Kelli L. Hosford, Principal James Griffith Intermediate

1. The Administrator’s Side of Instructional effectiveness for Dyslexic or Language processing students Kelli L. Hosford, Principal James Griffith Intermediate

2. Built on a Strong Foundation Answer these questions to yourself as I read them out loud: What does every child succeeds mean to you? What in school was difficult for you, a family member or a friend? Do you know of someone who was extremely bright, but gave up on school because it was difficult? Answer honestly, are we providing a solid foundation educationally for all learners as education stands today? Or, are we placing so many standards in a grade that we are not providing enough time to build the solid foundation in our elementary students for future success, leaving out vital skills and methods?

3. Who am I?What is my educational experience?Who are the students serviced at our school? • Kelli Hosford, Principal, James Griffith Intermediate. • 29 years in education. Roles: Teacher of grades K, 1, 4, 5. Elementary school counselor. Assistant Principal. Principal. • Mom: Daughter, age 22. Son, age 18. Wife. • I share this with you because I live and have lived the journey of a struggling child. • James Griffith Intermediate houses grades 3,4 and 5, totaling 457 students. We have 3 mild moderate labs, 1 ID class and 1 Autism class. Each grade holds 7 homeroom classes.

4. James Griffith Reading Philosophy • To develop life long learners with a love of reading all genre with success in fluency and comprehension. • To instill skills, methods, practices to assist our students in the writing and spelling process utilizing research based programs that addresses individual student needs. • To identify the best fit program for each individual student through teacher observation, work samples, test data, screening tools, with parent, teacher and student input. • To place students in the best fit reading program to ensure ultimate growth, confidence academically, socially and emotionally. • To benefit ALL readers through these varied approaches. • To help staff and parents realize that one size does not fit all in reading instruction which pairs with math instruction.

5. Pros and Cons of Our Reading Philosophy*Disclaimer: We have massaged this process for 5 years and continue to do so, because the reality of education is no year is the same. PROS CONS Having to choose based on data and other information which students would benefit the most from these programs, and which parents will follow through with the home component of the programs. Creating the unified buy in from all staff can be difficult. Scheduling can be difficult if your staff struggles with flexibility. Making decisions about proper placement in homeroom classes for students, in order that classes can be divided easily and one teacher does not end up with the majority of the struggling readers. All the while creating the balance of what is best for the teacher, addressing parent needs and what homeroom is best for the student. Understanding that other things may have to be sacrificed in order for student to have this intervention. Tracking the consistency of interventions across the grade level, which includes homeroom modifications and accommodations. Amount of staffing verses amount of funding. • Addressing individual needs of all students. • Building confidence in our struggling readers/writers/spellers. • Giving struggling readers a best fit researched based program to ensure growth and success. • Creating another intervention before we automatically determine a child needs to be tested for special education. • Reading levels rise quickly once proper program is implemented with authenticity and buy in by parent, student and teacher.

6. Process of Placing Students: Teacher Responsibility Each homeroom teacher is given the form seen here. This form is to be filled out completely and returned to me by a date set the first week of April. This aids my assistant, counselor and me in ensuring that we divide classes as equally as possible academically, socially and emotionally, with balance of our students needing specialized programs or instruction.

7. Process of Placing Students: Parent Responsibility Every year, before Spring Break, this lavender form is sent to all parents in grades 2, 3 and 4. The form is to be returned to my by a date set the first week in April. No exceptions. The form is not a requirement, but gives parents the opportunity to express any concerns or needs their child may have. Teacher requests are not allowed on the form.

8. PLACEMENT INFORMATION FOR JGI STUDENTS Specific Teacher Names are Not to be Written on This Page Student Name:_______________________ Grade Next Year:_____________________ Parent Name and Number:____________________________ Child’s Personality Traits: Special Needs of Child IEP, SEARCH, medications, behavior difficulties? What type of learner is your child? For example, does your child do better with paper/pencil assignments or hands-on learning? Special Interests of Child: Students your child might need to be separated from: ***THIS FORM MUST BE TURNED IN SEALED IN AN ENVELOPE WITH YOUR CHILD’S NAME AND CURRENT TEACHER WRITTEN ON IT.*** Parent Continued This is the portion filled out by the parent and returned to principal.

9. Process of Placing Students: Reading Specialist Responsibility • The reading specialists in the building create a chart of students served under specific programs with the following information: STAR IRL (Instructional Reading Level) for end of year, number of years in reading program, which researched based program served, interventions needed in classroom, and work samples.

10. Once teacher, parent and reading specialist forms are gathered, the principal, assistant principal and counselor sit down together. A clean class division form is labeled with each grade level teacher’s name for the grade we are working on. We begin with the purple parent forms. Once the form is read, we make a placement decision based upon that information. When the purple forms are complete we begin placing students based upon the information on the teacher forms. We go through each category, ensuring that all categories are as balanced as possible. Once this is complete, we pull the forms from the reading specialists. We look at all of the students placed with the reading specialists and what year each student has completed in his/her particular research based program. We adjust the lists to ensure that students who are in the same program and on the same level are placed in the same pod of teachers. This ensures ease of teacher schedule, student schedule, and minimizes interruption to the homeroom teacher’s academic day. How do we make our approach happen?

11. Placement of New Students to Our Site • What happens at the beginning of the year with students new to your building? All new students are given a STAR test to determine Instructional Reading Level (IRL). If that student’s score indicates a struggling reader, then the student is assessed by one of our reading specialists to determine if further intervention is needed, for example, classroom intervention, or one of our research based reading intervention programs. These assessments include: Literacy First (Phonics and Phonemic Awareness),Fountas and Pinnell (running record of words per minute), Words Their Way (Spelling) and a writing sample. Once these assessments are given, the reading specialists conference with the principal to share which program the student needs and discuss how to work the student’s schedule. This is tricky, because school has started by this time, and with the student being new, the student was placed in a homeroom based on numbers.

12. New Students Continued • If a new student has been placed in a homeroom where the research based program or level of program is different than the other students receiving services, how is that handled? In order to provide the student with the most appropriate education to meet reading needs, we first look at the students current schedule. We look at the other teacher in the pod to determine if we can place the student with that teacher for reading or math. If that does not work based upon the reading program group the student needs to attend, we look for a teacher whose reading or math class the student can attend that fits with the group the student needs to attend for reading intervention. Usually, this works and the student’s schedule is not affected other than this switch. There are times, however, that the student must attend a different math, reading and activity than his or her homeroom. These circumstances are rare. Share cafeteria letter story.

13. What is happening in classrooms for struggling readers? • Good fit books on the students STAR range to ensure growth. • Fluency checks • Moby Max computer program that is leveled for the student. Pilot Istation program that is leveled for the student • Adjusted spelling lists • Adjustments to tasks such as Social Studies Weekly • Alternate activities if a word search is given • Intervention and enrichment centers weekly with a teacher station. These intervention groups are based upon skills taught recently and students who struggled with those skills • Student conferences • Required meeting for all third grade parents in September to discuss RSA.

14. How Do You Get Staff to Buy In? Training Trust Teamwork Climate (School) Philosophy (Building) Process (Hiring) Support from District

15. Glimpses of Success These are students who started one of our programs in mid November.

16. You can’t go wrong, when you are committed to doing what is right for kids. Kelli Hosford khosford@cnpschools.org 405-390-2153