Case History

The history of Eastview High Schools Literacy Initiative and the events
leading up to the implementation of Academic Literacy 9, the intense intervention
course in reading being examined in this study, are important to elucidate. In the
fall of 2005, Independent School District (ISD) 196 embarked on a district wide
secondary literacy initiative. Recognizing that much attention had been placed at
both early childhood and elementary levels for early literacy, school leaders
recognized that attention must also be placed at the middle and high school level
in the areas of reading and writing. Certainly, pressures from high stakes testing
played a role but, more importantly, teachers, community members, and school
leaders were seeing a need for raised literacy levels within the secondary
schools.
At this time, the district hired one full time (1.0 FTE) literacy trainer for all
middle and high schools (11 buildings). Additionally, Eastview High School hired
the researcher as a .2 FTE Literacy Coordinator to lead the initiative at the
building level. This meant the researcher had one release hour a day to devote
to building a literacy team and vision for EVHS. While Eastview High School had
initiatives in reading and writing across the curriculum in place, they were not a
part of a district-wide initiative and were the responsibility of two administrators to
lead.
The district literacy committee, on which the researcher as Eastviews
Literacy Coordinator served, met once a month to develop a three year plan for
improvement within our schools. The Secondary Curriculum Coordinator for ISD

196, along with the district secondary literacy trainer, led the committee through a
process of identifying guiding questions for each of the focus areas on the ISD
196 literacy star (figure 1). In addition, the committee created a timeline for
developing the district wide literacy initiative (Funston, 2007). Each component is
equally important in leading to effective change across the schools of the
Rosemount, Apple Valley, and Eagan school district.

Figure 1: District 196 Secondary Literacy Focus Areas. From ISD 196 graphics
department, 2006.
In 2006, Eastview expanded the literacy coordinator position to a .4 FTE
and the researcher began an action research study to examine Eastviews
readers. The researcher was interested in learning how the high school students

compared to a normal population of readers as well as how many of Eastviews

ninth graders were reading below or far below grade level.
The purpose of this descriptive research study was to look at Eastviews
ninth grade population of readers and describe their proficiency levels. The
study examined two sets of data, the Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) test
students took in fall of 9th grade, as well as the reading comprehension percentile
from the OLSAT-8 test students took in eighth grade. At this point, the district did
not have consistent reading tests given to all middle school students. Some
gave the MAP but not all did. The most consistent scores available were the
DRP and OLSAT-8. The goal was to determine which students would need
further intervention in reading in order to aid in the high schools building literacy
development planning over the next calendar year. Additionally, in order to meet
the literacy needs (high level reading and writing skills in all content areas) of all
students, Eastview leadership needed to have a clear picture of each students
literacy level (McCarty Plucker, 2006).
The participants in this study include all ninth grade students at Eastview
high school who had taken BOTH the OLSAT-8 in the fall of their 8 th grade year,
and the Degrees of Reading Power test in the fall of 9 th grade. Students who did
not take one or both of these tests were eliminated from the study. The total
number of students involved in this study was 441. Fifty-seven students were
excluded from the study because they had not taken one or both of the tests
used for data collection. Each of the excluded students were examined
separately, outside of this study, to see where their reading proficiency, or literacy

level, fell. According to Eastview High School data (2006), 86.5 % of the
students in this study came from primarily Caucasian middle and upper middle
class families. Other groups included: 6% African American, .5% Native
American, 5% Asian American, and 2% Hispanic.
It is interesting to note, that of the 57 students excluded from this study,
17.5 % were minoritythis is higher than the percentage of minorities used in the
study. The incomplete data could be attributed to a transient population who are
new to the school district.
A limitation included the fact that the standardized test results do not tell
the entire story. Test scores can be affected by other external variables such as
environment, student attitude, motivation, interest, etc. Therefore, it was
essential that decisions regarding student placement in intervention programs not
be based on data from this study alone. Instead, this data was triangulated with
additional diagnostic testing (McCarty Plucker, 2006).
Eastiew High School ninth grade readers can not be compared to the
national population because there is a statistically significant difference between
them when comparing their reading ability using the Student Ability Index (SAI)
reading comprehension national percentiles and the DRP national percentiles.
Through a one tailed z test, a prediction was made that Eastviews ninth graders
mean percentile rank (= 70.5, SD=.99) is not representative of the mean
national percentile rank of a normal population of ninth grade readers (=.50) at
a significant level (p= <.0001). Similar results are observed with the DRP
national percentile at this high school (=67.32, SD=1.1.4) compared to the

national mean (= 50). Both z-statistic tests performed reject the hypothesis that
Eastview High School is representative of a normal population of readers
(McCarty Plucker, 2006).
It is important to make the distinction between this high schools
population and that of a national population early in the analysis of the data,
because decisions regarding the definition of a below proficiency reader will be
based on the population of this high school and not based on the national norm.
Once it was established that Eastviews population was not representative
of a normal population of readers, it was important to take a closer look. The
following histograms, figures 2 and 3, with a normal curve equivalent overlay,
based on the stanines for both tests, the SAI and the DRP show that this
population of readers is skewed to the left. Again, reiterating that this population
of readers is not representative of the national population.

