1.23.18 Introducing MAP Reading Fluency for K-3 readers As a former elementary school teacher, I spent hours and hours giving DIBELS tests. My school district received a Reading First grant, and reading fluency was a key measurement. My past makes it even... Read more
1.16.18 Fast Talkers: Are Kids Getting the Right Message About Good Reading? Oral reading fluency is a key indicator of reading proficiency. But it’s got some issues, as it’s currently implemented in some schools. One of these is that we have a cadre of kids who are... Read more
1.11.18 4 Questions to Consider When Winter Test Scores Drop The subject line on the email from my daughter’s third grade teacher read, “Totally Baffled.” It was mid-January, and my daughter’s class had taken the winter MAP Growth Math assessment that... Read more
1.4.18 Oral language matters: Disrupting the phonics monopoly In many schools, students are expected to demonstrate reading comprehension by third grade. For students who can’t, intensive interventions are offered that focus on phonics and decoding. “GO TO... Read more
1.2.18 MAP Growth to Feature Text-to-Speech Capabilities NWEA strives to support our customers and not to be a barrier for them. That’s the thought that hit me in the middle of a recent education conference I was attending. And with each speaker that I... Read more
12.26.17 Three Ways to Build Support for Consistent Formative Assessment When we think of educational assessments, we need to think about all assessment practices. Formative assessment may be a buzz word in education these days, but it’s more than that; it brings... Read more
12.19.17 Simple, but not easy: What we forget about how reading comprehension develops As young kids amaze us all by developing reading fluency (remember this blog?), they typically move toward greater and greater comprehension of what they read. That’s good: reading with... Read more
12.14.17 How to use data to create small reading groups As educators, we constantly hear how important data collection is but are often not given the tools for what to do with data. We need to change that! In this post, I tackle how data can be used to... Read more
12.5.17 Using Formative Assessment as a Compass for Daily Planning and Differentiating Instruction Developing autonomy as a learner and becoming self-regulated with an evident sense of self-efficacy are all supported by differentiating within the classroom. Formative instructional practices... Read more
11.28.17 From 8 to 80 in two years: How fluency drives students toward comprehension Ask any primary grades teacher about reading fluency, and you are likely to hear something about WCPM from one-minute oral readings. (That’s words correct per minute, a bit like miles per... Read more
11.21.17 My First Trip to Personalization Town – An Adventure in Personalized Learning I like to travel. In fact, I think that traveling is one of the most important gifts I can give my son. Traveling comes with a myriad of life lessons, even before you arrive at your destination,... Read more
11.16.17 Meet Generation Alpha: 3 Things Educators Should Know They are in your schools now. And there are more coming—lots more. Are you ready for them? This year, more than 3.8 million students enrolled in kindergarten at public schools across the United... Read more