School Reading Plan

Describe how reading assessment and instruction for all PreK-5^th grade students in the school includes oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension to aid in the comprehension of texts to meet grade‑level English/Language Arts standards.

Spann Elementary follows the Dorchester District Two Literacy Model which includes all the literacy components: Oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Teachers are provided with daily schedules to ensure that all areas are being taught each day during the school year. Our school district provides an instructional planning guide for all teachers in Kindergarten through 5^th grade. The instructional planning guide has a scope and sequence which paces out instruction of grade level standards in all ELA subject areas including grade-level reading, writing and word study instruction. This planning guide provides teachers with all resources needed to utilize our adopted K- 5 curriculum HMH Into Reading. Assessments for each of these are imbedded within the program and teachers can also edit assessments as needed. 

In grades 4K- 2, UFLI Foundations and Heggerty/Bridging the Gap are used for oral language, phonological awareness and phonics. These programs deliver cumulative, systematic, explicit instruction to students in grades 4K- 2. This also ensures that all students have opportunities to develop listening and speaking skills which align with our state standards. 

Document how Word Recognition assessment and instruction for PreK-5ᵗʰ grade students are further 
aligned to the science of reading, structured literacy and foundational literacy skills.
 

Spann Elementary School uses HMH Into Reading for core reading instruction and assessment in grades Kindergarten through 5^th grade. HMH Into Reading aligns to the five pillars of reading and incorporates an explicit, systematic, incremental, and cumulative approach to literacy and to the Science of Reading. Weekly fluency lessons spiral, which introduces and then returns to fluency skills including accuracy and self-correction, reading rate, expression, phrasing, and intonation. Vocabulary instruction in HMH Into Reading builds and expands students’ word knowledge within, across, and beyond texts. Academic vocabulary development emphasizes important words from the literature to teach through direct instruction and provides cumulative review to help students retain vocabulary knowledge and build conceptual knowledge. Daily Reading lessons in the Teacher’s Guide explicitly teach a particular skill or strategy before reading, which children immediately apply to help them comprehend a read-aloud or grade-level text. The skills repeat throughout the school year, allowing children to apply skills to increasingly complex texts. By spiraling skills and standards rather than texts focusing on a weekly skill, children gradually learn to draw from many standards and strategies to comprehend what they read. 

For Phonics and Phonemic awareness instruction in grades K- 2, Spann uses UFLI Foundations and Heggerty/Bridging the Gap curricula. UFLI Foundations is taught daily and incorporates the “simple view of reading” which ensures that reading comprehension comes after a student learns to decode and then linguistically comprehend words. Enabling students to fluently decode words and text affords them the opportunity to apply and refine their linguistic comprehension skills, construct meaning from text, and more accurately demonstrate their understanding on assessments. The Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum aligns to rigorous educational standards and is rooted in the latest Science of Reading research. Heggerty provides 10-minute explicit, systematic instruction which covers all eight phonological awareness skills plus early literacy skills, including phoneme-grapheme connections. 

 In grades 3 -5, teachers utilize the HMH Into Reading curriculum for phonics and word study instruction. The HMH teacher guide includes daily support for phonics. Immediately following explicit, systematic instruction in whole group, children apply their new phonics and word study skills in the context of both reading and writing. Students are taught daily in small groups to address individual needs or to reteach skills as needed based on assessments.

A variety of assessments are used to ensure instruction meets each students’ needs. AIMSWeb and FSS (Foundational Skills Survey) screening tools help monitor foundational skills such as phonological awareness and decoding in grades K- 2. MAP assessments are used in K- 5 to gauge overall reading proficiency. Common Assessments and classroom assessments provide teachers with actionable data on student progress for each of the literacy components. 

Document how the school uses universal screener data and diagnostic assessment data to determine 
targeted pathways of intervention (word recognition or language comprehension) for students in PreK-5ᵗʰ grade who have failed to  demonstrate grade‑level reading proficiency.

 Spann Elementary administers MAP three times a year in grades K- 5 (K starts in Winter). MAP results are shared and analyzed with teachers at data debriefings and/or MTSS sessions. Based on these results, students who are not meeting proficiency in grades K- 2 are given a diagnostic test to target areas for literacy intervention. In K- 2, AIMSWeb is administered three times per year to monitor foundational skills such as phonological awareness and decoding.  The FSS assessment (Foundational Skills Survey) is given at the end of each quarter to provide teachers additional information about strengths and weaknesses in the foundational skills. 