Figure 2: Histogram of SAI Stanines with a normal curve equivalent overlay from McCarty
Plucker, 2006, unpublished paper for R7031 Quantitative Research, Argosy University, Twin
Cities.

Figure 5: Histogram of DRP stanines with a normal curve equivalent overlay from McCarty
Plucker, 2006, unpublished paper for R7031 Quantitative Research, Argosy University, Twin
Cities.

While Eastview literacy leaders could feel confident about the fact that their
readers are outperforming their national peers, there was still some cause for
concern.
Further testing needed to take place before intervention planning could
occur. A student who scores low in reading comprehension on the SAI may not
score low on the DRP, therefore it was essential that individual reading
inventories be completed in order to truly diagnose the deficiency if one exists.
This data and descriptive study aided a Struggling Reader subcommittee
of the District 196 Literacy Committee in making recommendations to the middle
school administrative teams to examine assessments given and to streamline the
types of standardized reading assessments administered. One recommendation
was that all middle schools would use the NWEA Measures of Academic

Progress tests (MAP) in eighth grade in order to better inform high schools for
programmatic decision making.
This descriptive research study also raised awareness regarding the types
of intervention provided for striving or dependent readers at each of ISD 196s
secondary schools. The reality for most was that no systematic intervention was
in place. In response to that discovery, ISD 196 hired a middle school literacy
trainer, and the current district wide secondary literacy trainer was designated to
aid high schools. Additionally, a committee was developed of middle and high
school reading specialists to study, design, and implement a striving reader
course at each building. The researcher served on both committees described.
Finally, in 2006, the researcher constructed a group of cross discipline
teachers to create a site literacy committee. This was a voluntary group and the
purpose of the group was to aid in the design of goals and action plans for
building wide literacy initiatives.
From the knowledge gained from the descriptive study of ninth grade
readers, the leadership at Eastview High School decided to increase the literacy
coordinator position from a .4FTE to a .6FTE so she could continue to lead the
literacy initiative building wide but also focus on developing a systematic
intervention program for students in grades nine through twelve. The ninth
graders studied were placed with the researcher as a licensed reading teacher in
a 10th grade English/Speech and U.S. History interdisciplinary team. This
allowed the researcher to use explicit instruction within the confines of the
curriculum to help grow the striving readers literacy skills.

In response to a number of students not passing the MCA-GRAD portion

of Minnesotas reading exam, the researcher revived a nine-week course called
Reading Lab that had not been taught in several years at Eastview. This course
would be primarily for sophomores at risk of not passing the MCA-II reading test
needed to graduate as well as for juniors who had not passed it previously.
Students who need to retake the MCA GRAD test would first take Reading Lab,
and then retake the test at the end of the course. This is possible because the
state of Minnesota offers retakes monthly. Reading Lab is open to striving
readers in grade 12 as well.
Knowing that the current sophomore striving readers would need
continued support in their junior year and with the realization that all junior level
texts in the mainstream English course, Literature of the Americas, were far out
of reach for these readers, the researcher also solicited a volunteer from the
English department to teach a course for striving readers in 11th grade. This
enabled them to receive the same rigorous content, standards, and outcomes,
but be immersed in texts at their level. This offering came with some resistance
from teachers who were concerned that expectations for meeting the standards
would be lowered. Another challenge was not having a licensed reading teacher
in the department who could take this course. The researcher coached the
English teacher who did volunteer in order to keep the standards high, and the
course content and outcomes consistent with the eleven other sections of
Literature of the Americas.

In 2008, the literacy coordinator spent half her time in the classroom
working with striving readers in Academic Literacy 9 and Reading Lab, and the
other half of her time leading the literacy initiative at Eastview. This included
analyzing data, writing grants, coaching teachers, leading staff development,
advocating for improvement to the intervention plan to include after school and
summer programming, encouraging special education to develop an essential
literacy course for the lowest readers on IEPs, leading the building literacy
committee in completing each action step for their three goals (Appendix A), and
leading a collaborative team of teachers of striving readers through a book study.
During the school year, the researcher studied and designed a
comprehensive program to support striving readers. This included the striving
reader course for ninth grade, which was also being implemented district wide in
grades 7-9. The researcher worked on a committee of reading specialists to
develop belief statements (Appendix B), design the curriculum frameworks
(Appendix C), order resources, and secure funding. The researcher also worked
closely with a colleague who began her reading licensure program to examine
the need for an inviting environment with teen appeal (Appendix D), search for
texts that were of high interest but at a low level (Appendix E), evaluate on-going
assessment options, advocate for small classes, and explore including special
education students on Individual Educational Plans (IEPs) and English Language
Learners (ELLs) if they fit the criteria for defining a striving reader. The Academic
Literacy 9 course will be the focus of this study.