8th Grade Language Arts
8th Grade Reading and Language Arts
What are we doing to improve reading and writing?
Strategies for Improvement
- Implementation of research-based instructional materials, strategies and interventions aligned to essential standards at each grade level
- Continued implementation of K-12 Language Arts Curriculum / Math
- K-12 Professional Learning Communities
- use of data to drive success for students
- grade-level common assessments; district-wide common assessments
- continue to improve at effectively analyzing student data and adjust/adapt to impact student learning and growth
- Language Development
What you can do at home
Encourage your students to read in their free time.
You can set a timer and take 10 minutes to read to your students out loud. Youth are never too old to read to.
Visit the Monmouth or Independence public libraries and get library cards for the whole family.
If a reading tablet is your preference, download a new book. Our public libraries have digital copies of many titles you can "check out" on your tablet.
TERMS
Reading skills growth: This data point reflects how much students are showing flat, modest, typical or aggressive growth in their reading skills.
Language arts proficiency: Language arts encompasses reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Achievement refers to scores on a test, looking at a student's proficiency at their grade level. Growth shows how much a student is learning in the reading standards. Central School District believes that students must grow in their learning to achieve higher test results.
Cohort: "Cohort" describes a group of students. For example, if we are looking at the K-1 cohort, we are looking at our current first-grade students (this year) compared to those same students in kindergarten (last year). Much of the state data that is released focuses on grade-specific results. We look at the journey of our students through data year-over-year, or by their cohort.
Goals in Language Arts
Goals in Reading and Language Arts
We will see an annual growth in the range of 1 to 3 percentage points or more in the language arts proficiency for all students, as assessed by the annual Oregon state tests, 6th-8th cohort achievement data.
By 8th grade, 60 percent or more of all students will have achieved the reading skills expected of their grade level, as assessed by the district's Universal Screener 6-8 cohort growth data.
UNIVERSAL SCREENER VS. STATE TESTS
Both are useful data points.
Central School District staff use the Universal Screener tools to test students three times a year -- fall, winter, and spring -- to determine what help they need to get or stay on track. One major benefit of these assessments is that educators can use the data immediately to help students through interventions.
The state of Oregon uses the Smarter Balanced Assessments each spring to determine how students meet certain standards. The results of this test are not released until the following fall. Because the results are released after students have moved to the next grade, the data is not as immediately useful. Regardless, it remains an important data point.