through formative assessment (more on that later) are all important pieces.
• “District-wide and student-level.” An assessment like MAP Growth can both showcase macro data (district, school, class) and highlight individual student-level data. This affects how districts make curricular decisions; how administrators and instructional coaches prioritize campus and grade-level support; and how classroom teachers implement whole-group, small-group, and individual instruction.
• “Data over time.” Single, isolated assessments have their place, but they can also be compromised by everything from a student’s bad day to school absences. With assessments that recur over time, the goal is to track student growth over longer periods to notice trends while discarding irrelevant test performances.

While it can feel overwhelming, data-driven instruction is a muscle: after a bit of practice, using data to drive instruction will not only seem intuitive, but it will also save you time and yield real student gains.

A word about formative assessment

Peanut butter and jelly. Mario and Luigi. Data-driven instruction and formative assessment. When you hear about one, you’ll hear about the other.

Teachers, I don’t know about you, but whenever I hear the term “formative assessment,” I second-guess myself. I suddenly feel like a first-year teacher, nodding along about some new concept or acronym. So I had Ashley confirm what I do know:

• I know the difference between “formative” (ongoing, informal, lower-stakes) and “summative” (end-of-unit, let’s-move-on, record that as a grade).
• I know that formative assessment can take many forms: a student’s oral explanation, exit tickets, quizzes, even homework.
• I know formative assessment gives me feedback I should respond to immediately, adjusting my instruction.
• I know formative assessment should not be graded.

Despite knowing these things, sometimes the fancy jargon hides what formative assessment is: it’s the ongoing temperature checks that we do each day with our students. And that’s why it is so important when it comes to data-driven instruction. Remember that your classroom is an ecosystem, with tiny dials and nodes shifting every day. Your star student, when really noticed, has thousands of opportunities for growth. Your student who needs a bit more support with fractions might be a whiz with solving variable equations.

Ready to get started using data to drive instructional shifts? Here are three doable, bite-sized tips to put your data to work.

Tip #1: Before anything, involve students in goal setting

There’s a reason this step is first. This isn’t a nice to have; it’s a must have. Involving students in the “why” and “what’s next” ensures learner agency and encourages buy-in, so students don’t feel as if an assessment is happening to them and compromise their performance because they’re unmotivated.

Often, teachers feel the pressure of dwindling class hours, but Ashley urges that even if there’s no time to conduct elaborate one-on-one student conversations, dedicated goal setting pays dividends. Involve students in using data to drive instruction. If you test with MAP Growth, review the Student Profile report with students and allow them to reflect on previous data to set an upcoming goal.

Try this:

• Project a nameless Student Profile report on the board. Point out how to read it, what to look for, and what a reasonable goal might be for this student.
• For each student, print out their Student Profile report for math and literacy (complete with graphs on the back).
• Highlight the most relevant instructional areas to current and/or previous instruction up until this point.
• Have students review their most recent RIT score on their graph and circle their projected growth for the next assessment window. Then add two or three additional RIT points for students to set their own individual goals. (You can adjust these during conferences, if need be, depending on your expectations for individual students.)
• Allow some time for students to journal responses to a few questions like:
  • The last time I took this assessment, I remember…
  • If I did really well on this assessment, I can picture myself feeling…
  • One of my areas for growth is ____. I agree, because…
  • I’ve always been strong in ____. I can use that strength by…
• As students journal, conference with others to point out specific areas for improvement while celebrating previous growth. This can look like walking around the room with previously collected formative assessment data for each student and holding a brief one-minute conference at their desks to identify specific standards they still need to master.
• File the report and the journals away. Before and after each assessment, print new reports, review previous reports and journal entries, and offer new journal prompts.

How formative assessment comes into play: Say a group of students struggles in the numbers and operations instructional area. Look at the Learning Continuum for grade-level standards that fall within this instructional area. Identify recurring, spiraling standards (sometimes called “essential” or “power” standards). Call special attention to these standards as they appear in previous formative assessments, helping students see how they are a pillar. This way, students can better identify and vocalize the standards in which they need support—and you can better know what to supplement.

Tip #2: Flex your small groups based on instructional area data

Constantly flexing your small groups levels up your learners. Truly using data to drive instruction actually eliminates students being pigeonholed into the same group all the time. How can data drive this flexibility? Ashley recommends analyzing the RIT score within the context of instructional areas. You can do this by reviewing the Class Profile report.

Try this:

• Sort your overall RIT scores from least to greatest. Keep this sorting in place, and then sort the most relevant instructional area to current or previous (or most emphasized!) instruction. Watch what happens to the overall RIT scores when you do this! Suddenly, RIT scores have nothing to do with areas of triage.
• Pick one instructional area and zoom in for groupings. Pay attention to students who are close in RIT range, and consider learner context when creating groups.
• Review the Learning Continuum for this instructional area, including its associated standards.
• Examine formative assessment data that overlaps with these standards, and determine which standards may need to be strengthened using different instructional methods. Use your students’ RIT ranges, high and low, to determine what level of intervention or extension is needed.

How formative assessment comes into play: As you zoom in on specific areas of data to drive instruction, the larger ecosystem of formative assessment informs flexible grouping. Ongoing observation, quizzes, exit tickets, and other formative assessments might indicate that a student needs to move groups. These groups are meant to be flexible. Use MAP Growth data to get started, and use formative assessment data to keep going.

Tip #3: Math teachers, use Lexile levels in class

Assessments like MAP Growth measure math and reading all the way through to the SAT. Everything from teacher anecdotes to research on the science of reading supports the fact that a learner’s reading level affects their scores in math. These students need support with more complex math word problems.

Try this:

• Review the Class Profile report and find a student’s Lexile level. Students with lower scores may need support with longer-form math problems.
• Identify students with high Lexile scores who need support in math. They might be a great partner for a student with the opposite situation!
• Keep this information in mind when making small groups. A higher Lexile reader may boost a group’s overall access to the material, allowing other students to contribute mathematically.
• Consider implementing the Three Reads strategy with your whole class. First, read the question aloud just to understand the context. (What’s the story here? No numbers allowed!) Second, read the question aloud to interpret it together. (What are we solving for? What are we trying to find out? Third, read the question aloud to identify important (and potentially unimportant) information. (What are the numbers telling us?)

How formative assessment comes into play: Students may need support with reading comprehension rather than the math itself! During formative assessment, offer side-along solving to isolate the issue.

Nothing is more important than direct teacher observation and collaboration. Elementary math teachers, during team meetings, report what you’re noticing with your math learners’ reading skills. Ask for input and support from literacy teachers, who likely already have some strategies to share. This process can be trickier for secondary math teachers, who may no longer meet within grade-level departments—or even teach in the same building—but true intervention may be a tag-team effort.

Potential problems with data-driven instruction…and how to avoid them

It’s no secret that we teachers can carry a lot of data baggage. We might feel it reflects poorly on our instructional abilities. We might find ourselves in disbelief when scores don’t reflect what we know our students are capable of. We may feel like we’re moving in Jell-O when trying to make the smallest student growth gains. These feelings are valid, and many school districts have implemented cultural initiatives to de-electrify data’s emotional implications, instead supporting data-driven instruction from an empowered stance.

The tricky part is that sometimes, undesirable assessment results can become a reason for students to be excluded from grade-level rigor. We risk widening the gap when we only provide below grade level intervention for students. MAP Growth can support decision-making, but it should not be a barrier to content or types of tasks individual students access. Every student needs access to grade-level content.

Data-driven instruction is centered around student data, but sometimes our student data—especially from one given test day—is not entirely reflective of what a single student does or doesn’t know. It’s important to remember that the quality of the assessment practices within a classroom impact the quality of the data collected.

Data-driven instruction, one step at a time

Teachers, using data to drive instruction isn’t an all-or-nothing process. Start small because even small changes can move the needle on real student achievement, meeting the needs of our learners and helping them grow to meet their potential.

For further reading on your data-driven journey, check out our professional learning opportunities from NWEA, some led by Ashley herself!

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In many discussions on the science of reading, phonics is featured on the main stage. This is most likely because, unlike language comprehension, word recognition is a constrained skill—one with a limit—that can be mastered, typically within a few years of initial teaching. However, if we don’t pay attention to the bigger beast of language comprehension from the earliest grades, students without this opportunity will fall further and further behind their peers. We need to rethink our approach to teaching reading comprehension.

We think about reading comprehension as the product of word recognition and language comprehension. Nationally, we’ve done a great job getting the word out on the importance of phonics. This is, arguably, the easiest part of the equation to get right. However, that’s not all that needs to happen in the early years so students are successful readers later on.

Two pathways to teaching reading comprehension

We at NWEA recently spoke with Natalie Wexler, an education writer and author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—And How to Fix It. Natalie reminds us that “We really have to see literacy developing along two pathways that are going to be, to some extent, pretty separate in the early years.”

These pathways are word recognition and language comprehension. While phonics has a mound of intervention research on how to effectively get students to reading fluency, cognitive science tells us that students need to acquire plenty of knowledge to be able to understand the texts they encounter, and that this must start early on. Otherwise, the opportunity gaps between kids with experiences to gain background knowledge and kids without will only grow wider.

Natalie highlights how students “are going to be acquiring those foundational skills [of phonics and decoding] through decodable readers and practicing fluency.” But she adds, “That’s not how they’re going to be acquiring new knowledge and vocabulary of a new topic… That’s really going to come through this other pathway, which is reading aloud text that’s probably more complex than they can read themselves and engaging them in discussion of that content.”

In the early years, these pathways to becoming a reader are largely separate. Younger students or older readers with decoding difficulties won’t yet be able to read texts that are building their vocabulary and knowledge. They need to have these rich and complex texts read aloud to them. What does this mean for educators? Both paths need to be effectively taught for the best chance of literacy success in the upper elementary grades and later in life. One doesn’t come before the other—decoding and comprehension both must be valued in the early grades—and both must have adequate instructional time devoted.

What is reading comprehension?

Natalie says, “we have to think of reading comprehension as a process.” Sometimes you may hear teachers asking comprehension questions about a text to students. This is thinking of comprehension as a product, not a process. Assessing students’ comprehension of a text by asking them questions is not the same as teaching students to comprehend.

Comprehension is a metacognitive skill, one that is developed through purposely choosing text sets to build knowledge and leveraging specific reading comprehension strategies to help students acquire this knowledge and apply these metacognitive skills on their own.

So how do we go about building knowledge?

