Parent Letter Confusion

Last Thursday a letter went home to parents of K-3rd grade students if your child was below benchmark in the fall and winter FAST assessments.  The letter is a scripted letter from the State in regards to new Early Literacy Guidelines that went into law this school year.

The State sets guidelines for how many words per minute a student in a certain grade level should read in the fall, winter, and spring.  If a student fails to meet those guidelines twice in a row, they will receive a letter similar to what is found below.  Fluency is a strong indicator to reading success, but it is not everything.  Students that struggle on this test, simply struggle to read enough words in a minute.  Comprehending what they are reading or how accurately they read are not part of this test.  Most would agree, these are equally important to becoming an established reader.

As with anything coming from the State, the letter came with a lot of confusion.  These things are being rolled out from Des Moines, passed onto our local AEA's, then passed down to local school districts.  This is new for everyone, including school districts.  The most confusing part of the letter states: "This law requires that Iowa’s school children read at grade level by third grade".  The letter does not specifically address what happens if a student isn't reading at grade level by third grade and honestly we are still awaiting guidance from the State in regards to all of this.  Again, shoot first, aim later approach that adds to the confusion.  I do know the retention portion does not go into law until the 2016/17 school year, and even with that there are things parents can do so NO student will ever be retained.

At Central, if your student was below grade level in the fall we did not wait for them to fail again in winter as the law states we could have.  Instead we put students in interventions immediately and will continue to do so.  Currently we are working on putting together a resource page for parents to understand our interventions and give you tools to use at home.  Teachers will also present information on this in our upcoming conferences.  I apologize for the confusion this has caused and I hope our parents recognize that Central gains nothing by having any of our students fail.  Our teachers are working harder than I have ever seen them work and Central is doing everything we can to ensure all of our students are fluent readers.

Here is a copy of the letter:

Dear Parent/Guardian,

This letter contains important information regarding your child’s school progress and how new laws impact our school’s plan to improve his/her reading skills.

New Laws

In 2014 Iowa law was changed to support statewide literacy efforts for students in Iowa.  This law requires that Iowa’s school children read at grade level by third grade.  As a result, the rules below were put into effect in order to improve reading within the state.

Your Child’s Progress

We know you want your child to be successful in his/her education. We also want your child to be successful with learning in the classroom. The ability to read is critical to your child’s success in school.  

We recently completed universal screening assessments in reading at our school. Your child, <enter student name>, has been identified as having a substantial reading deficiency; that term is in state law and is used in this letter.  This means your child has shown difficulty in the area of reading over the following two universal screening periods: Fall to Winter.

School Implications

Students are identified as having a substantial difficulty when

·      Their reading skills are below grade level on two consecutive screening tests.

  

At our school, we are doing the following, as required by Iowa law, to support students who have been identified as having substantial reading difficulties:

Progress Monitoring:

All students who are identified as substantially deficient or at-risk for substantially deficient are required to receive weekly progress monitoring. This allows schools to monitor the improvement students are making toward end-of-year goals (i.e., spring benchmark) given the intervention they receive.

Intensive Interventions:

All students identified as substantially deficient are required to receive intervention to remediate their reading difficulties. This intervention is required to continue until the student meets grade level expectations at the next screening period.

To learn more about the new laws and how they impact students, visit the link below.

https://www.educateiowa.gov/sites/files/ed/documents/2014-08-26EarlyLiteracyGuidance.pdf

School/Family Partnership

We would like to partner with you in order to improve your child’s reading skills.  Part of this partnership will include regular communication. 

Connecting:

We will provide updates on your child’s progress throughout the school year.  We encourage you to talk with your child’s teacher about any questions or concerns you may have.

Parent/School Contract: 

We will follow up with a contract that will outline the school’s responsibilities and how we will partner with you to improve your child’s reading skills.  More information regarding a contract will be forthcoming.

We look forward to partnering with you in order to improve your child’s reading skills.  Please contact me with any questions or comments you may have.