It is Time to Take Stock

Jennifer Partrick
Jan 18, 2010

The first grading period has passed and we are at, or almost at, the end of the second grading period. By this time all teachers should know, or have a good understanding, of which students they are confident will past the end of year tests, and those students who may not pass. At this juncture, you need to have a plan of what you will do in order to reach all of your students. You must know what you have to do in order to catch them all up, in order for them all to grow, and make gains. How do you do that? That's the hard part, but no one ever said that good teaching was easy.

There are a couple of questions that you need to ask yourself before going any further: what do your students who you are confident will pass able to do, and what are your students who you believe will fail lacking? You must be able to describe all of the behaviors of those students who you believe will pass and fail. You must articulate them all because those behaviors that are present in the students you think will pass are what you have to teach to the students you believe will fail. You must also be able to articulate exactly what the students who you believe will fail are lacking. For example, do these students understand what they read, are they able to decode unknown words, do they know all of their letters and sounds, do they skip unknown words, do they skip lines, do they skip words, do they summarize, do they get mentally fatigued and give up, do they become distracted, do they ignore punctuation, do they know the difference between fiction and non-fiction text, do they forget what they read, do they have test anxiety, do they understand the language of test questions, are they able to identify important words in questions, do they need to read out loud in order to comprehend, do they need to make notes in order to help them remember? Can they recognize affixes? Do they understand how affixes impact word meaning, do they use context clues, etc.? Once you can articulate the behaviors then you know what you have to teach.

The next thing to think about is acceleration. How well are you accelerating below grade level students to ensure that they are not lost during classroom instruction? Are these students getting a double dose? Remember that the lack of prior knowledge plays a vital role in comprehension.

The final step is the plan of action. How will you structure your classroom in order to support all of your students? Can you share students who have the same needs throughout the grade level? Can you use the resource teacher to help? How will you group your students? How often will you see each group? How will you use centers to support what the students are learning? Do your centers have output so that you know if students have mastered the objective of the center? How will you monitor what the students have learned based on what you have taught? You must have a plan. Without a plan how are you going to solve this challenge?

Now that you have identified student behaviors and made a plan you are ready to implement your plan. You must monitor your students closely and identify growth and mastery of skills so that you can move on to teaching the next skill or strategy that these students need in order to pass end of year tests. Good teaching is very hard work and your students are counting on you. For many students, you are the only person to whom they can turn. Do not let them down!

It is time to take stock!