Reading strategies should not be the focus of teaching reading comprehension. Instead, they should be used in service of teaching students new content. The most recent research suggests we use three strategies to help students learn the content of the texts they are reading. Specifically, when combined with instruction in vocabulary and background knowledge, these strategies are most helpful in building student knowledge and understanding. We can teach students to:

1. Identify the text structure
2. Using the text structure, identify the main idea
3. Summarize a text by expanding on the main idea

If students can summarize a text, they now have a situation model to work from. Think of it like helping them build a web of Velcro that all the details in the text can stick to. Teaching students to use these steps will help them build the metacognitive muscles they’ll need to do this type of understanding on their own. By helping students arrive at a coherent understanding, teachers position readers to do the deep work of making inferences, generating questions, and making connections.

Imagine, for example, a class of first-grade students learning about animals and their habitats in science. They read an informational text about owls. Their teacher may then plan to use the book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen to help students step into the role of the child protagonist who is going owling for the first time. Their teacher may refer to what the students learned about owls’ eyesight and sleeping patterns from the informational text. With these goals in mind, the teacher may use various reading strategies and activities to help students understand what they are reading and gain knowledge about animals and their habitats.

Before reading, the teacher may activate students’ background knowledge from the earlier lesson by asking questions like, “What are the ‘special powers’ we learned about owls yesterday?” and “What are owls’ sleeping patterns like?” Activating these concepts will help students make connections during the narrative story. The teacher may also focus students on a problem–solution sentence stem or a narrative story map to help them better understand the plot. The work could be displayed on an anchor chart in a student-friendly format so the class can take notes together. This could transition to students taking brief notes on a graphic organizer or dry-erase board once they are more independent spellers, typically toward the middle of the year.

During reading, the teacher may ask connecting questions to help solidify knowledge, such as, “When did this happen?” and “Why do you think Pa chose to take them owling so late?” The teacher may also highlight the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary that is related to understanding the content, such as “pine trees,” “meadow,” or “clearing.” The teacher can list these words on index cards so students can refer to them and use them in their writing throughout the unit. As they encounter a plot element, they can record it together on their graphic organizer.

After reading, the class could talk about the plot structure and use the completed graphic organizer or sentence stems to summarize the story. The teacher could also have students add descriptive words about the owl’s habitat to their science journal. This could be extended to a few sentences to explain why it was so difficult to find an owl. Students may also be guided to use a graphic organizer to compare their learning about the owl habitat to the habitat of a field mouse they explored while reading Frederick by Leo Lionni.

Notice that each of the strategies and activities—from recognizing a story’s structure, to summarizing, to eliciting details and answering questions, to comparing and contrasting—are all in service of learning content related to the science unit on animals and their habitats. The focus of reading a new text is not on learning a certain strategy but using the strategies to learn the content.

Natalie notes, “There is evidence that teaching kids comprehension strategies, or at least certain kinds of comprehension strategies, does boost their comprehension. But we’ve been trying to do this in the abstract… What really will work better is teaching a topic and bringing in whatever strategy or skill is appropriate to help kids think deeply about that topic and understand that text for that topic.”

Recommendations for teachers

When teaching reading comprehension, I encourage teachers to avoid choosing texts to focus on a particular comprehension skill or strategy. Choose texts instead based on the content focus. Here are some suggestions for how to align your instructional focus with best practices in reading science:

• Plan to use texts that revolve around a specific science or social studies topic. These can be both narrative and informational texts, as in the narrative example I shared earlier. Using texts around a common topic enables students to build a rich and enduring web of knowledge.
• Teach students to identify the text structure and generate a main idea statement. This enables students to understand and summarize what they are reading more easily. When students understand the main idea of a text, it empowers them to move into higher levels of understanding.
• Explicitly teach and review new vocabulary that relates back to the science or social studies topic. Help students understand how these words relate to one another and the topic at hand. Research in cognitive science suggests using distributed practice enables students to learn more words and, therefore, understand more concepts.

Recommendations for school administrators

If you’re a school administrator, here are some ways to support your teachers in this work of shifting from a strategy focus to a content focus when teaching reading comprehension:

• Provide teachers with high-quality text sets for read-alouds related to your grade-level science and social studies standards. In second grade and up, also provide multiple copies of chapter books around these topics for students to discuss in small groups or as a whole-class book study.
• Provide teachers high-quality professional learning and time to plan. Teachers need to be able to think deeply with one another about the vocabulary to highlight and strategies to use to help students acquire information and learn new concepts. Use practitioner articles to guide PLCs in integrating new practices into your existing curricula.
• Create a culture of collaboration. Give time for art, music, PE, and other shared-subjects teachers to plan lessons around the topic of study. Students are more likely to learn deeply when they are building common knowledge across class periods.

Learn more

To hear more from Natalie on the importance effectively teaching reading comprehension, watch our interview with her.

For additional ideas and tips on literacy instruction from Teach. Learn. Grow. authors, browse our archive of ELA posts.

The post The science of teaching reading comprehension appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

Writing, like teaching, is an art form. You often learn what works best from doing the work itself. When I was a new teacher, I made several newbie mistakes when it came to writing instruction. And when I saw what my students were writing, I knew right away I needed to change my approach.

Years later, when one of my journalism students won a Los Angeles Times award for news writing, I thought more deeply about the instructional changes I had made. I also thought about the social and emotional factors that likely enabled this once-timid reporter to tackle tough issues and blossom into an adept writer. What I realized from this exercise is that many of my instructional shifts had more to do with “leaning in” and getting to know my student as a writer, along with “letting go” of some outdated notions about what good writing is.

These are the three most important lessons I learned that I’d like to pass along.

Lesson #1: Writing instruction begins with a shared language for talking about writing and a shared understanding of the purposes for writing

Anchoring your instruction in a few big ideas that students can remember helps simplify the experience for everyone—and writing is always an experience.

As a new English language arts teacher, I often made writing more complicated than it needed to be. In my journalism classes, things were simple: we focused on the 5Ws and H (who? What? When? Where? Why? How?). It was easy for every student to remember and internalize these guiding questions.

If only there were a similar list of questions I could apply to other writing tasks! Over time, I found that there was. And at NWEA, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with current and former teachers to hone that list of essential questions down to the following five.

If anchoring your instruction in big ideas students can remember resonates with you, like it did for me, I encourage you to try incorporating these five essential questions into your writing curriculum.

We’ve even compiled these big ideas for growing writers into a free resource aimed at building a shared language for talking about writing with students. To that end, we’ve created a student version, too.

1. Why am I writing?

This question encourages students to ponder their purpose for writing. Often, their immediate response to this question is, “I’m writing because my teacher assigned me this essay/report/research paper.”

If we can get students to push past the idea of writing as an assignment and toward writing as a form of communication, we may see a dramatic increase in their motivation and writing quality. “What do you want to accomplish with this piece of writing?” becomes the question, not “What kind of writing does your teacher want from you?”

Writing is always the intellectual product of the writer, and the more we can encourage students to see themselves as writers and to take ownership of their writing, the better the results. Before students write, it’s critical they know and understand their purpose for writing, as this purpose informs so many other choices they will make.

2. Who are my readers?

This question forces students to consider their audience. When writers can anticipate the needs of their audience, they increase the effectiveness of their communication.

If the only audience a student ever has for their writing is a teacher, they lose the opportunity to make writerly decisions based on different audiences, such as considering their unique feelings and opinions about a topic, their different vocabularies (e.g., familiarity with code switching, idioms, or jargon), and their varying degrees of background knowledge. This is why giving students authentic writing tasks is so important. Authentic writing engages students in the same cognitive processes they use to write for real-world situations, such as applying for a job, taking civic action, or even communicating with family and friends.

3. What am I writing?

This question gets students to think more deeply about the task, genre, and form for their writing. While some of this information is likely included in the writing assignment, it’s still important for students to work through the task details on their own.

Students will make more informed writing decisions when they are able to clearly articulate the expectations and success criteria for a writing task. The writing genre provides another framework for students to think about their purpose for writing. Each genre’s unique features have developed over time through socially agreed-upon conventions, and experienced writers understand how to use these features to communicate more clearly with their audiences. Finally, form—or format—describes the type of text to be produced, and today’s writers have more forms to choose from—both analog and digital—than ever before.

When students put time and thought into their purpose, audience, and task, they have a greater command over their writing and what they want it to accomplish. And that’s when we get to see students’ communication skills and creativity truly shine through.

4. How am I presenting ideas in my writing?

This question addresses the myriad of choices a writer must make when they embark on a task, including decisions about writing development, organization, style, and conventions. Too often, this is where we ask students to start, and it can be overwhelming to make all these decisions before a student has wrapped their head around what they plan to write and why. In addition, while these writerly decisions are important, we may place too great an emphasis on a student’s final written product when a focus on their writing process may have more instructional utility.

My advice to students is, “Don’t sweat the small stuff when it comes to presenting ideas in your writing.” The ideas themselves are what’s most important. They’ll have numerous opportunities to practice and hone their writing development, organization, style, and conventions with every piece they write and over an entire lifetime.

5. How am I using the writing process?

This question reminds students that writing is both a product and a process. And the writing process is where much of the learning and critical thinking takes place.

Though writing is often taught as a sequence of forward-moving steps, the writing process is recursive and iterative, not linear. For example, writers go back and forth between planning, drafting, translating, reviewing, and revising to meet their writing goals, and writing goals can be self-generated or revised at any time during the writing process.

Writing itself is a work in progress that includes collaboration, self-regulation, and self-evaluation in addition to the other steps students typically learn. The more frequently students engage in and reflect on their own writing process, the more likely they are to develop productive and efficient writing habits, as well as growth mindsets that can help them overcome writing challenges in their school, career, and personal lives.

Lesson #2: Writing instruction is most impactful when it extends through professional learning communities (PLC) that offer students school-wide support for writing

As students move from grade to grade, a strong and coordinated PLC can help them build on what they already know about writing and focus on becoming even more expressive and effective writers.

In my first year of teaching, a colleague and I had an opportunity to attend a professional learning summit on writing. One session led by Harry Noden taught us how his Image Grammar could help students expand, vary, and improve their sentence structures. The majority of our student population was multilingual learners, and we rightly suspected that focused practice on writing, even at the sentence level, could increase language development in English. In part, this is because writing has a slower pace, provides a permanent record, and calls for greater precision in word choice.

We accurately assumed that sentence writing would benefit all our students, too. And once we were satisfied with the results, we leveraged our PLC to encourage a school-wide adoption of teaching grammar with Noden’s “brushstrokes.” We saw students quickly embrace the concept of “brushstrokes” because it positioned them as “artists” painting with words. This artistry was reinforced by the quality of their sentence writing. Often shared aloud, these sentences could be chill inducing they were so beautiful. For many students, this was their first proof they could be excellent writers, once they learned how.

