Data

Our students are tested on their weekly learning, and benchmarked with their peers, in the Fall, Winter, and Spring. One of the tests we use is the AIMSWEB Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) test. For a week, our Title One staff has every student read a grade level passages for one minute. The teachers record the words-per-minute and the number of errors.

Our goals:
Fall: 94 wpm / 0 errors
Winter: 114 wpm / 0 errors
Spring: 127 wpm / 0 errors

We call the collection of student scores, "data". We look at the data is many ways. For the ORF test, some questions we ask include:
* Is the student at the goal?
* Did the student make progress?

Then we make decisions based on the data. Some of these decisions might include:
* the lessons we teach in class
* the skills we practice and how much time we practice
* the support services we provide (flex grouping, Title One, After School Tutoring, ALP, and more)
* communicating to students and parents how they can support student learning at home
* assessing students who are not at the goal more often to adjust our learning plans as needed

We also realize the data only shows a small "picture" of student learning. There is a 94% correlation between students being able to read at their goal words-per-minute and being successful on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs). This means 6% of the time, students may read beyond the wpm goal and struggle with comprehension or may read very slowly and have success with comprehension. Each student is different. So we use more than one assessment (daily learning, weekly quizzes and tests, MAP assessments, and more) and the data we gather to make decisions for EACH student within the resources and opportunities available at Milaca Elementary Schools.

The thrilling news ... over 90% of Ms. Leom's Communications students made some progress on their ORFs! The bigger picture ... we have enough students in both groups that are not at benchmark. This means, Ms. Leom will be planning opportunities throughout the school day for students to read orally. She also shared our learning goal with the students and posted our learning goal on our weekly goal board. Students are encouraged to read aloud to their family members, pets, stuffed animals, and walls. In Ms. Leom's home, she has three readers who want to read aloud to her, so she appreciates the challenge of balance and listening to readers at home!

This is what our learning goal looks like in practice:

Oral Reading Fluency ... reading smoothly out loud ... practicing to improve ... and collecting data to make educational decisions so EACH student successful.