Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Natalie Lozano
EDES 6359
Nelson Mandela once notably stated, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you
can use to change the world.” Mandela’s words still hold true today as teachers are continuing to
influence and inspire children around the world. However, this is not an effortless task. Students
come into the classroom with various abilities and needs. Some children perform above grade-
level and need a rigorous challenge. Others need intervention due to a lack of foundational skills.
This achievement gap poses an obstacle in which teachers need extra support to help meet the
needs of their diverse learners. Many school-wide reading programs have been implemented
across America to aid teachers in guiding all students towards a pathway of success.
Padua Elementary School in Gardena, California. St. Anthony’s is a Catholic elementary school
with about 200 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Each grade has one classroom
teacher, as well as instructional aides for grades K-2. The primary grade classrooms (K-3) have
an average of about 30 students in each grade, and the upper grade classrooms (4-8) have an
average of about 20 students in each grade. In addition, many of the students at St. Anthony’s are
English learners. Other languages spoken in student’s homes include Spanish and Tagalog.
Prompted by low test scores on the STAR Reading and Early Literacy assessments, the
administration at St. Anthony’s applied for and received the Onward Readers literacy initiative
grant in 2017.
Onward Readers is a literacy initiative grant through the Archdiocese of Los Angeles
supported by the John H. and Cynthia Lee Smet Foundation. This initiative provides schools
resources, support, and professional development over the course of three years to strengthen
crucial components of reading instruction, including fluency, word study, and reading
comprehension. After participating in Onward Readers for a year and a half, the culture of
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literacy at St. Anthony’s will be analyzed and evaluated by looking at the most recent data from
Students at St. Anthony’s in grades K-3 take STAR Early Literacy. This is an online
adaptive audio assessment through Renaissance Learning that is used to test student’s knowledge
in early literacy and early numeracy skills. This assessment is standards-based and tests skills
related to print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, and vocabulary. Students at
St. Anthony’s in grades 2-8 take STAR Reading (students in first grade may only take STAR
Reading if they receive a scaled score of 775 or above on STAR Early Literacy or if they master
their first 100 sight words). STAR Reading is also an online adaptive assessment through
Renaissance Learning, but differs from STAR Early Literacy in that students are expected to
independently read the given passages and questions as there is no audio component. STAR
Reading assesses student’s mastery of reading in literature, informational text, and language use.
STAR testing is given during four windows throughout the school year. The data below includes
the grade level benchmark scaled score (STAR Early Literacy only), the number of students that
have achieved benchmark, the student growth percentile (SGP), and benchmark based on
percentile rank (PR; STAR Reading only) per grade level on each assessment:
Grade 1 738 24 30 56
Grade 2* 841 25 34 53
**Three students tested out of STAR Early Literacy in the third grade.
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Data from both the STAR Early Literacy and STAR Reading assessments support the
culture of literacy at St. Anthony’s, particularly in the SGP for both tests. According to Linda
Jacobson (2017), “A literacy culture means children, and even family members, are engaged in
literacy experiences not just during the school day, but also after school and in the community in
ways that don’t feel like an assignment” (p. 22). For the STAR Early Literacy assessment, the
SGP is above 50% for all three grade levels. This indicates that students in the primary grades
have grown over 50% in their foundational literacy skills since the beginning of the year. On the
STAR Reading assessment, three grade levels had an SGP above 65%, demonstrating a high
percentage of student growth in literacy over the past six months (middle of August to middle of
February). St. Anthony’s provides many opportunities and experiences that could be considered
contributing factors towards this sustained student growth in reading. In the primary grades,
students have access to “Raz-Kids,” a reading application that gives students access to hundreds
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of books at or above their reading level in the classroom and at home. In the upper grades,
students participate in Accelerated Reader which helps students be more intentional about their
independent reading practice. For all grade levels, independent reading for 20-30 minutes is
encouraged nightly as a part of homework. In the classroom, the Onward Readers literacy
initiative has provided teachers with up to date, standards-based curriculum that allows students
to engage in complex texts. All teachers have classroom libraries in addition to a school library
that is run and maintained by parent volunteers. The partnership between parents, teachers,
administration, and students has allowed for a culture of literacy at St. Anthony’s to rapidly
develop over the past few years and has positively affected student growth on standardized
reading assessments.
Though the data showed many areas of achievement in student growth through analysis
of the results from STAR Early Literacy and STAR Reading for testing window three, there are
areas that need to be strengthened in order for students to achieve proficiency in reading. The
results from STAR Reading in particular are strong indicators of areas of weakness. In looking at
the number of students at and below benchmark in grades 3-5, more than half of the students in
each class are below benchmark and in need of intervention. In addition, the SGP for grades 3-5
are all below 50%, indicating that students are not making the expected growth throughout the
year. One can conclude that student’s needs are not being met in grades 3-5, which leads to the
low testing performance in middle school. However, though many students in grades 6-7 are
below the grade level benchmark, one can conclude that effective teaching in middle school
English Language Arts is taking place because the SGP for both grade levels is above 65%.