Lesson #3: Writing outcomes can be improved through the use of common assessments and common rubrics at the school, district, or even state level

Common assessments and common rubrics help educators develop a shared understanding of how to evaluate writing. This includes providing students with meaningful feedback and grading writing more consistently across a school, district, or even state.

Coordination among teachers can help establish a school-wide writing community that all students can tap into for peer review. It can also lead to greater consistency in writing instruction and evaluation. Such consistency builds trust between students and teachers, which in turn can strengthen students’ view of themselves as learners and increase their motivation to learn.

When students don’t have to figure out individual teacher preferences for writing—and they feel confident every teacher will grade their writing for substance not style—they can focus their mental energy on becoming better writers. This includes developing their own sense of how to use language(s) effectively for personal, academic, and civic purposes.

One way to foster student-teacher collaboration is to encourage students to enter writing contests. Student writing contests can range from local to national, and it’s worth some extra effort to find ones that are a good fit for your students. Once my journalism students began entering (and winning!) writing contests, these events became an annual tradition. My students also became more willing to work on their digital portfolios throughout the year.

At the district level, common assessments and common rubrics can help leaders identify schools that need more support, such as more professional learning for educators or more high-dosage tutoring for students. They can also identify schools that have model instruction and can serve as resources for others. If you’re looking for a place to start in your district, the Literacy Design Collaborative offers common analytic rubrics for several writing genres, and the New York Performance Standards Consortium provides a robust set of performance-based assessments and rubrics.

Districts that use state rubrics in their common writing assessments help ensure all educators have similar expectations of student writing. If your state assesses writing, check the state department of education website for newly released writing assessments and their accompanying rubrics. And if your state doesn’t assess writing, they may still offer writing materials for teachers to use.

Finally, NWEA is often asked about the connection between MAP® Growth and writing. MAP Growth does not include writing prompts, so it can’t take the place of high-quality formative assessment in the classroom; it simply wasn’t designed to assess students’ writing. But MAP Growth can provide insights into students’ strengths and opportunities for growth, and these insights are especially helpful when educators use an integrated approach to reading and writing instruction.

The MAP Growth instructional areas for reading, for example, offer some information about how well students understand literary text, informational text, and vocabulary. Students who are performing below grade-level for vocabulary would likely benefit from more explicit vocabulary instruction, including more strategic exposure to roots and affixes. This expanded vocabulary knowledge can later be applied to students’ writing. One approach is to have students “speak in synonyms,” a kind of oral rehearsal that can be done with peers or small groups and then integrated into a piece of student writing. Meanwhile, students who struggle to comprehend informational text might benefit from a self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) approach to writing. This method teaches students to recognize, internalize, and utilize important genre features in writing. And since reading and writing are related, SRSD can help improve students’ comprehension of informational texts, too.

A recap of lessons learned

Writing is hard, and teaching writing may be harder still. As educators, we continually learn new lessons about how to help our students (and ourselves) become better writers. I hope the three lessons I’ve shared here are helpful to you and bring you closer to having every student see themselves as a capable writer or, better yet, an artist painting with words.

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Every school year, students take assessments designed to help teachers better understand what kids know and how they are growing academically. MAP® Growth, our assessment for children in kindergarten through twelfth grade, is usually given every fall, winter, and spring.

After testing, teachers use the results to develop classroom strategies for equitable instruction that help maximize every student’s learning potential. They should also communicate results to students and their families and will likely use the Family Report. If you’re struggling to make sense of all the testing terminology, here are some definitions that can help.

1. RIT

MAP Growth uses a scale called RIT to measure student achievement and growth. RIT stands for Rasch UnIT and is a measurement scale developed to simplify the interpretation of test scores. It is an equal-interval scale, like feet and inches on a ruler, so scores can be added together to calculate accurate class or school averages.

The RIT scale ranges from 100–350. RIT scores make it possible to follow a student’s educational growth from year to year. As an example of how math RIT scores change as students move from grade to grade, a student may score in the 170s in third grade and advance to the 220s by high school.

2. District grade level mean RIT

This is the average RIT score for all same-grade students in a student’s school district who took the same test and tested in the same term.

3. Norm grade level mean RIT­

This is the average RIT score of a nationwide sample of same-grade students who took the same test and tested in the same term, as observed in the latest NWEA norming study.

4. Achievement percentile

This number indicates the percentage of students in the NWEA norm group for a test and grade that a student’s RIT score equaled or exceeded. The achievement percentile is a normative statistic that indicates how well a student performed in comparison to similar students in the norm group.

A student’s achievement percentile indicates that the student scored as well as or better than the percent of students in the norm group. In other words, a student with a percentile rank of 72 scored as well as or better than 72% of comparable students in the norm group.

5. Growth percentile

This number indicates the percentage of students in the NWEA norm group for a test and grade that a student’s growth equaled or exceeded. The growth percentile rank is a normative statistic that indicates how much a student grew in comparison to similar students in the norm group.

A student with a growth percentile of 60 grew as much as or more than 60% of comparable students in the norm group. Growth percentiles can only be determined when two or more MAP Growth tests have been completed. The two most common growth percentiles that families look at help explain the amount of academic growth that occurs between fall and winter testing and between fall and spring testing.

6. Standards

Standards are statements, developed by states or districts, of what students should know and be able to do, related to specific academic areas. Most often, educators are referring to Common Core State Standards, but a number of states have their own independent standards. If you are interested in the standards used by your state, you can find more information on the website of your state’s department of education.

Learn more

As teachers, families, and students discuss MAP Growth results and other assessment data, having a baseline understanding of these terms will help. If a teacher uses terms you’re unfamiliar with, be sure to ask them what they mean.

To learn more about MAP Growth, see our Family Toolkit, watch our video “What is MAP Growth?” and read “12 common questions parents ask about MAP Growth.”

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Growing up in the ’90s and early aughts, I wouldn’t have considered myself a “math person.” I was entrenched in the system of tracking, where students are placed in classes with students of like ability and then tiered by class number. The Ones, Twos, and Threes were the top-performing classes. Everyone else fell somewhere in the middle or below. My teachers didn’t seem to be encouraged to think about differentiation in the math classroom.

I was in one of those “top” classes, but despite my aptitude in ELA and social studies, I never failed to feel the cold chill of dread once our math notebooks hit our desks. My friends seated to the left and right of me (you may remember me mentioning that we were seated by last name) easily transitioned from one subject to the next. Yet there I was, stuck in the middle with math.

Many years later, we’ve seen the negative, limiting qualities of tracking. And while students are still occasionally grouped by similarities in ability, groups are now meant to be temporary and they’re just one of a variety of ways teachers can tailor instruction to provide all kids the optimal chance to be successful. That’s differentiated instruction in a nutshell.

Most of us tend to prefer subjects we’re good at. So when a student walks in your door and declares “I am not a math person,” what they’re really telling you is that no one has managed to find a way for them to feel successful in math—yet. I’m confident you can help them with differentiation.

My NWEA colleagues have heard me refer to my differentiation non-negotiables at length: 1. know your students, 2. become a content expert, and 3. embrace student assessment data. This is the triad of commitments I believe a teacher must make to reach the fullest expression of differentiation. Let’s dig into these together. I encourage you to set your sights on small shifts you can make in your practice and then work your way toward fully incorporating all three differentiation non-negotiables.

1. Know your students

The first step to highly effective differentiation in the math classroom is to know your students. This includes knowing basic facts about them, of course, like their name and how they’re doing in your class. But that isn’t enough. You need to also know their interests, preferences, areas of strength and focus, needs, and personalities. At NWEA, we refer to this as learner context—the “who” a student is, beyond surface information and numbers.

For many teachers, understanding their students well can be a real hurdle, despite the social nature of education. That can be partly because we fear what lies on the other side of our carefully implemented classroom management. Beyond our rational, intentional seating chart, bell-to-bell instruction, and choreographed conversations lies a world that may feel too chaotic for us to let in.

When we are able to take an interest in who our students are, we can begin to build trust, conversation, and collaboration, and I find that these things can create the opposite of chaos; they can create harmony. Knowing a student cares for a younger sibling, for example, or that they play a sport or an instrument and have a preferred learning style can help you color in the complete picture of who they are as a person, not just who they are as a student.

Toward the end of my time in the classroom, I had one student who was particularly challenging. She was readily defensive, pushed the limits of our school’s policies, and shrugged off poor grades with a projected indifference. Instead of fighting fire with fire, I decided to chat with her one day over pizza. She told me her parents were going through a divorce and that she was mad all the time. She didn’t care what was happening in school because, to her, everything was meaningless chaos. I sat and listened and realized that there was potential buried deep beneath all of her hurt. From that moment on, I built upon that interaction to create an environment where she felt more trust, understanding, and collaboration so she could bring her best self to my math classroom.

I believe one of the largest problems math teachers in particular face is not necessarily the complexity of the content but the negative dispositions to learning that create barriers to success. Building a meaningful relationship with that troubled student really helped me support her in feeling more positive about learning. Getting to know your students could help you have similar successes, and it could also create opportunities for you to work what you know about them into your differentiation techniques. Incorporate as many opportunities as possible for your students to bring their interests to discussions. Let your more creative students shine via artistic interpretations of word problems. Encourage your linguistically talented students to feel empowered by connecting algebra language to sentence structure. Get those athletes involved through dynamic station rotations or timed team activities.

2. Become a content expert

The next step—after you’ve peeled back the layers, broken the fourth wall, embraced the mess, and created trust—is to become an expert in your content area. Easier said than done.

If you’re an elementary teacher, I can hear your collective sigh, as this means you need to be an expert in most subjects, which is a tremendous lift. To clarify: When I say “expert,” I’m not saying I expect you to crack the Enigma code or write the next great American novel (but heck, yeah, if you want to!). What I mean is that you have to possess a fullness of understanding of your content to be able to anticipate next steps, understand what the trajectory of success looks like for that subject, and pivot within every lesson with confidence.

To maximize differentiation, you should be fluent in the scope and sequence of your content, both its depth and breadth. Knowing what precedes and succeeds your topic, unit, and standard allows you to scaffold for access to grade-level content or for challenge extension as needed. I’m a former middle school math teacher, and while I didn’t teach all grades at once, I had an awareness of the evolution of the standards from one grade to the next. This helped me when creating scaffolded supports (like tiered worksheets), creating intentional student groups to foster robust discussion, and having additional support at the ready to infuse into a discussion as needed.

When you are confident in your content area, students are also more inclined to follow you on a learning journey because they trust you know the way. Tasks, lessons, and discussions have more meaning when there is a sense of intentionality behind them. Confidence in your content area can help you feel a greater sense of pride in your work, too.

