Read To Succeed Reading Plan
Directions: Please provide a narrative response for Sections A-I.
LETRs Questions:
● How many eligible teachers in your school have completed Volume 1 ONLY of LETRS?: 12
● How many eligible teachers in your school have completed Volumes 1 and 2 of LETRS?:16
● How many eligible teachers in your school are beginning Volume 1 of LETRS this year (or have not yet started or completed Volume 1)?: 4
Section A: Describe how reading assessment and instruction for all Pre K-5th 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.
Our school is committed to building a bridge to practice between our LETRs training and our classroom instruction. Our Primary and Lower Elementary Teachers (Grades K-3) are using UFLI for direct explicit instruction in oral language, phonological awareness, and phonics.
Students are being assessed on these skills in a variety of ways including but not limited to the LETRs Spelling Screener (Grades K-3), Fastbridge (Grades K & 1), iReady (Grades K-5), and SCReady ELA Grades 3-8.
Section B: 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.
In Montessori, word recognition is taught through a phonetic, hands-on, and multisensory approach, allowing children to develop their reading skills naturally. The emphasis is on building a strong foundation in phonemic awareness(the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes) and sound-letter correspondence before moving on to reading full words and sentences. Somethings we are doing at Hursey:
Phonetic Awareness with Sandpaper Letters
- Montessori begins with teaching children the sounds of letters rather than their names. Using Sandpaper Letters , children trace each letter while simultaneously saying its corresponding sound (e.g., /m/ for "m"). This tactile, auditory, and visual approach helps the child internalize the phonetic sounds, which are crucial for decoding words later on.
Moveable Alphabet: Word Formation
- Before children begin reading words, they work with the Moveable Alphabet . This material allows them to form words by using individual letter sounds, even if they can't fully read yet. For example, a child might sound out “cat” and use the Moveable Alphabet to spell it out, building recognition of how sounds combine into words.
- This activity helps with segmenting (breaking down words into sounds) and blending (putting sounds together to form words), key skills for recognizing words while reading.
Sound Games and Phonetic Object Boxes
- Montessori uses games that focus on the sounds within words, like I-Spy or sound boxes. These are activities where children are encouraged to isolate beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words. This strengthens their phonemic awareness , a crucial step toward recognizing whole words.
- Phonetic Object Boxes contain small objects that children name, sound out, and match with the corresponding words or labels. This helps children make the connection between the spoken sounds and written words, reinforcing word recognition.
Phonetic Reading: CVC Words
- Once children are familiar with letter sounds and can blend them, they begin reading phonetic (CVC) words —simple, three-letter words made up of consonant-vowel-consonant (e.g., “cat,” “dog,” “sun”). Montessori materials often have sets of phonetic cards or labels with pictures for children to match, encouraging independent reading of simple words.
Word Lists and Matching Activities
- Children are introduced to word cards where they practice reading short words independently. They may use matching cards where they pair words with pictures, helping them recognize words by sight and context.
Move from Phonetic to Sight Words
- After mastering phonetic reading, children begin to encounter sight words —common words that don’t always follow phonetic rules (e.g., “the,” “was,” “said”). Montessori often introduces these words using flashcards or specially designed materials that focus on high-frequency words. This helps children expand their reading abilities to more complex texts.
Labeling the Environment
- A Montessori classroom often has labels on various objects (e.g., “table,” “chair,” “door”), encouraging children to read words within their environment. This context-based learning helps reinforce word recognition in a natural and meaningful way.
Reading Books
- Once a child is comfortable with recognizing phonetic words and some sight words, they transition to early readers or books specifically designed for beginning readers. These books contain simple sentences with familiar words, allowing children to practice word recognition in the context of sentences and stories.
Progressing to Non-Phonetic Words
- As children develop their reading skills, they move on to more complex and non-phonetic words . Montessori materials like reading boxes introduce more advanced vocabulary, helping children recognize and decode these words by sight and pattern recognition.
Another resource that we use are the assessments used in Heggerty to determine students growth and progress towards the phonological awareness standards.Hursey has also started implementing the UFLI Foundations phonics program these formative assessment data to track the progress of encoding and decoding skills taught and practiced in the UFLI Foundations phonics program.
Section C: 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.
PreK students are screened using the myIGDIs assessment tool.
Kindergarten and first grade students are screened using the Fastbridge and i Ready assessment tools, and second through fifth grade are assessed using i-Ready.
Administration, instructional coaches, interventionists, and classroom teachers collect and review data from these assessments. This data is reviewed to look for strengths, areas of concern, and trends schoolwide.
