Running Head: EVALUATION OF ONWARD READERS LITERACY INITIATIVE

Evaluation of Onward Readers Literacy Initiative

Natalie Lozano

EDES 6359

Loyola Marymount University

 Running Head: EVALUATION OF ONWARD READERS LITERACY INITIATIVE

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.

Onward Readers is a literacy initiative currently being implemented at St. Anthony of

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

STAR Reading and Early Literacy in window three of testing.

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:

STAR Early Literacy (Window 3)

# Students
W3 Benchmark Total
At/Above SGP
(Scaled Score) # Students
Benchmark
Grade K 627 28 34 83

Grade 1 738 24 30 56

Grade 2* 841 25 34 53

Grade 3** 864 5 15 52

*One student was not included for testing in second grade.

**Three students tested out of STAR Early Literacy in the third grade.
 Running Head: EVALUATION OF ONWARD READERS LITERACY INITIATIVE

STAR Reading (Window 3)

Urgent At Above
Intervention On Watch Total
Intervention Benchmark Benchmark SGP
(PR: 25-49) (PR: 50-64) # Students
(PR < 25) (PR: 65-84) (PR > 85)
1* 0 0 0 5 8 13 83
2 2 4 8 16 5 35 35
3 0 6 6 6 0 18 40
4 5 8 4 4 7 28 47
5** 5 6 2 5 3 21 48
6 6 5 2 2 0 15 70
7 5 4 4 4 0 17 66
8 7 5 5 6 2 25 38
*Only thirteen students were eligible for STAR Reading in first grade.

** One student was not included for testing in fifth grade.

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
 Running Head: EVALUATION OF ONWARD READERS LITERACY INITIATIVE

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
 Running Head: EVALUATION OF ONWARD READERS LITERACY INITIATIVE

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

effectiveness and student achievement.

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
 Running Head: EVALUATION OF ONWARD READERS LITERACY INITIATIVE

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.
 Running Head: EVALUATION OF ONWARD READERS LITERACY INITIATIVE

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