3. Embrace student assessment data

Student assessment data is one of the sharpest tools in any teacher planning and differentiation toolkit.

A lot of the power of assessment can lie beyond the test. Sometimes we fall into the habit of labeling assessment as either “formative” or “summative,” and while there’s value in knowing its purpose, I encourage you to go beyond that. You’re constantly absorbing information related to an assessment that can be used to make decisions. Consider a student with several responses left blank during independent practice or a student who is quiet during a paired activity. That’s observational data, and your observations matter, especially when you pair what you see with numerical data to inform instruction.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics encourages us—and our students—to reflect on learning. I encourage you to regularly consult assessment data and your observations of students because doing so can better help you offer them targeted support. The data should sit alongside your scope and sequence or unit plan as you are creating your lessons. Consider assessment data from tests like MAP® Growth and also the data that comes from exit tickets, timed entrance tasks, conference notes, observations during whole group independent work, midterm exams, pop-quizzes, and more when making decisions about resources, groupings, and lesson objectives.

Differentiation in the math classroom should be a habit

Whether you’re a beginner exploring differentiation for the first time or a multitasking expert eager to explore new ideas, differentiation is a lifelong skill worth working on. It’s not unlike moderate exercise, eating healthy, and mindfulness: any negative side effects are usually negligible and the benefits far outweigh them.

I find that the more teachers embrace differentiation, the more confident they will feel and the more inspired their lessons will be. Eventually, it will all become a habitual best practice and manifest seamlessly and instinctually in your planning, instead of feeling like an overwhelming must-do.

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It was my first year teaching, and I was getting my classroom ready for school when my new principal dropped off my name tag. “Please wear this every day,” he said. “And good luck this year!”

I looked down at the tag he had placed on my desk. It read Special Education Teacher, with my name below. I gasped. “Oh, no, no, no! I cannot wear this!” I picked up the name tag and ran after him. I explained that I needed a new one, that “special education” needed to change because it’s a loaded, vague term that can do more harm than good. He didn’t understand.

I never did wear my name tag that year. It never got changed either.

Why the term “special education” falls short—and what to say instead

Kids have been taught that it’s not a good thing to be in “special education,” that they’re somehow less than, inferior to their peers. “Special” has come to mean “not good enough” for many of them, and they’re not alone; the negative connotation of the word “special” has been growing for years.

A disability is a mismatch between a person and their environment.

It isn’t exactly clear when “special needs” or “special education” became popular. It may have been as far back as the 1960s when the Special Olympics began. Or it may have happened when the term “handicapped” started getting eliminated from legal language with changes to laws such as Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which changed to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990.

Language used to describe people with disabilities has continued to evolve this century, too. In October of 2010, President Obama signed legislation requiring the federal government to replace the term “mental retardation” with “intellectual disability.” The measure is known as Rosa’s Law and is named after Rosa Marcellino, a Maryland girl with Down syndrome who championed the change.

Updates in language at the federal level are critical for justice for people with disabilities. Language changes—and the reasons behind them—can take a long time to trickle down, however, and changing the connotation of a term can be especially challenging. A 2016 study by Morton Ann Gernsbacher et al. proves this point. In their article “‘Special needs’ is an ineffective euphemism,” they document their research of the term “special needs” and explain that “persons are viewed more negatively when described as having special needs than when described as having a disability.” They also say that “special needs conjures up more associations with developmental disabilities (such as intellectual disability) whereas disability is associated with a more inclusive set of disabilities.” An association with developmental disabilities shouldn’t be a problem in and of itself, but data shows bias against people with developmental disabilities is grossly prevalent.

I agree with Gernsbacher et al. that “special needs” is ineffective. It is imprecise. A disability is a mismatch between a person and their environment, so the term “disability” is not just much more accurate, but it also helps us understand how to reach a student better. “Disability” helps us see that a student and their environment simply aren’t compatible, and once we know that, it’s easier to focus on a productive approach: how to alter the environment. That is what accessibility is all about. Accessibility is the correction of that mismatch.

Be kind, get curious, and focus on the facts

Words matter, and it is important to use respectful language when communicating about people with disabilities. Just because two people have the same disability does not mean they will feel the same way about their disability or how their disability should be described. Here are some things to strive for as you consider the language you use when talking about students with disabilities.

How to show kindness

For many people, the term “special needs” feels offensive. As someone with a learning disability who went through school in “special education” and on an individualized education plan (IEP), I prefer and believe in owning the term “disability.” Therefore, when I describe my disability, I use the terms “learning disability” and “dyslexia.” Maybe someone else with dyslexia prefers different language, however. Disabilities cross cultures, genders, age, race, and beliefs, so the language can never be one-size-fits-all. Preferences will vary.

[L]isten to how your students identify and would like to be addressed.

Conventions will change, too. When I started my career in academics, for example, I was taught to always use person-first language. This approach conveys that a person is not defined by their disability. However, as I quickly learned in my more real-world application of accessibility, the use of person-first language is debated within the disability community. Some people prefer the use of “identity-first language.” Identity-first language, as defined in “Ask a self-advocate: The pros and cons of person-first and identity-first language,” “leads with a person’s diagnosis, such as being a disabled person.” I have also learned that person-first language was originally promoted mainly by the non-disabled community. As well-intentioned as this may have been, we were not given ownership of ourselves, our disability, and how we describe ourselves. Ownership is important. So is agency.

If you’re a teacher, I encourage you to listen to how your students identify and would like to be addressed. While some may be too young to express this information, know that most disabled persons, myself included, do not want to be referred to as having “special needs,” and they definitely don’t want it announced that they are in “special education.” I never felt I learned differently from my classmates, and I certainly didn’t feel “special” (nor did I want to).

Please know that it’s ok to say “disability” or “disabled,” but even better is asking the person you’re referring to what they prefer. Honoring someone’s personal preference is a simple way to show a great deal of kindness. Before I speak at an event where I’ll be discussing disabilities and accessibility, I often identify the language I will use and why. That makes it easier for people to understand not just my personal preferences, but the fact that everyone will have their own personal preferences. Not sure what someone prefers? Cue the curiosity.

Ways to be curious

If a person feels comfortable with you and they disclose their disability to you, ask them how they prefer you to refer to their disability (or, potentially, not refer to it). Do they prefer person-first or identify-first language?

Another way to get curious, which takes the burden off the disabled person, is to read materials by people with disabilities, like the self-advocacy article I mentioned earlier. Find out what you don’t know, and if you’re reading a personal narrative, notice the way the author references themselves in their writing. Not every person with a disability will want to talk about their disability. It has taken me a long time to talk openly about my disability because of painful past experiences; for a long time, I was very selective about whom I shared my story with. Disabilities are deeply personal and deserve respect, no matter the type. Using the internet to your advantage so you can learn more will help you educate yourself without pushing a friend, colleague, or student to say more than they feel comfortable with.

Why facts matter

As humans, we want to do the right thing and sometimes our well-intended choice to use terms such as “physically or mentally challenged,” “exceptional,” “learning difference,” or “special needs” comes across as condescending and offensive. Why? Because these terms seem to be tiptoeing around what is a daily reality for some of us. So name the disability: Blind. Deaf. Learning disabled. Or use generic terms that don’t try so hard to flatter, like “physical or cognitive disability.” There’s nothing wrong with people with disabilities, and trying to mask reality with flowery language can make it seem like there is.

Language for describing people without disabilities can be just as challenging. For example, “able bodied” is sometimes used to describe people without a disability, but for some in the disability community, this implies we lack use of our bodies. The preferred terms and phrases are “not disabled,” “non-disabled,” “does not have a disability,” or “people without disabilities.” Avoid terms such as “normal,” too, that imply people with disabilities are strange or abnormal. We’re not. With 26% of adults in the US living with a disability, we’re hardly unusual.

Allies are amazing

I understand language is difficult at times. Trust me. I’m dyslexic. But even just trying to do the right thing can go a long way. If you mess up, that’s okay. Learn and move forward. We’re all just human, and we all want to feel seen, heard, and respected.

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Teachers, raise your hand if your classroom has at least one student who is practicing foundational skills. Keep them up if it’s five or more students. Ten or more? Most students? Yes, we see your hands. Hi! We’re waving back at you!

In our math classrooms, fractions were when we felt it. How were we supposed to teach dividing fractions when some of our learners couldn’t add fractions? When some of our learners didn’t know what fractions truly are?

Whether it’s math or reading, science or social studies, it’s almost impossible to find a classroom where all learners are exactly where they “should” be. But when we remember that all learners grow at different paces, and that children of the same age aren’t necessarily all ready to learn the same things, we begin to have more empathy for our students, for their previous teachers, and for ourselves!

We know academic growth happens when learners receive rich exposure to grade-level content, yet we must face the facts: our learners have gaps that need addressing. Teachers, we don’t need convincing. We need know-how!

The Transformative Ten: Stepping stones to high growth for all

Former NWEA education researcher Chase Nordengren embarked on a study of a school that defied the odds and consistently produced high student growth year after year. Hundreds of hours of observation, interviews, research, and MAP® Growth data led him to recommend ten concrete strategies teachers can take to support student growth. We’re calling these the Transformative Ten:

1. Provide supplemental learning time for targeted retrieval practice
2. Mix whole-group, small-group, and individual activities
3. Adjust student groups in real time
4. Share students and strategies within a grade level
5. Differentiate tasks within a unit
6. Provide targeted practice for foundational skills
7. Teach from multiple standards at once
8. Create opportunities for self-directed learning
9. Use student discourse as formative assessment
10. Explicitly teach academic vocabulary

Strategy 6 asks educators to make intentional, focused time for practicing foundational skills that are necessary building blocks, while avoiding getting stuck in past years’ standards. It’s undeniable: this year’s standards + every previous year’s standards = our work cut out for us. But, luckily, one district’s proven methods are here to add new support.

Practicing foundational skills: 3 myths to bust the stress

Half of the stress of providing targeted foundational support is not necessarily the doing of it; it’s the looming omnipresence of “My students need review!” There are many teachers who can reteach previous years’ concepts with fluidity and engagement. In fact, we may have favorite review lessons. But this haunting idea that students are perpetually behind plagues our teacher brains all year long until, surprise! New year, new students, same stressful specter.

It is an educational reality that we need learners to meet certain targets by certain points in the year. But the sooner we accept that “review” is actually a natural part of the learning progression—especially after the pandemic—the less stressed we as educators will be. And let’s face it: we’re much better at our jobs when we’re a bit less tense.

