Old Bridge Township Public Schools J. Scott Cascone, Ed.D.

Prepared in fulfillment of my candidacy for the position of Executive Director of Academics

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

To provide curricular, instructional, and assessment recommendations for a holistic “systems approach” to a district elementary literacy program

To define the purpose and value of “Response to Intervention”

(RTI) within a district elementary literacy program

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

The Pre-K through Grade 5 literacy context is diverse and spans multiple cognitive developmental stages.

Introduction of the Common Core

Curriculum Standards and PARCC Addressing Special Education, BSI, ELL,

and G&T

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

Early benchmarking and intervention Working toward 100% of students reading and

writing at or above grade level by the middle of second grade or earlier

Alignment to CCCS and PARCC Fostering the development of lifelong

readers and writers

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

There is no “programmatic panacea” for meeting the

expansive range of students and learning needs within a district-wide elementary literacy program.

Rather an effective program holistically blends various

age and objective-specific resources.

Readers’ and Writers’ Workshop represents a valid overarching philosophy and elements of it are worthy of use.

Balanced literacy, process-oriented approach, student use of higher-order thinking skills of reflection and evaluation

Celebration of reading and writing

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

Requires a high level of training and expertise to properly implement

Difficult & costly to outfit and maintain all classrooms w/properly leveled libraries which are engaging & current

Disparate implementations from school to school and even classroom to classroom may result.

Reading level testing can be highly subjective and prone to rater error and/or bias.

RWW shown to not always best serve lower tier students

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

Worthwhile elements of RWW can be utilized side-

by-side with a standard publisher’s series. A district multi-stakeholder Language Arts

Committee would screen and recommend a program for implementation. The following are quality series:

Good Habits, Great Readers-Pearson Journeys-Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Reading Street-Pearson Treasures Macmillan McGraw-Hill

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

Standardizes, to an appropriate extent, curricular resources between classrooms and schools

Differentiated resources for ELL, BSI, and G&T User and training-friendly for implementation

and onboarding of new staff Technology components Common Core aligned

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

Collecting benchmark data on incoming Kindergarten students should happen as early as possible.

PALS: Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening- University of Virginia

Spring or Summer Kindergarten Orientations can be used to collect observational, informal, and/or formal assessment data.

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

Running records and individual reading assessments are time consuming, subject to unreliability between raters and require a high level of training and experience to be done accurately.

Consider the implementation of a digital literacy benchmark software for computer-ready students

Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), Read 180, System 44, Lexia, and Link-It are all high quality products.

Software is time efficient, normed, teacher and student user-friendly, generates student, teacher, and parent reports. It also enables the disaggregation of data by teacher, school, grade, and standard.

Collaborative Co-Teaching Model Basic Skills-Push-in and Pull-Out -Clear Entrance and Exit Criteria Self-Contained Special Education & Related Services English Language and Bilingual Services I&RS and Section 504 After-School and Summer Student Programs Family Literacy Nights/Institutes School Newspapers and writing contests Reading Buddies and Support

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

RTI is NOT a tool, it IS effective instruction and assessment.

It should be at the very core of ALL of our pedagogical practices.

SGOs have brought RTI to the forefront and built capacity.

RTI makes for robust PLCs.

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

All three RTI tiers CAN be achieved in the mainstream classroom. Support and enrichment services are provided at level 3 as necessary and appropriate through Self-Contained Special Education, BSI, ESL, Bilingual, & G&T. Decisions and placements are data-informed.

RTI is the “backbone” of I & RS Greatest benefit of RTI is that it fosters data-

informed, differentiated instruction, and has a strong and positive relationship with student achievement.

"DO THE RIGHT THING"

"DO THE RIGHT THING"