Week 6 presentation
- 1. Advocating for Change: Improving Student Reading Comprehension Skills by Tracy Buaron
- 2. There is a critical need to improve the reading comprehension of our students because they enter school with limited experiences and poor vocabulary. Components for reading success
- 3. In 2011, only 41% of the sixth grade students in North Plainfield were proficient on the NJ ASK language arts literacy assessment. Sixth-Grade Standardized Test Score Results for North Plainfield, NJ (GreatSchools Inc., 2011)
- 4. Improving student reading comprehension a goal of our state and our school. (Click on the green links to see documents in Word format.) Common Core State Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2011) Somerset School Objectives (Somerset Objectives, n.d.)
- 5. Causes of the issue Changing demographics: In 1978, the district was: 99% White. (Personal Communication, March 12, 2012) In 2000, the district was: 63% White, 27 % Hispanic, 13% Black, and 5% Asian. (U.S. Census Bureau 2011) How does this relate to reading comprehension?
- 6. An increase in cultural diversity brings children with different experiences, achievement levels, languages, and cultures, into the classroom.
- 7. Causes of the issue A transient population: •Students in our district move often due to uncontrollable family issues. •Therefore, the students who enter the kindergarten program are not the same group of students who enter the sixth grade. •Resources spent on students leave when students move out of district, and we gain students who may not have equivalent experiences and/or ability level as their peers who have been educated in the district. •Our school district must extend more finances and resources if these students require supplemental support to succeed in school. (Personal Communication, March 12, 2012)
- 8. Causes of the issue Low socio-economic status: Socio-economic status is a factor in English literacy. Poverty influences learning style and mental focus. Students living in poverty do not benefit from experiences that are available to those who are in a better financial position, such as family outings to parks and museums, internet availability. In addition, many times older students are responsible for younger siblings and help with domestic chores when parents work long hours. Their parents are often unavailable to help them with their academic studies and many times, parents are not educated beyond high school. Also, these students may come to school hungry and sleep-deprived. All these factors contribute to a lack of background knowledge, a deficiency in expressive language, and affect student learning. It is not a cognitive deficit, but students with these deficits need to be taught metacognitive skills of questioning, hypothesizing, and drawing conclusions in order to engage them actively in the learning process (Price, 2010). To address these issues, the teachers in our school need professional development focused on using these teaching strategies.
- 9. Causes of the issue Non-English speaking families:
- 10. Causes of the issue Low levels of parental education:
- 15. References GreatSchools, Inc. (2011). Somerset Elementary School. Retrieved from http://www.greatschools.org/modperl/achievement/nj/1423#toc Somerset Objectives. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nplainfield.org/Domain/498 Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2011). The Standards: English Language Arts Standards. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards/english- language-arts-standards U.S. Census Bureau. (2011). State and County quickfacts: North Plainfield (borough), New Jersey. Retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/34/3453280.html