Myth #1: “But they learned this already”

Not necessarily. Raise your hand if you ever had to skip standards because your school year ran short or because you were, you guessed it, reteaching? Raise your hand if you had to abandon at least one standard because “power standards” needed your attention?

Or maybe a student switched schools or teachers while learning a new concept. Maybe they had something going on at home, like the death of a pet, a new sibling, or a move. Perhaps COVID massively interrupted their learning of a foundational concept or they never fully understood a concept in the first place because their brains simply weren’t ready.

The good news is, each day, you’re dealing with older, more developed brains. Just-in-time support like a mini lesson on “What exactly is a fraction?” could be exactly what they need to ignite their understanding—and even unlock old learning memories that just now make sense to them.

Myth #2: “Nothing truly ‘learned’ needs to be retaught”

Hmm. Maybe. The science of forgetting is complex. If we had to retake physics, for example, we’d have some relearning to do, because it’s not a subject we use every day. Not because we didn’t know it in the first place, but because the neural pathways in our brain need reminding of what they understood long ago. Sometimes, we forget procedures and need simple reminding of the concepts behind them.

Imagine a student who “doesn’t remember” how to turn fractions into decimals. It turns out, their previous teacher used money manipulatives to teach this concept and the student hasn’t dealt with physical money since. A simple mini lesson linking money to the larger concept may be all they need. Their older brain will likely re-meet the concept with a bit more of a foothold.

Of course, sometimes educators correctly assess that a student who can’t read a paragraph of text doesn’t need “reminding” of phonics; it’s that there are gaps in the learning that may need deeper intervention.

Myth #3: “My exceptional students will be underserved by revisiting previous years’ content”

Here’s the truth: if all we ever did was review, we would underserve all our learners. Research repeatedly shows that all learners need rigorous instruction of on-grade-level content. Yet it’s also true that what’s good for one learner is good for everyone, like written instructions benefitting more than just those with hearing impairments. This Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach is not only compassionate; it’s also common sense. In fact, many tips on supporting kindergarten math students would support first- and second-graders as well.

What we label as “reteaching” can become reconceptualizing, reconnecting, and reinvigorating. This benefits all the learners in the classroom.

5 tips for practicing foundational skills and filling in the gaps

Educators, now that we’ve taken some deep breaths and know we’re in this together, here are five tips for supporting your learners with targeted foundational skills support.

Tip #1: Normalize review by carving out consistent whole-group time

Looking back on the school year, wouldn’t it be great if there were a consistent review time as a “catch-all” for those gaps you notice during formative assessment? Students do well with routine—and they love a good hashtag—so maybe it’s time to riff on #ThrowbackThursday.

Perhaps each Thursday, you protect time for a twenty-minute whole-group review session on a deeper, “older” concept that would benefit all voices in the room. Consider going full old school and bringing back physical or digital manipulatives that remind them of their younger classrooms.

Elevate this to a pro tip by bringing it back around on Monday for a quick review. Recalling the skill after the weekend is great practice for retention.

Tip #2: Invite students to teach

Sometimes, the best teachers for your students are other students. Let’s return to our fraction example. Perhaps a couple of learners need a review on adding fractions. Instead of asking students to explain the concept, try this workflow:

1. Write student responses to two lists: List A: “Student errors when adding fractions.” List B: “Math vocab words you might hear when adding fractions.”
2. Invite a student to the board. Their job is to explain one student error when adding fractions (from list A) using at least one math vocab word (from list B).
3. Invite another student to be the elaborator, that is, the person who explains, clarifies, or corrects any instruction from the previous student. Bonus points if they include another student error or math vocab word from your lists.
4. Invite a third student (perhaps one who rates themselves as shaky on the concept) to recap what the two students just taught. They can pick what explanation made more sense to them, or they can create a mashup.
5. Take notes on your students to help inform your decision-making for upcoming small groups. Maybe student 1 was confident but had an error that needs addressing, for example.

When students teach each other, they reinforce their own understanding, reveal their misconceptions, and deepen conceptual connections for all involved.

Tip #3: Keep your small groups fresh and flexible

Sometimes targeted practice with foundational skills will be more needed by a subset of students, who then benefit more from the smaller setting. My colleague Tatiana Ciccarelli champions flexible grouping in “3 ways to use flexible grouping in real time to support student growth,” where she offers three steps to shift the small-group mindset from “These are our low-performing kids, our middle kids, and our high kids” to “This is where the student will work best right now. I, as the teacher, am flexible and prepared to move them to a different group if I need to.”

The trick is to stay flexible, both in your groups and with yourself. Tatiana encourages teachers to make ever-evolving small groups that fit the learning goal, and she reminds us to feel free to make last-minute switches. Our students and their relationship to material is always changing, so their groupings should, too.

Tip #4: Remove “Right?” from your vocabulary

Once you start noticing this one, you’ll hear it everywhere.

“Right?” is an innocuous little word that we often thoughtlessly use as a synonym for, “Are you with me?” However, this is a cue word for our students to pretend they understand or remember what you’re unintentionally labeling as obvious. Students (and your adult friends!) may take this to mean, “Oh, I’m supposed to already understand, even though I’m already lost. This is beneath her to explain, so I will ask no questions.”

Ask your students to help you with this. They will surely love to vigilantly tally each time you slip up.

Tip #5: Leverage a digital tool

If your school uses MAP Growth, one more way to make your assessment data work for you is to pair it with a supplemental digital tool. Many of our instructional connections funnel targeted practice to students based on their reading and math scores, accessing a level of personalized, differentiated practice that gives teachers back valuable searching-for-that-perfect-learning-activity time.

An opportunity for depth

As teachers, we regularly encounter skill sets that build on and draw from one another. Thus, it’s important that we identify and support our students when something is missing. As we dismiss the “they should be here by now” mindset (when did that ever help anybody?), we free up our energy to explore practicing foundational skills as an opportunity to deepen connections that last longer and longer each time.

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Remember the age-old assignment where teachers ask students to write instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? It seems like a simple enough task, even if shared orally with students as young as first or second grade. But upon realizing all the steps they inevitably leave out, students often become overwhelmed the next time they’re asked to write instructions, wondering, “What did I leave out? What if I have things in the wrong order?” Thinking about how to kick off your next coaching cycle can feel a little like this: It seems simple enough, but what if a critical step or two are left out in the early stages? Will the coaching cycle recover, or will you be left with a jar of unopened peanut butter sitting on a lone slice of bread? Let’s explore the ways you can find a focus for instructional coaching.

1. Rethink your starting point

The first step in any coaching cycle is usually to choose a goal or focus for instructional coaching, but is this really the first thing coaches and teachers can do together? Much like taking all the necessary ingredients out of the cabinet to make sure you can make that sandwich, coaches and teachers benefit from a thorough needs assessment before entering a coaching cycle. What’s most important for the teacher right now? What will be most effective for their students? These are just two of the many questions coaches can pose to teachers to prepare them for choosing a coaching focus.

Assessing teacher needs can begin during your first 30-minute get-to-know-you meeting, but I encourage you to start even sooner with a digital needs assessment form that you email the teacher. You can keep a bank of questions to pose to teachers or create an online form to share with them a week or two before the coaching cycle begins. Some of the prompts NWEA instructional coaches use are as follows:

• Tell me about your journey to becoming a teacher.
• Tell me about your students. What are their strengths?
• Can you tell me about your previous experiences with coaching or mentoring?
• What do you hope to gain from our work together?
• Can you tell me about your working style?
• What are your hopes for your students and your classroom?
• What data could we use to pre-assess your students to see how they are doing?

2. Encourage prioritization

Teacher needs can be further assessed by asking them to rank the amount of support they’d like with a variety of specific professional learning or student need statements, from “little to no support needed at this time” to “urgent and pressing support needed.” Needs assessment statements can range in topic from things like “collaborating with my teacher team” to “integrating educational technology” to “developing strategies for stress management.”

I encourage you to have a standard list of needs assessment statements to give to the teachers you coach. If there are needs a teacher has but doesn’t see on the list, they can add them to ensure they’re not forgotten when you move on to goal setting and finding a focus for instructional coaching.

3. Use your first meeting to set goals

All coaching sessions need to honor the teacher’s time, as it is the most valuable—yet unrenewable—resource they have. The benefit of having a teacher complete a needs assessment before the first meeting is that your meeting will also need to include discussions of future meeting times, locations, protocols, and the division of work between the coach and teacher. You’ll also then have time to review a teacher’s answers and use your first meeting to focus on the areas requiring the most support.

I encourage you to use a protocol during all meetings to keep sessions on track, and that first goal-setting meeting is no exception. I suggest bringing a printed version of the completed needs assessment to your first meeting with a teacher. One protocol that can help bring clarity to goal selection is to have the teacher circle items they feel are the most pressing for them, underline things that would benefit the students most, and place a star next to the goals that motivate or excite the teacher. By examining the coded list, teachers can see which items meet all three criteria and begin with one of them as their focus for the coaching cycle.

As their coach, you can then help a teacher further refine each goal by asking if it is:

• Clear and simple
• Directly related to learning
• Observable
• Actionable (that is, under the teacher’s control)
• Likely to make a big impact on learning
• Truly meaningful to the teacher and students
• Achievable in the time allotted to the coaching cycle

4. Encourage ownership

After you and the teacher have identified their top goal or goals, you’re ready for the next critical step in finding a focus for instructional coaching: ensuring the teacher feels some ownership over the work you’ll be doing together. This can help increase their engagement during the coaching cycle, and it can also help the coaching cycle be successful.

I suggest asking your teachers to rewrite their goal or goals in their own words. They can do this during your first meeting together, if you’ve allotted enough time, or it can serve as their first “assignment,” to be completed before their next meeting with you.

Set for success

After you’ve had a chance to learn about a teacher’s needs from a coaching cycle and the coaching focus has been selected, refined, and restated by the teacher, planning for the next steps in the coaching cycle can begin. In other words, once your ingredients are all out on the counter and you have a recipe in hand, the sandwich-making can begin.

Spending so much time on goal setting with intentionality is not time wasted but, rather, valuable in helping educators gain clarity on their goals so they can be sure to select a goal that will be the most impactful for their students.

For more information on instructional coaching services through NWEA, visit our website.

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I’ve been a champion of the importance of writing in math class for a long time.

My first classroom position was teaching sixth-grade science at an elementary school. I had a great curriculum with a lot of hands-on exploration of phenomena that both my students and I loved. The one thing missing, though, was a real reading and writing component. So, I created an introductory unit on science writing. It involved teaching students explicitly how to make and record detailed observations and clearly explain the rationale for their inferences. I worked with the school librarian to get access to age-appropriate science magazines and had students read and respond to articles regularly. As someone who loves to write, it made sense to me to incorporate writing into all areas of the classroom.

