Test helps identify reading problems
Blaine County second-graders lagging in reading skills
"The second grade scores could be an anomaly, or they may
indicate a need to change the reading program..."
Blake Walsh, Blaine County School District testing
director
By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer
While young Blaine County students scored well on a statewide reading
test, district educators say they are concerned that second-graders here are not keeping
pace with their peers statewide.
Grades K-3 are crucial years for identifying children with reading
deficiencies, educators say.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Marilyn Howard has released the
winter scores from the Idaho Reading Indicator—a test mandated by state law last year
to assess the reading skills of kindergartners through third-graders.
In its pilot year, the IRI requires students to take the test in the fall,
winter and spring. Each test is designed to increase in difficulty to reflect what a
student is expected to know and do as the school year advances.
Students are rated in one of three categories: at grade level, near grade
level or below grade level.
Winter scores released May 25 show statewide that the number of students
meeting grade-level expectations have increased in all grades since fall.
That trend also holds for Blaine County, where the number of students
reading at grade level increased for all grades K-3, except first grade, which decreased
by one percentage point from 53 to 52 percent.
Blaine County kindergartners showed the biggest boost in the number of
students reading at grade level with an increase from 26 to 38 percent.
Blaine County students reading below grade level also increased for grades
one through three, with the biggest increase—from 27 to 33 percent—among
first-graders.
A higher percentage of Blaine County students in all grades read at grade
level compared to state scores, except for second-graders. Exactly half of Idaho
second-graders read at grade level, compared to 47 percent of Blaine County
second-graders.
"We’ll need to take a hard look at that and try to understand
why it’s happening," Blaine County School District testing director Blake Walsh
said during a telephone interview yesterday.
Walsh said the second grade scores could be an anomaly, or they may
indicate a need to change the reading program, but "really, we have too little data
to go on at this time."
Regardless of the test’s being in its pilot year, Walsh said, "I
think the tests are really useful in the focus they’re putting on reading and in
drawing focus on the bottom 25 percent of students."
That focus has already panned out with 432 invitations to near- and
below-grade level readers to attend additional reading classes this summer, Walsh said.
However, he added, no firm figures on the number of actual attendees are yet available.
The purpose of collecting the IRI test score data, according to Howard, is
to help districts determine how teachers’ skills and resources can be used to
increase learning opportunities for struggling readers.
Janet Cantor, a reading specialist at Hemingway Elementary School, called
the IRI an "excellent test," during an interview at the school after the fall
scores were released in February.
The school relies mostly on teacher referrals to determine which students
need help, but the IRI scores, according to Cantor, brought her attention to several
additional students needing help.
The IRI provides a wide range of useful information to educators. Some
preliminary findings from the statewide winter scores:
The number of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students
meeting grade-level expectations increased; the number of LEP students scoring below grade
level dropped in all grades except second.
The number of Native American students meeting grade
level expectations dropped in every grade but third. The number of Native American
students scoring below grade level rose in each grade except kindergarten.
The Idaho Reading Initiative, which created the IRI,
also provides funds for school districts to offer extra assistance to below-grade-level
readers. Summer classes are one way schools will be offering that extra assistance.