 In grades 3- 5, students who do not meet reading proficiency on SC Ready and MAP are placed in the Read 180 program for targeted intervention. Read 180 uses the MAP Growth assessment as a universal placement and a progress monitoring assessment to ensure that students are appropriately placed within the Read 180 program. MAP Growth is administered three times during the year to identify current student reading levels and track reading growth. Students with RIT/Lexile results that indicate they are candidates for foundational literacy skills (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency) will complete a screener called the Code Placement Assessment. The assessment measures both the accuracy and speed of students’ responses of letter recognition, high-frequency word recognition, decoding, and morphology.

Describe the system in place to help parents in your school understand how they can support the 
student as a reader and writer at home.

Teachers use Parent Square and Schoology as a primary means for communication and classroom assignments that will support the student at home. Classroom and school newsletters are additional resources that are utilized for communication and will highlight activities aligned with the classroom curriculum to foster a strong home-school connection for literacy development. Yearly parent conferences are held in the fall of each year for parents to be able to ask questions and gain a better understanding of grade level standards and student expectations. Spann holds a Literacy Night each fall that supports reading and writing and offers strategies for reading at home. Monthly parent trainings are held for specific grade levels in order to focus on ELA standards, the science of reading, and strategies that parents can use to support students at home. 

Document how the school provides for the monitoring of reading achievement and growth at the 
classroom and school level with decisions about PreK-5ᵗʰ grade intervention based on all available data to ensure grade-level proficiency in reading.

MTSS sessions are held bi-monthly for each grade level to discuss student growth and achievement. During these sessions, grade level and school data are also reviewed to look for trends and patterns that will assist in making decisions about core and intervention instruction. Our students who receive reading intervention (K-5) are progress monitored to determine growth and if the program instruction is improving student achievement.  

95 Percent, the intervention for grades K-2, diagnoses phonemic awareness and phonics skill deficits to effectively group students for precise intervention. Ongoing progress monitoring ensures that students achieve skill mastery, while student-centered data allows for all literacy stakeholders to see student level progress and optimize school level intervention.

Read 180, the intervention for grades 3-5, has students complete daily instructional tasks in the ReaL Book that are used as embedded formative assessments. These assessments monitor student understanding and pace instruction. The ReaL Books also include summative assessments, which help gauge students’ mastery of new skills taught during whole-and small-group instruction. These results are used for intervention, instructional planning, progress monitoring, and grading.                                                                                             Real Book: Comprehension- Skills monitored include comprehension, vocabulary/ word study, close reading, writing and conventions. Real Book Code: Foundations- Skills monitored include phonemic awareness/ phonics, spelling and word automaticity, vocabulary, oral reading fluency, comprehension, writing.

Describe how the school provides teacher training based in the science of reading, structured literacy, and foundational literacy skills to support all students in PreK-5ᵗʰ grade.

At Spann, all K-3 teachers are enrolled in LETRS training that is provided by the state. Participants are required to complete the online sessions as well as student case studies to practice strategies that are based in the science of reading.  

Our 4^th and 5^th grade teachers are participating in a book study: “Shifting the Balance- 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Upper Elementary Classroom”. This book study will provide strategies for teachers to be able to bring the science of reading from theory to direct application in the classroom.  

Our district adopted the HMH Into Reading Instruction series for K-5. This series aligns to the five pillars of reading and incorporates an explicit, systematic, coherent, explicit, incremental, and cumulative approach. All teachers have been trained in the use of this reading series with ongoing professional development throughout the year.  

All K-2 teachers will be using the Foundational Skills Survey to assess students each quarter and were trained on how to administer the test as well as interpret the results. There will be ongoing professional development for this assessment, and its uses. 

Analysis of Data

Previous School Year SMART Goals and Progress Toward Those Goals

• Please provide your school’s goals from last school year and the progress your school has made towards these goals. Utilize quantitative and qualitative data to determine progress toward the goal (s). As a reminder, all schools serving third grade were required to use Goal #1 (below).

Current SMART Goals and Action Steps Based on Analysis of Data

• All schools serving students in third grade MUST respond to the third-grade reading proficiency goal. Schools that do not serve third grade students may choose a different goal. Schools may continue to use the same SMART goals from previous years or choose new goals. Goals should be academically measurable. The Reflection Tool may be helpful in determining action steps to reach an academic goal. Schools are strongly encouraged to incorporate goals from the strategic plan.