I brought this interest in content-area writing along when I transitioned to teaching third grade. That curriculum had plenty of opportunities to write in science and social studies. However, I noticed that beyond the typical “Explain how you solved the problem” prompts, there was very little writing in math. When I excitedly asked my new grade-level colleagues if they used math journals, they looked at me as if I had spoken to them in another language. The idea of writing in math seemed somewhere between unnecessary and ridiculous to them.

Thankfully, teachers have become much more open to writing in math class since then. NCTM’s 2000 publication “Principles and standards for school mathematics” helped drive this connection by including communication as a key component of mathematics learning. NCTM framed mathematical communication as “a way of sharing ideas and clarifying understanding. Through communication, ideas become objects of reflection, refinement, discussion, and amendment. When students are challenged to communicate the results of their thinking to others orally or in writing, they learn to be clear, convincing, and precise in their use of mathematical language.” Since this publication, most college-and-career ready standards have incorporated the need to communicate mathematical ideas into their math practice standards.

Why is writing in math class important?

The act of writing involves examining, organizing, reconsidering, and synthesizing one’s ideas. Writing is a “knowledge transforming” process that involves both the retrieval and encoding of ideas and concepts in our memory. As stated in the NWEA stances on writing, “Writing is a cognitive, nonlinear process that serves as a tool for learning and critical thinking, stimulating the writer to think more deeply about a text, topic, or concept. In this way, writing doesn’t just show thinking; it is thinking, and it is an essential practice across disciplines.”

Research has demonstrated the impact of writing in furthering mathematical understanding. A 2020 meta-analysis of research on writing in the content areas of math, science, and social studies showed that writing to learn in each of these subject areas “reliably enhanced learning” with an effect size of 0.30. Another meta-analysis focused on writing specifically in math found an even greater effect size of 0.42.

Writing in math class can both uncover and potentially improve students’ attitudes toward the subject. A 2014 study involving students with high math anxiety found that when students wrote expressively about their thoughts and feelings prior to an exam, the difference in performance between low and high math anxiety students was significantly reduced relative to the control group in which students did not engage in pretest expressive writing.

There’s more than one write way

At a high level, there are two different ways to think about writing in the math classroom. One way is a writing-first approach, where the focus is on improving student writing, and math is a topic that is used to support this. The other approach is math-first, where writing serves as a tool for helping students learn and integrate mathematical content.

Naturally, with a writing-first approach there is more emphasis on drafting, revising, and honing writing. In a math-first approach, which will be the focus of this article, revisions are less common. While students should be taught and coached on how to articulate mathematical ideas and arguments clearly, revisions are more about recording shifts in students’ thinking about the mathematical content than they are about mechanics or style.

Within the math-first approach, there are many ways to incorporate writing in math class. I’ll dig into four of them here.

1. Eliciting impactful explanations

Let’s start by examining the aforementioned “Explain how you solved the problem” prompts found in many teaching materials.

You are likely familiar with the tepid and uninformative responses these questions can elicit if students are not taught how to unpack their mathematical thinking. Without coaching and modeling, students are likely to simply list the series of steps they took to solve the problem, rather than explain why they chose that approach, identify challenges they encountered and decisions they made along the way, and say how they determined their answer was reasonable. Just as I had done when teaching science, I realized I needed to explicitly teach my students to explain how they approached and solved a problem. This instruction went hand in hand with developing a classroom culture where students felt comfortable explaining their thinking orally, asking and answering questions of one another, and defending their mathematical thinking.

To start, when solving a problem, I would model my own mathematical thinking on chart paper. I did this in a double journal entry style, solving part of the problem on one side of the paper and then recording my thoughts and decisions on the other side. Capturing decisions, missteps, mistakes, and course changes is a great way to model the math practices, particularly making sense and persevering in problem-solving. It is also a great way to model that the problem-solving process may not always be linear and that mistakes are normal and can lead to deeper understanding.

Writing in math class can both uncover and potentially improve students’ attitudes toward the subject.

After I finished, I would allow students to ask questions about what I wrote and I would use this to add to my writing, or I would annotate what to include next time. As students started writing on their own, I would share less-than-exemplary examples that I had created, alongside high-quality student examples. First as a whole class and then later in pairs, students would highlight the differences between the pieces and we would annotate the poor examples to show how to improve them. This included sharpening mathematical vocabulary, discussing models that could support the written text, and adding details for clarity. Finally, as students gained more confidence in their writing, I would pair students who solved the same problem using different approaches. The students would read each other’s explanation and then ask questions to help clarify the other student’s writing. Because these were not formal writing pieces, students didn’t necessarily need to rewrite their explanations; however, they at least needed to take notes of what might help make their explanations clearer next time.

The power of connecting writing and problem-solving was well summed up by the authors of “Aiming for understanding: Lessons learned about writing in mathematics”: “Writing during problem-solving instruction was introduced to help us assess our students’ thinking, but…we concluded that writing about problem solving and reading others’ thoughts…actually helped our students develop a deeper understanding of the problem-solving process. What began as an assessment tool was now being recognized as an instructional tool. We were beginning to view writing as integral to the teaching of mathematics concepts.”

2. Providing a formative foundation

Mathematical writing can be a rich vehicle for formative assessment, and it can be employed before, during, or after a lesson or unit. For example, before starting a unit on fraction addition, you might assign a 5–10 minute quick write in which students record everything they know about fractions. Reviewing the writing can give you more insight into student understanding than a quiz, which is inherently limited in terms of content included. The knowledge you uncover about your students can help you tailor interventions and small- and large-group lessons to where students are in their conceptual understanding of fractions. The process of recall leverages spaced retrieval practice, which helps with long-term retention of information. Recalling related past concepts also primes students to connect previous content to new content, a topic I’ll discuss in the next section.

During the lesson, you can convert the traditional “Think, Pair, Share” activity into a “Think, Write, Pair, Share” activity. The writing can be done either on individual whiteboards or in a notebook, if you’d like to save the students’ writing. Adding writing to this protocol can give students more time to process their thinking. Additionally, if the writing is recorded in a journal, later in the unit students can be asked to reread earlier entries to reflect on how their thinking has changed or deepened.

Finally, end-of-lesson quick writes where students record the three most important things they learned, identify and define key vocabulary in their words, or comment on a particular student’s explanation or response can serve both as an assessment of student learning and a way for students to synthesize their new knowledge.

3. Making connections

Despite how many of us were taught it, mathematics is all about connections. Connections, along with communication, is one of NCTM’s five process standards. Students at all levels should be able to recognize and “understand how mathematical ideas interconnect and build on one another to produce a coherent whole” as well as how they connect to the wider world. I discussed why making connections is so critical in “Maximum impact: 3 ways to make the most of supplemental content.” Math journals and writing prompts are a great way to have students look for connections among concepts.

Varying degrees of scaffolding can be used to help students make connections. You can directly ask them to do a quick write that compares two concepts, such as multiplying whole numbers and multiplying a fraction and a whole number. Or, prior to starting a new unit, students could be asked to write down everything they know about a concept related to the upcoming unit. For example, if students are starting a unit on multiplication, you can ask them to write everything they recall about arrays. As you move through the unit, you can ask questions to explicitly help them see the connection between arrays and multiplication.

You also want to provide prompts that allow students to find their own connections between concepts. Having students create concept maps is a great way to have them show connections between concepts. Simple sentence starters or sentence frames like “Division reminds me of…” or “Volume is similar to ______ because ______. Volume is different from ______ because ______” give students the freedom to make their own connections. In their article about improving writing prompts in mathematics, authors Craig Sjoberg, David Slavit, and Terry Coon share a simple three-part prompt to help students make mathematical connections:

• Explain at least one thing you learned in math this week.
• How does your answer connect to other mathematical ideas?
• How do these ideas connect to the real world?

4. Supporting metacognition

In addition to all the ways to have students share their mathematical understanding, I also liked to use math journals as a means of reflection. Students can be prompted to consider how they engaged with an activity or a discussion, reflecting on what helped to move their thinking along, what may have confused them, and more. This can help them understand how they learn best.

Metacognition, or the awareness and regulation of your own thought processes, is a key component to creative problem solving (as opposed to rote following of procedures). There are several ways to incorporate this type of reflection into math class:

During a lesson

If you have students take notes in class, you can teach them to engage in note-taking/note-making activities where they write the main idea on one side of the paper and their thoughts, reactions, and connections on the other side of the paper.

After a lesson

Have students respond to one of the following prompts:

• Did you have any lightbulb moments during that lesson? What led to that moment?
• Is there anything that is still confusing to you?
• What did you know or think about this topic before today? How has your understanding changed?
• How might you have presented this topic to someone else?
• Did you need more time to work today? Was the activity too long or just right?

At the end of the week or at the end of the unit

Ask students to reflect on specific activities, lessons, or conversations they engaged in:

• Which one was the most interesting to you?
• Which one helped you understand something better? What did it help you understand better and why?
• Which one changed your thinking about a mathematical idea?
• Did any confuse you or leave you with new questions?

The wide world of mathematical writing

I have touched on only a few ways to think about writing in math class. Thankfully, there is an abundance of resources to help you explore a wide variety of ways to get your students writing about math. Here are just a few of them.

• “5 ways to use writing in the disciplines to support learning” This Learn. Grow. Post delves into ways to infuse writing in all content areas.
• “Writing in math” This article by Marilyn Burns provides examples of how to integrate writing in math class.
• Using writing in mathematics to deepen student learning This guide discusses the research supporting writing in math, explores different approaches to math writing, and provides prompts and samples of student writing.
• “8 ways to pose better questions in math class” Although the focus of this article isn’t strictly on writing, the tips and prompts provided can be applied to writing.
• “Integrating writing and mathematics” This Reading Rockets article shares multiple strategies and examples of student writing in math class.
• “Write on” This NCTM article discusses four categories of mathematical writing and provides prompts for each type.
• “Talking, writing, and reasoning: Making thinking visible with math journals” This Read Write Think lesson models how to incorporate journals into math activities and includes prompts designed to uncover students’ attitudes and dispositions toward math.
• “Journal prompts for elementary students” This resource contains three pages of math writing prompts.

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At NWEA, we work with thousands of schools and districts across the US and in more than 145 countries around the world. Since we reach millions of students each year, there’s a pretty good chance that a child will take a MAP® Growth assessment some time in their school career. It’s natural for families to have questions about MAP Growth: what it is, how it works, and why their child is taking it.

