SPRINGDALE : Teachers battle summer slide
Posted on Sunday, July 20, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/231816/
SPRINGDALE — Children make strong academic progress during the school year, but some of that seems to evaporate during summer, educators here say.
Many youths hold video game controllers instead of books.
So teachers, principals and librarians in the Springdale district are spending part of their annual break visiting pupils considered “at-risk” of backtracking in literacy gains.
At Monitor Elementary School, teachers used Arkansas Benchmark Exam scores released in June to identify 65 candidates for summer literacy “interventions,” Principal Maribel Childress said.
The Benchmark Exam is a standardized test administered each April to measure student proficiency in math and literacy.
“They needed to know it was important to us that they keep learning,” she said.
The reading program is part of a new approach emphasized by Springdale administrators to use standardized test scores to address the needs of individual students.
Teachers use results of the Benchmark Exam and schooladministered standardized tests to create instructional plans for entire classes and individuals.
Children who score “proficient” on the Benchmark Exam are considered to be achieving at their appropriate grade level. Students who score at basic or below-basic levels are considered behind, based on standards set by Arkansas educators.
Each Monday, Monitor staff members wearing matching yellow shirts park at the school and pile into vehicles. Driving two routes through the school’s attendance area, they stop at pupils’ homes to loan each two books matched to their reading level. They also track the youngsters’ progress on a reading log and talk to parents.
The program has children excited about reading, assistant principal Andi Acuff said.
“They run out like we’re the ice cream truck,” she said.
Sixty-nine percent of Monitor Elementary’s 508 pupils are enrolled in free- and reducedlunch programs, and 47 percent reside in homes where English is not the primary language.
Researchers at the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University found that socioeconomic achievement gaps widen in the summer months, when children from low-income homes have less access to libraries and summer learning programs than other students.
While low-income children backslide up to two months in their reading progress over the summer, middle- and upperincome students make slight gains, the study found.
The Monitor program has no budget, Childress said. Teachers use books from the school’s classrooms and libraries, and they pay for their own gas.
Lee Elementary is in the third year of a more formal summer literacy program. The school’s mobile library is a Nissan minivan donated by a catering company. It’s equipped with shelves stocked with about 1, 000 books. The program is paid for through a $ 4, 000 United Way grant.
For 10 weeks in the summer, Lee administrators spend afternoons driving to three apartment complexes that are home to many Springdale students. They loan two books to each child.
Seventy-one percent of Lee’s 459 pupils are enrolled in free- and reduced-lunch programs, and 55 percent come from homes where English is not the primary language.
SHARING STRATEGIES The state Department of Education uses Benchmark results to identify and sanction districts that fail to make adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Marsha Jones, assistant superintendent of Springdale schools, said that rather than looking at averages and aggregates to measure a school’s success or failure, educators should ask “What’s next ?” Principals and teachers analyzed the scores in June to find trends in specific classrooms and develop strategies for teaching individual students.
At a School Board retreat earlier this month, principals shared their strategies, including tutoring, cooperative learning exercises and professional development targeted at specific needs.
Childress said the Monitor program allows teachers to talk to parents, which builds increased accountability for their pupils. The program staff provides parents with tips for increasing their children’s reading comprehension, including repeating frequently used English phrases.
“We’re educating parents, too, helping them learn how to educate their children at home,” Childress said. “When you send your child to school on a bus, you don’t know what happens for those seven hours.”
As the program’s popularity has grown, Monitor staff members have beefed up their book supply with picture books for younger siblings and chapter books for middle-school neighbors. One family even left a note on their door while on vacation. “Books are in the mailbox,” it said. “Please leave more.” Childress is glad to see her pupils excited about learning. “They can tell it’s important to us, because we come back every week,” she said.
To contact this reporter: eblad@arkansasonline. com