As a new school year gets under way, many educators are wondering how to identify and support students’ behaviors and social skills. The starting point for efforts to improve student behavior is universal screening. Such screening provides educators with data…
Educators know that all students can learn. Yet, even seasoned educators can be surprised by just how different students’ needs can be in order to grow. In almost every classroom, you’ll find students who are successful and learning at a pace they need to have continued academic success — this is often called making “a year’s worth of growth in a year’s worth of time.” You’ll also encounter students who are on that course but are growing less than their peers. These students fall into three groups:
Historically, we’ve reacted differently to each students’ lack of sufficient growth.
Universal screening has become a common practice in many schools. This screening involves having all of the students in each grade complete the same assessment. Traditional approaches to universal screening have typically included conducting the assessments three times a year, in the fall, winter and spring. However, research about screening indicates that perhaps it is not necessary to screen all students three times a year, and less frequent screenings can provide enough data about student performance to guide instruction.
This blog will review the purposes of universal screening, explore recent research findings and provide suggestions for alternative screening schedules. A primary focus will be on how to use spring screening data to group students for fall instruction so that those students needing interventions can access them at the very beginning of the new school year.
One of the essential features of a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) is monitoring the progress of students participating in interventions. Progress data serve an important role in documenting whether the intervention is working. Such data can also be…
When students struggle in school teachers often provide additional instruction or intervention to help them. Such efforts are frequently part of a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) that is designed to provide all students with timely assistance (Brown-Chidsey & Bickford…
By Rachel Brown, Ph.D., NCSP The Individual Skills Report is an excellent resource for teachers to review the specific items that students answered correctly or incorrectly on FAST™ screening assessments. The information on this report varies according to the types…