To help you in your conversations about MAP Growth, we’ve gathered the top 12 questions families ask us regarding the test.

1. What is MAP Growth and what does it measure?

Unlike paper-and-pencil tests, where all students are asked the same questions and spend a fixed amount of time taking the test, MAP Growth is a computer-adaptive test. That means every student gets a unique set of test questions based on responses to previous questions. As the student answers correctly, questions get harder. If the student answers incorrectly, the questions get easier. By the end of the test, most students will have answered about half the questions correctly, as is common on adaptive tests. The purpose of MAP Growth is to help educators understand where a student is on their academic journey, if they are growing over time, and where a student’s strength and opportunity areas are.

MAP Growth is designed to measure student achievement in the moment and growth over time.

MAP Growth tracks students’ individual growth over time, wherever they are starting from and regardless of the grade they are in. For instance, if a third-grader is actually reading like an average fifth-grader, MAP Growth will be able to identify that. Or, if a fifth-grader is doing math like an average third-grader, MAP Growth will identify that, too. Both things are incredibly important for a teacher to know so that they can plan instruction efficiently.

2. What is a RIT score?

When students finish their MAP Growth test, they receive a number called a RIT score for each subject they are tested in: reading, language usage, math, or science. This score represents a student’s achievement level at any given moment and helps measure their academic growth over time. The RIT scale is a stable scale, like feet and inches, that accurately measures student performance, regardless of age, grades, or grade level. Like marking height on a growth chart and being able to see how tall a child is at various points in time, you can also see how much they have grown between tests.

3. How often will my child take MAP Growth?

Most schools give MAP Growth tests to students at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Some schools may include a summer testing session as well.

4. How long is MAP Growth?

Most students take around 45 to 55 minutes to complete a MAP Growth test. However, MAP Growth is not timed, and students may take as much time as they need to complete it.

5. Is MAP Growth a standardized test? How is it different from “high-stakes” tests?

No, MAP Growth is not a standardized test because it doesn’t give all students the same, standard set of questions every time it’s administered. Instead, it adapts based on a student’s answer, asking a more difficult question when they answer correctly and an easier question when they don’t. Students are expected to answer questions correctly only about 50% of the time.

MAP Growth is also an interim assessment, that is, it is given periodically during the school year, so that educators and families can see a student’s growth over time. (We recommend testing three times a year: in early fall, in winter, and in the spring.)

When we talk about high-stakes tests, we are usually talking about a test designed to measure what students already know, based on what is expected at their grade level. High-stakes tests are also often used as a way to measure grade-level proficiency. MAP Growth is designed to measure student achievement in the moment and growth over time, regardless of grade level, so it is quite different.

By the end of the test, most students will have answered about half the questions correctly, as is common on adaptive tests. The purpose of MAP Growth is to determine what the student knows and is ready to learn next.

Another difference is the timeliness of the results. While states often return information in the fall after the state summative test is taken, MAP Growth gives quick feedback to teachers, administrators, students, and families. Teachers receive immediate results with MAP Growth that show how each student is performing and where there might be common learning opportunities for the class. One similarity is that MAP Growth aligns to the same standards in a given state as the state test, so both measure similar content.

6. What information will I receive from my child’s school?

Most schools will provide you with the MAP Growth Family Report. This report contains information and scores from a student’s most recent MAP Growth assessments. It’s a good idea to discuss results with teachers for a full understanding of what the information means and how they can use their child’s reading and math scores to identify resources that can support home learning.

7. How do schools and teachers use MAP Growth scores?

NWEA provides many different reports to help schools and teachers use MAP Growth information. Teachers can see the progress of individual students and of their classes as a whole. Teachers use RIT scores combined with formative assessment to develop classroom-level strategies for equitable instruction that help maximize every student’s learning potential. MAP Growth also provides data around the typical growth for students who are in the same grade, are testing in the same subject, and have the same starting achievement level. This data is often used to help students set goals and understand how much they need to learn to achieve their goals. Principals and administrators can use the scores to see the performance and progress of a grade level, school, or entire district.

8. Can MAP Growth tell me if my child is working at grade level?

Just as a doctor has a chart indicating the most common heights and weights of people at certain ages, NWEA has put together charts showing the mean RIT scores for students at various grade levels. NWEA researchers examined the scores of millions of students to find the average scores for students in various grades.

9. What subjects are available with MAP Growth?

MAP Growth in English covers the following:

• Reading: Grades K–12
• Language Usage: Grades 2–12
• Math: Grades K–12
• Science: Grades 2–12

MAP Growth in Spanish covers:

• Math: Grades K–12
• Reading: Grades K–8

Note that the reading and math tests for grades K–2 are referred to as MAP Growth K–2. These child-friendly tests for young learners offer students the ability to wear headphones, since many questions include audio to assist students still learning to read.

10. What types of questions are on the MAP Growth tests? Are there sample tests?

The MAP Growth tests include multiple choice, drag and drop, and other types of questions. You can access some short sample tests to get an idea of what MAP Growth questions look like.

11. How can I help my child prepare for MAP Growth?

Your child’s teacher will help with any pre-test instructions to explain the test to the students. Just like on any school day, make sure your child is well-rested and fed. Encourage them to do their best.

12. What does NWEA do with my child’s information? Is it secure?

NWEA uses technological and operational measures to ensure security and privacy. A few of these include regular security audits and monitoring, technological controls, physical access controls, and privacy training for employees.

MAP Growth tracks students’ individual growth over time, wherever they are starting from and regardless of the grade they are in.

NWEA does not use any child’s personally identifiable information (PII) for any purpose other than to provide services to the child’s school. Combined information that has been stripped of PII—and, therefore, is not traceable to any individual student—is used for research and development so we can continuously improve our products and accelerate learning for all students.

We do not sell PII. Data sharing (if any) is completely at the control of the educational institutions that purchase our products.

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True or false? Your teacher development program adequately covered assessment literacy. This question was posed by Jacob Bruno, executive vice president of Learning and Improvement Services at NWEA, on a recent episode of The Continuing Educator podcast, where he met with Moon McCarley, principal and district testing coordinator on the Alaskan Peninsula, and Ashley Cruz, NWEA state professional learning consultant, currently based in Texas. These two educators in completely different parts of North America both gave their synchronous answer: “False!”

Assessment literacy includes everything from classroom skills, like preparing students for test day and facilitating goal-setting conversations with students, to more data-science skill sets, like interpreting test results and understanding areas of need. Regardless of what assessment is administered within a district, assessment literacy is a necessary component of teacher preparation and ongoing professional development—yet this takes time, and as Ashley says in the episode, “Teachers’ time is never on their side.”

Broadening teacher reach, from Texas to Alaska

Both Moon and Ashley knew early that they wanted to be teachers. Neither, however, could have pictured just how varied their path in education would be.

Moon began as a classroom teacher. She was quickly recognized as a leader and recruited to be an instructional coach. That led to the administrative side of things, and what began as a short stint in Alaska led to a full-time life there.

Ashley, recent president of the Texas Council for Teachers of Mathematics, was a math teacher who quickly saw the need for strong math curriculum. She served as a curriculum writer, instructional coach, and district-level MAP® Growth trainer before joining the NWEA state professional learning team. “I’ve always wanted to make a bigger impact,” Ashley says.

The need for assessment literacy

Educators of all areas—classroom teachers, curriculum writers, instructional coaches, administrators, and those working on broader policy and advocacy—know that assessment is a vital part of the educational landscape, especially at the macro level of district and state solutions. But how do we secure teacher buy-in and offer educators support as they decipher assessment data and determine what’s next?

Assessments like MAP Growth offer high-level, detailed data on the progress of student growth over time. Moon and Ashley speak realistically, pointing out that any assessment is often state mandated and takes away, however briefly, from instructional time. Because of this shared reality, all educators deserve literacy to turn an assessment’s results into actionable instructional shifts. Moon says, “Being able to build teacher understanding of why we’re assessing and how to use the data—from educators to students to parents—makes that time spent feel so much more worthwhile.”

Ashley and Moon share a passion for meeting what they identify as a pervasive need for assessment literacy across the country. Both encountered a lack of training in their teacher prep programs as well as ongoing difficulties with quality professional development. Ashley shared that throughout her travels, “We saw continually that this element of developing the data, understanding the assessment, understanding of pre-service educators is left wanting almost universally.”

The NWEA certified facilitator program

NWEA has partnered with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) to offer ongoing, on-demand assessment literacy training to “broaden educators’ individual and collective understanding of the purpose and use of a range of assessment measures.” This is the kind of teacher professional development lacking in prep programs: hands-on, just-in-time learning with real data and decision-making stakes. Ashley puts it simply: these trainings are to get educators on the same page with the question,  “Are we effectively gathering evidence of student learning to inform decisions?”

Moon went through the certified facilitator program to increase her impact by bringing assessment literacy strategies to districts across Alaska. These “train the trainer” in-person and virtual workshops help educators:

• Efficiently administer assessment tools and data
• Effectively apply strategies for data-informed decision-making
• Seamlessly implement formative instructional practices using data to inform instruction.

Moon highlights the strengths of a collaborative program that meets the unique needs of the state and allows school leaders a time to connect with like-minded—and similarly challenged—educators. Of course, Alaska faces unique circumstances that the lower 48 often overlook. Moon speaks of scattered, far-flung sister districts, saying, “You can only reach them by plane, so it’s very isolating. Yet you don’t feel isolated in these when we all are able to get together and work together.”

In addition to essential collaborative time, Ashley and Moon spotlight the value added by the certified facilitator program and its potential to increase assessment effectiveness. In response to Jacob’s question, “Why would you recommend this program to others?” both Moon and Ashley focused on three big takeaways:

1. The program bolsters teacher personal growth and professional development. Teachers finally receive that ongoing, focused professional development with real stakes and real scores that allow them to safely ask assessment literacy questions, building confidence that they take back to their schools. As Moon says, “My personal growth and deepened understanding is really valuable to me and has enriched the educators I work with, giving them more tools and more confidence in turn.”
2. Facilitators grow their learning exponentially due to shared experiences. Hearing others’ stories, questions, and aha moments compounds the learning, allowing teachers to feel part of a larger mission. “When facilitators come to these learning events, we’re able to collaborate and build upon one another’s knowledge,” Ashley says.
3. Educators leave with clear take-aways for student-facing shifts. We can all agree that educator buy-in, understanding, and mindset toward assessment matters. “If I don’t understand the incentive, purpose, and intent for an assessment, then students are likely not going to either,” Ashley admits.

Hear more on The Continuing Educator

Ready to listen to the whole conversation? Listen to the podcast episode and hear how assessment literacy training helps aid the mission of NWEA: helping all students learn.

