Latest news with #DynamicIndicatorsofBasicEarlyLiteracySkills
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Youngest students see big reading gains post-COVID on DIBELS assessment
This story was originally published on K-12 Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily K-12 Dive newsletter. Young students are showing notable improvements in their early reading skills since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, new research shows. About 68% of K-2 students are on track to learn to read, according to end-of-school-year assessment data from DIBELS, the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. That's a jump from mid-school-year data that showed only 56% of K-2 students were ready to learn to read. Disappointing reading results throughout K-12 post-COVID spurred states and districts to invest in professional development in science of reading for teachers and reading supports for students. U.S. Education Linda McMahon has named literacy education as her No. 1 priority. Kindergartners have shown the greatest improvements, according to an analysis of DIBELS data from Amplify, a curriculum and assessment company. Amplify's mCLASS platform is used to help teachers administer the DIBELS assessment. Data from the end of the 2024-25 school year show 70% of kindergartners were at or above reading benchmarks. That's up from 68% in 2023-24 and 49% in 2020-21. First graders also demonstrated impressive gains. By the end of the 2024-25 school year, 70% of 1st graders were on track to learn to read. That's up from 68% for the 2023-24 school year and 56% from 2020-21. Second graders increased their reading performances by 8 percentage points, from 57% on track for early literacy skills in the 2020-21 school year to 65% this past school year. Each grade has shown some improvement in each school year since a low point in 2020–21, following COVID-related school closures. This embedded content is not available in your region. 'Five years out from the pandemic, we're seeing encouraging signs that early literacy recovery is taking hold as more students across all early grades are on track to learn to read, with kindergarteners and first graders leading the recovery,' said Paul Gazzerro, director of customer data at Amplify, in a July 2 statement. Despite the improvements, there are still areas of concern. Amplify notes, for example, that progress in early literacy skills is slowing year over year. The analysis also points to gender disparities in early reading performances. For students who are on track for learning to read, boys start the school year in each grade with the same or better early reading scores as girls. But then K-1 girls outpace boys by the end of the year. In 2nd grade, girls still lag at the beginning and middle of the school year but narrow the gap by the end. To continue supporting early readers, Amplify recommends school districts: Analyze student data and adjust grade-level instruction to support students who are at risk. Research the root causes behind students' struggles with grade-level instruction and allocate resources to support at-risk students. Monitor students' reading progress. Support professional development to help teachers understand science of reading approaches. Create opportunities for young students to enjoy reading in all school-based settings. Recommended Reading Literacy is McMahon's top priority. Senators ask, where's the money?
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Literacy Hub in Avondale school boosting reading scores by getting parents involved
Lattie Coor School in Avondale saw an increase in students' literacy rates thanks to their Literacy Hub, a supplemental reading program that launched in the 2022-23 school year and is as much for parents as it is for students. 'Gone are the days where parents were separate from the school,' said Principal Geovanni Orozco. 'We know that a child comes with a family.' Lattie Coor, part of the Avondale Elementary School District, had 77% of students in the 2023-24 school year meet or exceed benchmarks under the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills assessment, a widely used method to determine literacy skills among kindergartners to eighth graders. That same school year, thirty-seven students whose abilities were far below expectations for the DIBELS assessment participated in the Literacy Hub. By the end of the year, 83% of those students met or exceeded expectations. 'It's all new and different from when I was a child and learning,' said parent Isabel Garcia, whose family has worked with the Literacy Hub. Garcia struggled to help her older kids with their learning materials because she was unfamiliar with the curriculum. Now, with her younger boys, she knows 'what they're doing in class, so we know how to go about it at home." 'I have another year of doing it, and I'm gonna miss it once he's done with first grade," Garcia said of her kindergartner, Benjamin. The Literacy Hub was created with Valley of the Sun United Way to help more students become proficient in reading by the third grade. Lattie Coor, which serves kindergarten and first grade students, was approached to build a Literacy Hub because the district already had existing literacy partners, such as Read on Arizona, Read Better Be Better and Make Way For Books, building connections with families. Three of five third-grade students are not proficient in reading for their grade level based on the Arizona Academic Standards Assessment, the statewide achievement test for third- to eighth-grade students. Education: Mesa Public Schools' pronoun proposal met with opposition from transgender students 'From birth to third grade, we're learning to read. And from third grade on, we're reading to learn,' said Valley of the Sun United Way Community Development and Engagement Director Dawn Gerundo. 