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Dreamstime
K-12 Dive
Reading gaps widen in mid-year data, especially for K-1 students of color
Naaz Modan
Feb. 25, 2021
Dive Brief:
Mid-year data from the DIBELS early reading assessment of approximately
400,000 students in over 1,400 schools in 41 states shows grades K-3
are performing worse at the middle of the 2020-21 school year than the
same period last year. The difference is more pronounced in K-1,
especially for Black and Hispanic students.
Compared to this time last school year, the percentage of students on
track decreased from 55% to 37% for kindergartners, and 58% to 43% for
1st-graders. Meanwhile, the percentage of students needing intensive
intervention jumped from 28% to 47% for kindergartners, or a 68%
increase, and 26% to 43% for 1st-graders, or a 65% increase.
At the middle of the last school year, 27% of Black kindergarteners
were “well below benchmark,” or in the lowest category, in early
literacy skills. Comparatively, there are now twice as many Black
kindergarten students at risk for not learning to read (54%). There is
a similar trend for Hispanic kindergarteners, 59% of whom are in the
lowest category as compared to 34% last year.
Dive Insight:
DIBELS, or Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, is a
series of short tests that assess K-8 literacy developed by the
University of Oregon. The tests can be given by teachers marking
student responses on paper or online through Amplify's mCLASS platform.
According to results from the beginning of the 2020-21 school year,
more students had slipped "far behind," and COVID-19 learning losses
were twice as large as typical summer loss, Paul Gazzerro, director of
data analysis at Amplify, said during a webinar. Students continue to
perform worse than pre-COVID-19, and fall learning has not closed that
gap, he added.
Typically there is a reduction in the percentage of students struggling
in literacy from the beginning to the middle of the school year, but,
Gazzerro said, "We're just not seeing the bounce back that we were
hoping for."
Susan Lambert, chief academic officer of elementary humanities at
Amplify, warned against holding students back as a result. "There is a
tendency to shift away from grade-level instruction," she said. "The
problem is that [when] we do this, particularly in the beginning
grades, kids are going to get even more behind."
Lambert added districts have to find a solution that enables teaching of grade-level content and catches students up.
Kyrene School District in Arizona, for example, put in place a tiered
instruction plan with synchronous and asynchronous lessons so parents
could supplement their children's learning. The plan also includes
training for teachers, coordinators and administrators and builds in an
additional 45 minutes a day for personalized learning to address gaps,
district leaders said during the webinar.
Lambert suggests a two-year plan for districts, with instruction that
is evidence-based. "That means district and school leaders will have to
be intentional in organizing calendars to make sure there is
instruction beyond daily instruction," Lambert said.
Districts, she added, will have to get creative with scheduling and
staffing, and make sure instructional staff also understand the science
of reading in order to target students' needs.
Read this and other stories at K-12 Dive
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