Want to learn more about how NWEA can bolster assessment literacy in your state or district? Contact our State Solutions team. And for a quick guide on assessment literacy for your position, check out “How to be assessment literate, no matter your role.”

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Many people have been talking about the need for phonics instruction, but most of these conversations come to a screeching halt after talking about instruction in basic decoding skills. Instruction in multisyllabic word reading, or teaching students to read words with more than one syllable, is a crucial bridge between basic phonics and fluent word reading. It is also a major stumbling block for older readers who are still working on foundational reading skills. How to practically teach students to read long words has also been largely left out of the national conversation on the science of reading.

Marissa Filderman and Jessica Toste, two university professors who research multisyllabic word reading interventions, joined us to discuss what we know about teaching students to read long words. Marissa is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama and researches literacy interventions for students with and at risk for learning disabilities, with an emphasis on data-based decision-making. Jessica is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She focuses on effective interventions for students with and at risk for reading disabilities, as well as how to intensify interventions through data-based instruction.

Misconceptions in multisyllabic reading

As Marissa and Jessica note, there are several misconceptions about multisyllabic reading and how to approach teaching young children how to read longer, more difficult words.

The first misconception is that instruction should center primarily on syllables. Marissa recommends not getting too hung up on syllable rules because many of them “are very rigid and they don’t always apply.” For example, teaching students to divide a word with a VCV pattern (like pilot or travel) before the first consonant and pronouncing the first vowel as a long vowel only works about half the time, according to research on the usefulness of syllable division patterns by Devin Kearns. “It can be more confusing for a reader who already has a lot of difficulty with just decoding in general to also think about those rules,” Marissa adds.

“There’s also often a misconception that foundational reading instruction and knowledge of grapheme–phoneme correspondence and decoding skills translate automatically into multisyllabic word reading,” Jessica says. But a young reader having a good grasp of the alphabet and the sounds each letter makes isn’t enough.

Foundational reading skills, including phonics and word recognition, are critical but they are not enough on their own. Jessica explains that kids need to be helped in taking decoding to the next level: “Students really need to be taught, and students who struggle especially need to be taught—explicitly—how those skills scale up. They’ve been effective for them before. Now how can they use those skills to move from identifying and pronouncing individual letter sounds to identifying and pronouncing word parts to read more complex words? Students need this continued instruction as the words they are being exposed to become more complex and don’t always follow the rules they’ve been practicing in previous instruction.”

Another misconception is that foundational skills never need revisiting. That may be true for some students, but definitely not all. “There’s a careful balance we have to find with ongoing foundational skills instruction,” Jessica explains. For some students, “we need to continue to review vowel patterns and practice flexing vowel sounds while supporting students in decoding multisyllabic words. They need continued practice with those grapheme–phoneme correspondences so that they can apply them fluently and automatically every time they’re reading a word.”

Finally, there is sometimes confusion about the role of reading longer texts, as opposed to reading multisyllabic words in isolation. “It’s important to always read connected text in reading instruction, to always move from isolated word reading to connected text, even if you only have time for a few sentences to read at the end of a lesson,” Jessica advises.

6 ways to help kids with multisyllabic word reading

The following six strategies can help you approach multisyllabic word reading with your students:

1. Ensure students have prerequisite skills. The first step in approaching multisyllabic words with your students is to confirm they’re ready for the added level of complexity. “Make sure students have prerequisite skills, that they know vowel sounds and consonant sounds, and that they can recognize most grapheme correspondences,” Marissa says.
2. Focus on affixes. Marissa recommends explicitly teaching the pronunciation and meaning of affixes. “And continue to review all the affixes you’ve taught regularly,” she adds. Teaching students to quickly identify and “peel off” prefixes and suffixes within words can help students begin to recognize both pronunciation and meaning of larger chunks as they encounter more unfamiliar words.
3. Practice chunking. Because syllable rules can be inconsistent and confusing, Marissa recommends chunking, either by using the vowel in a word or the morpheme. “Students might use the short or the long form of that vowel sound to read the word,” Marissa says. Teachers can also help students chunk by using morphemes and affixes. “One of the most important things when focusing on multisyllabic words is really building morphological knowledge through breaking words into meaningful parts to make them easier to read,” Marissa explains. The “peel off” strategy is useful when chunking, too.
4. Make a game of reading multisyllabic words. It’s easy for multisyllabic reading instruction to get a little dry, so Marissa recommends getting playful. “After having structured practice with assembling and blending word parts to read multisyllabic words, I like to gamify this,” she says. “Students can play with the words in a sort of game format that’s fun, fast paced, and engaging. […] Introduce a select number of base words you think might work in your particular instructional context. Have students attach or build onto those base words with prefixes or suffixes. Have them point and say each word part and then blend the word parts and say the whole word.”
5. Move on to fluency when kids are ready. “For word reading fluency practice,” Marissa advises, “I like to use targeted word lists until students get really comfortable. I recommend you focus on certain patterns that you want to work with in those word lists, or certain affixes. Your word list can become more complex as you go.” Some of that playful approach she mentioned earlier can work well with fluency, too. “There can be a timed component of this practice as well, if that’s helpful to students. Or you can have a tracking component where they track their own performance every time they read a word list and see if their fluency is improving over time.”
6. Practice words in context. Just as Jessica noted, students need time to practice reading more than just isolated words. “Just like with any foundational skills instruction lesson, we always move from reading practice with words in isolation to words in connected text, and doing a lot of practice with connected text,” Marissa says. “This can look like sentences where the affixes you’re learning appear and multisyllabic words that you’ve been practicing move into passages as well.”

Serving students well

The crucial bridge for students from basic phonics to fluent word reading often goes overlooked. Consider reaching out to your leaders for any additional support you might need for your students. I recommend the following:

• Ensure your school has materials to help students read long words. The lessons Jessica uses in her research are available for free online, and they have been shown to be effective for older students who need more instruction in advanced word reading.
• Request professional learning opportunities around advanced word reading, and job-embedded coaching to answer ongoing questions and help you strengthen your practice. NWEA offers a professional learning workshop titled “Grades K–5: Building Fluent Readers” that’s a great place to start.
• Explore assessment options. If older students are not meeting benchmarks on your school’s reading comprehension assessment, consider using a follow-up assessment, like MAP® Reading Fluency, that can help you better understand if students are struggling with word recognition or language comprehension. If students are having difficulty with word recognition in the upper grades, make sure their intervention addresses this in a systematic way.

Reading long words fluently opens the doors to a limitless world of learning opportunities through rich and complex texts for students. To hear more from Marissa and Jessica, watch our videos.

The post 6 strategies for teaching multisyllabic word reading appeared first on Teach. Learn. Grow..

The percentage of students displaying chronic absenteeism—defined as missing 10% or more of school for any reason—nearly doubled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The most recent data suggests those rates may be improving somewhat, but progress has been slow.

Attending school is important. So much so that in January, the Biden administration recommended increasing student attendance as one of its three evidence-based strategies that improve student learning.

What the research tells us about chronic absenteeism

In a new research paper, Jing Liu, Monica Lee, and I show that academic behaviors— including showing up to school regularly—are highly predictive of three longer-term outcomes:

• Graduating from high school
• Attending a four-year college
• Persisting in college more than one year

We used detailed longitudinal data from ninth-graders in a large urban school district in California to evaluate the degree to which observable academic behaviors and student self-reported social-emotional learning (SEL) skills predict future educational attainment.

We defined “academic behaviors” as behaviors students exhibit in school, including attendance, chronic absenteeism, and rule-breaking resulting in suspension. Our definition for “SEL” is in line with the definition published by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL): “SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.” We compared academic behaviors, including full- and part-day school absenteeism and suspensions, in ninth grade against SEL measures including self-management, self-efficacy, growth mindset, and social awareness.

Overall, the academic behaviors were much more predictive than SEL skills across the three longer-term outcomes. Specifically, we found that conditional on students’ achievement and demographic characteristics, ninth-grade academic behaviors were seven times more predictive of high school graduation, and two to three times better at predicting college attendance and persistence. Among the various academic behaviors, part-day absenteeism, or class skipping, is the most highly predictive of the longer-term outcomes.

In the sections below, I break down three important lessons for policymakers looking to understand—and ultimately improve—student outcomes.

1. Academic behaviors are easier to measure than SEL

Our research found that academic behaviors and SEL skills are related and that a student’s self-perceptions can manifest through academic behaviors such as attending school regularly and avoiding disciplinary infractions. Conversely, disengagement is commonly linked to feelings of isolation or lack of support, bullying, and a lack of sense of safety. Furthermore, schools with exclusionary discipline policies tend to have students with lower rates of academic connection and sense of belonging in their classrooms. On the positive side, programs focused on SEL development and restorative justice practices have led to reductions in absenteeism and/or suspensions.

However, academic behaviors and SEL are also not perfectly correlated, and they typically vary in terms of how the data is collected and the intended uses by districts. For example, we found that academic behaviors are far easier to collect since many states and districts already mandate the collection of most or all the necessary data.

Ninth-grade academic behaviors were more than seven times more predictive for high school graduation than the self-reported SEL scores.

Our study was only possible thanks to our district partner collecting survey responses on four SEL constructs:

• Growth mindset
• Self-efficacy
• Self-management
• Social awareness

The district administered an annual survey asking students to respond to a maximum of eight questions for each of the four SEL constructs, including how much they agreed with statements like the ones that follow:

• “I am capable of learning anything.”
• “I can do well on all my tests, even when they’re difficult.”

The district in our study was already collecting this data, but cost may be a barrier for less-resourced schools and districts. We observed a 67% response rate on the SEL survey.

In contrast, the academic behavior data we used may already be collected by many states and districts. Chronic absenteeism is easily observable and measurable for all students, making it less challenging than other measures to use as a proxy for disengagement. Attendance is marked daily, if not multiple times a day, for high school students and it is kept as administrative data. Additionally, school staff also tend to mark reasons why a student has missed school, such as for excused and unexcused reasons; this helps provide an understanding of whether the absence occurred due to legitimate reasons.

In sum, academic behaviors are easier to measure than SEL skills, but little is known about whether measures of SEL skills uniquely predict educational attainment such that their inclusion in early warning systems or accountability models would provide valuable information above and beyond typically included measures like absenteeism rates.

2.Academic behaviors were more predictive than SEL skills

The research literature consistently finds that attendance, discipline rates, and completion of certain high-stakes academic coursework are the strongest predictors of high school graduation above and beyond standardized test scores. We extended these results by comparing academic behaviors and SEL skills.