'If you don't have those strong foundational skills, it's just gonna get harder and harder.' Third-grade students who aren't reading at their grade level by the end of the year are four times more likely to drop out, according to Valley of the Sun United Way. The Literacy Hub aims to address low literacy rates among students with evidence-based solutions such as one-to-one tutoring, using existing curriculum within schools and thirty minutes of reading practice twice a week. Students participating in the Literacy Hub meet with their parents at the end of the school day before the kids split off into smaller groups based on grade and reading level. For 45 minutes twice per week, teachers play word games, read aloud and sound out individual letters with a handful of students. The teacher-to-student ratio is lower than a standard classroom, allowing instructors more freedom to offer individual help, such as when a student is stuck on a particular word or letter. 'Working in the small groups is a big help because it takes out a lot of that extra pressure of all the other students,' said Literacy Hub Coordinator Emily Emhardt. 'They're able to see their growth, and they're not comparing themselves to the others that are at different levels.' Parents are not just waiting for their kids to finish their additional instruction during this time; they are actively learning and reviewing the same material as their kids with an instructor. When students and parents reconvene for the final 15 minutes of the day, they can practice together and ask questions. Parents participating in the Literacy Hub also learn how their kids will be tested and what the tests will cover. 'As a parent myself, I use a lot of my own experiences and what I went through with my own kids, and I use it when I'm teaching the parents,' said the district's administrator for academic achievement among homeless youth, Maggie Tovar. Tovar leads the instruction in both English and Spanish for parents. She explains jargon that parents might encounter when preparing for standardized testing, so they can better understand what students should expect. 'Now they know what to look out for, they know how to practice at home, and it shows in the students' test scores,' Tovar said. The learning material is broken down into essential sounds and individual letters, making it accessible to both parents and students who don't speak English as their primary language. 'Before he would become more frustrated, and I was showing him in a way that was very different,' said Mariaelena Duarte of her son Ehitan, who would become overwhelmed when practicing timed reading tests. In the Literacy Hub, Duarte learned that DIBELS assessment scores were based on the total number of words read, and helped divert Ehitan's focus away when stuck on individual words to instead move on and complete as much as possible for a higher score. 'Now with these lessons, he is much, much better, and I know how to help him," Duarte said. Arizona schools: How districts are responding to Trump administration's DEI crackdown Lattie Coor has all teachers within the school participate in the Literacy Hub so parents 'do not see a separation and they just see it as an extension of Lattie Coor,' said Orozco, the principal. Incoming parents are invited by the school to join, and existing parents are sent announcements and reminders via an app that parents use to stay connected to the school. Tovar said that the biggest attractor for the Literacy Hub is word-of-mouth because 'parents listen to parents." Once parents start to see the benefits and resources provided, she believes more families naturally follow suit. Lattie Coor avoided making the Literacy Hub a year-long commitment as it might be intimidating for families. Instead, the program is broken into quarters and students "graduate" at the end of each session, with parents usually coming back for the next quarter or school year, Orozco said. The Literacy Hub makes it a point to let parents know the importance of attendance and how quickly a student can fall behind because of school absences. Teachers and administrators find that involvement with the Literacy Hub has increased students' overall attendance. The Literacy Hub also serves as a resource center for families. Students can check out materials to practice at home, and GED books and ESL courses are available for parents. United Way has reached out to parents asking them what resources they'd find most helpful and has brought on the Institute for Digital Inclusion Acceleration, an organization that helps people access and use technology, and Mountain Park Health Center, a nonprofit health care provider with several clinics in the Valley, to teach parents about medical terms and how to read prescriptions. The Hub also looks to teach parents about financial literacy and other roadblocks that might be impacting their child's learning. 'If our families don't know how they're going to be able to pay their bill, there's a good chance that they're gonna be more worried about that than sitting down playing and reading with their child,' said United Way's Gerundo. These additional resources are intended to help parents spend less time worrying about their day-to-day, and spend more time practicing with their kids. The Literacy Hub has become a 'safe space' for parents where they 'can get the resources they need without being looked down on," Tovar said. 'When we support the parents, it trickles down to the students, and it trickles down to how they participate in class." Coverage of education solutions on and in The Arizona Republic is partially supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation's Arizona Community Collaborative Fund. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Avondale school program is boosting literacy by involving parents
