REWARDS

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REWARDS

• In the Trenches

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Sycamore Elementary School

• K-5 School
• Enrollment 335 and growing
• Free and Reduced Lunch Percentage 27
• 98 Caucasian

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Parent Review found on www.greatschools.net

• "This is a school filled with dedicated
  professionals. They are caring and committed to
  learning. The leadership is outstanding and the
  teachers can't be beat. A great environment for
  children. They also have a wonderful secretary
  that is nice to everyone and always willing to
  help."

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Current 4th Grade

• Very large classroom size
• Challenging Group
• Entered the 4th grade significantly
• behind in reading.
• Difficult to motivate
• Large discrepancies in maturity levels
• Need constant teacher supervision

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MEAP Data
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Current 4th Grade Beginning of the Year DIBELS
Benchmark 38 (n22) Some Risk 22
(n13) At Risk 40 (n23)
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4th Grade Language Arts Block

• 90 Minutes
• Intensive Language!
• Strategic Core Curriculum
• Benchmark Core Curriculum
• Accelerated Core

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Upper Elementary Language Arts

• 2005-2006 Began Tier 3 intervention of
  Language! 90 minutes of instruction for
  students that are significantly behind in reading.

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Whered Tier 2 go??
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Why choose REWARDS

• Packaged Program
• Less set-up time
• Scaffolding of the skills
• Research-based
• Saw the Need
• Program hit on the phonics area that the kids
  were lacking
• We know our Scholastic reading program does not
  strongly hit on phonics
• Availability
• Good Price

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Plugged Our Nose and
DOVE IN!
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What did we give up to run the program?

• Nothing!
• Replaced general curriculum instruction for a
  period of time
• Will still get through the entire reading series
• This program will take the place of some other
  projects that we typically would have time for at
  the end of the school year

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Who Is This Program For?

• Students who
• Read at about a 2.5 to 5.0 grade level.
• Read about 60 to 120 words correct per minute.
• Need to increase reading fluency.

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REWARDS can improve

• Decoding
• Fluency
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension
• Test-taking abilities
• Content-area reading
• Sentence and content-area writing

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Florida Center for Reading Research

• Program does have one component of phonemic
  awareness practice
• Program does focus on decoding words more quickly
  using better decoding strategies but does not
  directly teach phonics
• Helps students determine the accurate
  pronunciation using decoding along with context
  clues
• Focus is on increasing fluency of decoding skills
• Does address Vocabulary and Comprehension
  slightly, but these areas are not directly taught

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Studies about REWARDS

• 34 students
• 4 groups 3 treatment, 1 control group
• Students receiving REWARDS intervention showed
  significantly higher scores than the control
  group on Word Identification and Word Attack
  subtests of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests
• Oregon Reading First Review of the program showed
  that it included 65 of the essential components
  of teaching phonics

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How Does REWARDS work?

• Purpose
• Designed to teach upper elementary students
  (4th-6th grades) strategies for decoding long
  words and to increase reading fluency.

Set Up 15 Pre-Skills Lessons (1-15), 10 Lessons
to introduce the application strategies (16-25)
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Sequence of Lesson Activities From Sound to
Text

• Lessons 1-15
• Oral Activity
• Vowel Combinations
• Vowel Conversions
• Reading Parts of Real Words
• Underlining Vowels in Words
• Oral Activity Correcting Close
  Approximations Using Context
• Prefixes and Suffixes
• Circling Prefixes and Suffixes
• Vocabulary
• Spelling Dictation

• Lessons 16-25
• Vowel Combination Review
• Vowel Conversion Review
• Prefixes and Suffixes Review
• Strategy Instruction
• Strategy Practice
• Independent Strategy Practice
• Word Families
• Spelling
• Vocabulary
• Sentence and Passage Reading
• Passage Reading - Fluency

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Notice this in the video

• Routine
• Use the script but be sure to use your judgment
  to determine when to deviate
• May need to be prepared to answer questions about
  the words they are decoding.
• Find and use the Teachable Moments!

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Video
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Notice this in the video

• Routine
• Use the script but be sure to use your judgment
  to determine when to deviate
• May need to be prepared to answer questions about
  the words they are decoding.
• Find the Teachable Moments!

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Our Results

• We saw gains in DIBELS
• We saw gains in Pre/Post test
• Students are able to use the strategies when
  guided
• May need more instruction for generalization to
  happen

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Beginning of the Year Data
Middle of the Year Data
Benchmark 38 (n22) Some Risk 22
(n13) At Risk 40 (n23)
Benchmark 56 (n30) Some Risk 26
(n15) At Risk 22 (n13)
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Effectiveness Graph
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Individual Students
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Individual Students
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Individual Students
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What We Learned

• Seemed a bit boring at times
• Teacher can add a little enthusiasm and
  excitement
• Its ok to make mistakes
• It took all 90 minutes
• Be prepared for new activities look ahead!

and they will happen!
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Next Steps for Next Year

• Start at the beginning of the year
• May do a refresher after Christmas Break
• Use the provided chart
• A teacher made some additional charts to enhance
  the program
• Continue to reinforce the strategies throughout
  the school year carry over to other content
  areas
• Use this with ALL Tier-1 and Tier-2 kids
• Use more of the Pre/Post tests to have more
  information on student progress

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You dont need to be a Superhero
You need to find ways to be a SuperTeacher

• REWARDS is a part of a system Sycamore is setting
  up for students.
• Tiers of instruction based on student need, skill
  deficits, and curriculum deficits have been
  developed
• With these interventions we are seeing gains in
  students!