Students in grades 6-7 are showing progress and growth despite low levels of grade level
proficiency. The STAR Reading scores from eighth grade are an outlier to the trends observed
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from the test scores in middle school because of the low SGP and high number of students in
need of intervention.
There are many factors that could contribute to the above-mentioned areas of weakness
found on the STAR Reading assessment, including teacher retention. In 2017, four out of nine
teachers left St. Anthony’s. In 2018, three out of nine teachers left St. Anthony’s. Currently in
2019, three out of nine teachers are planning on leaving St. Anthony’s. Five out of nine teachers
have less than three years of teaching experience. The constant turnover and hiring of novice
teachers have impacted student learning and assessment data. This is because novice teachers are
still learning and implementing best practices to meet all the Common Core State Standards in
reading. In addition, even with prior teaching experience, teachers new to the St. Anthony’s have
the added obstacle of learning how to teach within the new curriculum format given from the
Onward Readers literacy initiative. The impact of teacher retention is especially demonstrated in
the data from grades 3-8. Of these teachers, the fifth-grade teacher was novice and new to St.
Anthony’s during the 2016-2017 school year. The following school year (2017-2018), the third-
grade teacher and the sixth-grade teacher were both novice teachers and new to St. Anthony’s.
For the current 2018-2019 school year, the third-grade and seventh-grade teacher are both novice
teachers and new to St. Anthony’s. With so many students in grades 3-8 not meeting grade level
expectations there are steps that the administration can take to improve upon teacher
Looking at the data from STAR Reading through the lens of a principal, the grade level
that shows the most concerning data has 61% of the students below grade level. Of this
percentage of students, five students need urgent intervention, six students need intervention, and
2 students are on-watch for intervention. This grade level also has an SGP of 48%, indicating
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that students have only grown 48% in their reading abilities since the beginning of the year.
Though the data shows that other grade levels show areas for improvement, significant progress
is being made, making the above-mentioned grade level on in which steps should be taken by
school administration at St. Anthony’s to ensure grade level expectations are met.
The first step that should be taken in order to help this grade level at St. Anthony’s move
closer towards grade level expectations is to plan more formal administrative observations
throughout the year. Currently at St. Anthony’s, teachers are only formally observed once a year,
which includes a fifteen minute debrief with the principal at the end of the lesson. If this teacher
was formally observed more than once a year, the principal would not only be able to see first-
hand the level of effectiveness in his or her teaching skills, but (most importantly) the principal
would also be able to give constructive feedback on a regular basis to explain what the teacher
could change or do differently to help meet the needs of the students. An additional step that
should be implemented to help improve teacher effectiveness is to include more time for teacher
collaboration. Currently, St. Anthony’s is preparing for a WASC visit, which means that the
majority of the time set aside for faculty meetings and grade level collaboration is spent
preparing for accreditation. However, grade level collaboration is crucial towards building
consistency in best practices in reading instruction. If the teachers would have more time to share
ideas about what works (and does not work) in their classrooms, this teacher would be able to
apply and implement new strategies in the classroom to help support differentiated instruction.
Also, it would be beneficial to switch the grades that collaborate together from time to time. For
example, giving the fifth-grade teacher the opportunity to collaborate with the middle school
teachers. This joint collaboration will help bridge the gap between elementary and middle
school, as well as help the fifth-grade teacher ensure necessary concepts and procedures are
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taught to strengthen middle school preparedness for students. A final step that should be taken to
move towards meeting grade level expectations is to alleviate adjunct duties in order to allow
more time for perfecting the craft of teaching. Currently, many teachers have multiple adjunct
duties in addition to teaching. Many of these adjunct duties are after school or require extra time
and effort. Having so many other commitments could lead to teacher burnout. If these adjunct
duties could be redistributed to other teachers or parent volunteers in need of service hours, the
teachers would have more time available to prepare lessons and collaborate with other teachers.
After looking at the successes and challenges of data from St. Anthony’s through the lens of a
teacher, reading specialist, and principal, though difficulties are present there is a promise of
progress and proficiency that can only be reached when teachers are given the necessary
resources, time, and support to help mold students into world changers.
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References
Jacobson, Linda (2017). Building a culture of literacy. Literacy Today, July/August 2017, pg. 21.
https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/ild/building-a-culture-of-literacy.pdf