Students who are at or below the twenty fifth percentile receive an additional literacy screener to support in identifying which skills need to be targeted in intervention and progress monitoring through Fastbridge occurs on a weekly basis. Progress monitoring is administered by the literacy interventionist. The progress monitoring data is used to guide the interventions in place for each student.
The progress monitoring data is reviewed by the instructional coach and the reading interventionists every 4 weeks as “check-in”, to determine if the additional intervention supports in place are effectively supporting the students in closing the learning gaps that were identified. Modifications are made if the progress monitoring data does not show growth. The progress monitoring data is also used to remove students from interventions once the data shows that the targeted goals have been reached and the student no longer needs additional support.
Hursey also has Reading Partners that come in to support our students reach their literacy goals. Reading Partners works with under-resourced schools in geographic centers around the country. Their one-on-one tutoring model is proven to raise students’ reading proficiency.
Section D: 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.
iReady Family Reports are distributed three times a year to keep parents informed of their child's progress. Data conferences provide another opportunity for parents and teachers to meet and discuss the student's academic development. Additionally, the reading interventionist and resource teacher send home decodable texts and worksheets to help students practice and reinforce the skills they have learned. Lastly, we hold regular MTSS meetings to review progress monitoring data from interventions, along with any other relevant classroom data and observations. If necessary, we contact parents to schedule an IPS (Individual Problem-Solving) meeting.
Section E: 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.
Hursey holds dedicated MTSS meetings focused exclusively on literacy every three weeks. During these meetings, we review student data from i-Ready, Fastbridge, and formative assessments for all students, reading partners and reading intervention. Additionally, during PLCs, teachers collaborate with the literacy coach to analyze reading data and identify areas for improving literacy instruction. Finally, an iReady representative also visits three times a year to guide our PLCs in using data to drive instructional decisions.
Section F: Describe how the school provides teacher training based on the science of reading, structured literacy, and foundational literacy skills to support all students in PreK-5th grade.
All lead teachers are certified teachers and have completed, or are currently enrolled in Montessori Training. Our instructional assistants are also highly trained and many are certified teachers as well.
Lead teachers participate in biweekly PLCs focused on the science of reading, structured literacy, and foundational skills and how to incorporate these in our Montessori environment. In these PLCs, we discuss and share best practices as well as look at student work and student data. These meetings are supported by district specialists, other Montessori school coaches, and our district lead.
Section G: Analysis of Data
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Strengths |
Possibilities for Growth |
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● iReady Growth for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th surpassed the district growth per grade level.
● Grade 3 SCReady was our highest at 62%
When comparing Fastbridge Data (K and 1st) Fall to Fall indicates a rise in the Median Percentile and a decrease in the high risk level.
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● 5K iReady growth was lower than 50%
● SC Ready Data showed Grade 4 as the lowest @ 31%
● Fastbridge data indicates as first graders advance through the year, the number in high-risk rises. (Fall 24-17%, Winter 24 -18%, Spring 24- 24%) Fall Data for First grade indicated 18% already in the high-risk category.
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Section H: Previous School Year SMART Goals and Progress Toward Those Goals
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Progress |
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Goal #1: Goal #1 (Third Grade Goal): Reduce the percentage of third graders scoring Does Not Meet in the spring of 2023 as determined by SC READY from 28.6 % to 20% in the spring of 2024
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Meets or Exceeds:
Does Not Meet: While our Meets and Exceeds showed a significant increase, our Does Not Meet still increased 1.2%
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By May 2024, 50% of all students will participate in reading beyond the school day initiative and track their reading in Beanstack or Accelerated Reader |
Accelerated Reader, Book Taco, and Beanstack were encouraged to be used in all grade levels. Reading engagement was increased due to these digital contents but results were not able to be calculated in correlation to our increased data.
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Goal #3: By May 2024, 50% of students in kindergarten through grade 8 will meet or exceed their growth target on iReady/MAP Reading or Fastbridge.
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As the graphic shows, our iReady growth in all grade levels, First to Fifth, were above 50%. Our school even surpassed district growth in first,second and fifth.
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Section I: 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.
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Goals |
Progress |
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Goal #1 (Third Grade Goal): Reduce the percentage of third graders scoring Does Not Meet in the spring of 2025 as determined by SC READY from 29.8% to 26% in the spring of 2025. |
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Goal #2: By May 2025, Increase Meets & Exceeds Expectations on SC Ready from 49.2% to 50% |
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Goal #3: By May 2025, 55% of students in kindergarten through grade 8 will meet or exceed their growth target on iReady/MAP Reading or Fastbridge. |
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