Carla Wellborn 13 February 2013 EPS 513 Data Assessing Student Learning Paper I chose to discuss the data

gained from the recent Winter Interim assessment that AUSL created for 9th grade students. In particular, I will be looking at the information I found relevant in the Reading Interim for the CP-A stream. I gave this assessment to my 9th grade College Prep streamed Survey of Literature class. The students, according to recent NWEA testing, fall within the 6th -8th grade reading level. The last time they took a reading interim, as a class they all scored below 50% and sometimes 40% in almost every category. The class average was well below where they were supposed to be coming from the 8th grade. These Interim exams are intended to test how much growth students are making in school and how they compare to other AUSL schools in the network. In general, Phillips is usually a solid 3 rd place in terms of growth and data amongst the other AUSL high schools. Phillips sets aside 2 days where students are allowed to take the Interims in block schedules. It is generally a day full of testing in each of their classes. It was on such a day that I gave the Reading Interim to my 2nd period Survey of Literature class. They were given an incentive to do well. Because of their terrible scores in the fall, we promised the students a fried chicken dinner party during class if they reached a goal of their choosing. The students chose 80% as a class average goal. They did not reach this goal by any stretch of the imagination, however, they did (most of them) take the test very seriously. The Interim tested 5 main skills: generalizations and conclusions; main idea and authors approach; meaning of words; sequential, comparative, and cause and effect relationships; and supporting details. All of these skills are things that students need to know in order to 1.) be productive and knowledgeable readers and 2.) perform well on EPAS and, eventually, the ACT or SAT.

According to the Interim data, students scored the best, on average, with answering questions that dealt with identifying supporting details. According to the test, the students were able to locate basic facts (e.g., names, dates, events) clearly stated in a passage. They were also able to locate simple details at the sentence and paragraph level in uncomplicated passages. There were six questions on the exam that dealt with supporting details and, on average, the students scored a 66%. This is a very good improvement for them. The class scored a 60% average on both identifying the meaning of words in a text and analyzing sequential, comparative, and cause and effect relationships within the text. Students grew in their ability to determine when or if an event occurred in an uncomplicated passage, clear cause-effect relationships within a single paragraph in uncomplicated literary narratives, and identify clear relationships between people, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated passages. They also grew in their ability to understand the implication of a familiar word or phrase and of simple descriptive language. As well as their ability to use context clues to understand basic figurative language. Students still appear to be struggling with their ability to draw simple generalizations and conclusions about people, ideas, and so on in uncomplicated passages. As a class, they scored an average of 51% in this area. The skill the students appeared to score the lowest on was the ability to 1.) identify a clear main idea or purpose of straightforward paragraphs in uncomplicated passages and 2.) understand the overall approach taken by an author or narrator (e.g., point of view, kinds of evidence used) in uncomplicated passages. In this skill, the class average was 49%. While the students, in general, scored higher than their fellow schoolmates and, even, higher than their counterparts from last year, they have quite a bit of growth to make in the coming months. The data was particularly interesting because the students have grown significantly in all areas since the beginning of the year. While MIA (main idea and authors approach)0 has seen the least amount of gains, in general, the students have increased their skills. We accredit this to a unique approach to reading skills this year. Last year, Leah (my mentor teacher) spent the majority of the first semester on main idea and worked in other skills

later on in the year. Because of this, the students had 60-70% mastery of main idea concepts on the tests, but were lacking in every other skill set. This year we taught all of the reading skills at the very beginning of the year and reinforced them through a routine that we call Quick Queries. Everyday students begin the period with a quick query that is an ACT reading styled question that forces them to practice one of the reading skills we have learned. This causes students to practice what theyve been taught AND become accustomed to standardized styled questions. In the following graph I am showing the average reading score of each student, juxtaposed with the class average scores for both supporting details (their strongest data point) and main idea and authors approach (their weakest data point).

The chart communicates what every individual student scored on the Reading Interim, as well as how the class did as a whole on the supporting details and main idea portions of the exam .

Based off of the information provided through the interim data, Leah and I decided to continue targeting growth across all areas of the reading skills. However, we are going to specifically work on the students ability to determine the main idea of a text and how the author chose to approach the text. For example, students tended to do well on questions that

asked them to specifically identify the main idea of the passage. However, they had trouble when asked to identify WHY the author chose to include a particular piece of information in the passage. This shows that students are having trouble identifying the reason for the structure of a passage. As a way to grow this skill, I have created several Quick Query activities that will force students to analyze the structure of a passage and determine WHY the passage needs specific portions. I will then have students discuss with one another why the author may have included portions of the passage. The idea is that, through practice, students will begin to realize how the authors choice impacts the main idea and purpose of a given passage. I also noticed that students tended to get questions wrong that were worded in a complicated manner. This was the case even when the passages were simple and uncomplicated. Therefore, I will also create practice questions that are on simpler passages, but the wording of the question is much more complex. We will discuss these as a class and break down the phrasing of commonly confused question stems. Overall, the students just need to practice working on main idea and authors approach type questions on a daily basis that deal more with the structure and purpose of passages. This will help them grow in these areas to become more active and analytical writers and readers.