REVISED 11/2007

Connect Waters English Language Arts Check List for Struggling Students

 

Purpose:  The purpose of the Check List is to help support struggling students in the area of English Language Arts.  It supports the student in achieving grade level and state standards.

 

There are 3 tiers to the check list. Each tier scaffolds onto the next.

 

 

GUIDELINES FOR STRUGGLING READERS:

 

  • Assess the student with Scantron, Houghton Mifflin, or HOLT assessment.

 

PURPOSE:  The purpose of using the assessment it to give you a picture of what area in Language Arts the student in struggling in. The five areas that students may be struggling in are Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Reading, Fluency, Comprehension, or Writing.

 

  • Implement differentiated, modified instruction based on the student’s areas of weakness according to the assessments.

 

DIFFERENTIATED, MODIFIED INSTRUCTION IS:  Teaching with student variance in mind. It means starting where the kids are rather than adopting a standardized approach to teaching that seems to presume that all learners of a given age or grade are essentially alike. Thus differentiated instruction is “responsive” teaching rather than “one-size-fits-all” teaching.

A fuller definition of differentiated instruction is that a teacher/parent proactively plans varied approaches to what students need to learn, how they will learn it, and/or how they can express what they have learned in order to increase the likelihood that each student will learn as much as he or she can as efficiently as possible. (Tomlinson, 2003, p. 151)

Link to a short video of Carol Ann Tomlinson

http://college.hmco.com/education/cooper/class/7e/instructors/resources/ch06.html

 

  • Chose curriculum to fit the needs of the student depending on what area the student is struggling in.  The supplemental instruction would be beyond the standards based curriculum such as Houghton Mifflin or HOLT.
  • You would continue to do the daily lessons in your reading curriculum so that the student is still getting the grade level standard, but also incorporate another 20-30 minutes of supplemental curriculum in the needed area the student is struggling in.

 

 

 

SUGGESTED CURRICULM FOR EACH AREA:

  1. Phonemic Awareness – Andrew Pudewa Material, Poetry, Phonemic Awareness by Creative Teaching Press – ISBN 1-57471-231-4
  2. Phonics – Scholastic Home Based Phonics Readers, Phonic Awareness/Second Half of Phonemic Awareness by Creative Teaching Press - ISBN 1-57471-231-4, Signs for Sounds by Carolyn Bechthold – www.sounditout.com
  3. Reading Fluency – Accelerated Reader/Read Naturally, Welcome to Scholastic.com
  4. Reading Comprehension – Accelerated Reader/Read Naturally, Soar to Success/Houghton Mifflin Curriculum – ISBN 0-395-92170-8 with training video included.
  5. Vocabulary – CORE – ISBN 1-57128-119-3, www.attainmentcompany.co
  6. SRA – Corrective Reading/Reading Mastery – ISBN 0-02-674769-3

 

 

SUPPLEMENTAL CURRICULUM SHOULD BE USED FOR APPROXIMATLEY 4-6 WEEKS CONSISTENTLY TO SEE GROWTH.  AFTER DOING THE SUPPLEMENTAL CURRICULUM RETEST TO MONITOR GROWTH.

 

 

THE ABOVE PROCEDURE IS A PILOT.  THE SUGGESTIONS SHOULD BE IMPLEMENTED FOR A 6-8 WEEK PERIOD TO  COLLECT DATA AND SEE PROGESS IN THE SKILLS THAT ARE BEING FOCUSED ON. AND/OR THE NEXT SCANTRON ASSESSMENT OR BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT.

 

 

IF NO GROWTH IS SHOWN WITH  THEN CONTACT TERRY SOUZA AT 769-0994 OR TSOUZA@CONNECTINGWATERS.ORG