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Mary K&1 - Welcome to the May Reading Recovery Meeting. How many of you are reaching the end of the year? Has anyone finished the year already?
Betty - We are at the end now
Doug - Mary- i went off-track last Friday.
Destiny - Kansas City, Kansas and we finish school the first Tuesday in June
Doug - Destiny- planning on continuiing any over the summer?
kinderkate/SD - I'm in multi track year round and am on break now. I will teach from June 1 to August 1.
Mary K&1 - Doug, who do you have to test at the end of your year? Some folks not only have to test this year's students, but they also have to test the students of the past two years as well!
Destiny - no school this summer!
Doug - Mary- this is my first year after training so i just tested my 2nd graders. It was nice to see their accelerated growth.
Susan/2nd/NY - I thought rr was for first graders????
kinderkate/SD - I have to tell you all - I had my first discontinued student right before break!!!!!
Mary K&1 - Doug, so how many students does that make that you had to test?
Destiny - recovery teachers in our district have to test first grade and any students who have been serviced in the last 2 years
jen - is it standard practice to test previous year's students if so all or only those who discontinue
Mary K&1 - Susan, it is, but we track the progress of past students as well
kinderkate/SD - Do you use the OS for those tests also?
Susan/2nd/NY - Thanks for the clarification
Doug - Mary- I reached 2nd round and got them out. i got 6 out. Most everyone else is doing 4 kids.
Doug - kiderkate- TR with graduates from years past
Mary K&1 - See, I don't understand this. If I had to test my past two years of students, and my this year's students, I would be testing, lets see - at least 24 students! Is that how it goes?
kinderkate/SD - Doug, please translate - TR?
Doug - text reading
Susan/2nd/NY - Are students that have diagnosed learning disabilities allowed to receive rr?
Doug - Susan- not at our district.
Mary K&1 - Susan, in most places, no - that's double services
Susan/2nd/NY - What if the disability is only in math?
Destiny - students with diagnosed learning disabilities have received services, but we had a special ed teacher in our building trained in reading recovery
Mary K&1 - Diane DeFord just said that this is still not to happen
Betty - We do not serve students with IEP's as that would be double servicing. We are funded through Title 1
Mary K&1 - Susan, yes, if it's a math problem
kinderkate/SD - Destiny = does the special ed teacher find success with her students?
Doug - Susan- the point is to help them before they enter the system
Susan/2nd/NY - But Doug, they are in the system in grade K and in my bld only first graders will be getting rr
Mary K&1 - Destiny, is your district fully impemented?
MargSD - Wednesday I will exit my first student- hooray
Destiny - yes, quite a bit actually, next year our RR teacher is leaving and I am returning to 1/2 sped and 1/2 time RR in addition to the now trained 1/2 sped and 1/2 RR teacher I'll miss my K-1-2 inclusion classroom!
kinderkate/SD - Way to go, Marg!!!!!
Doug - marg- congratulations
Betty - Have any of your RR students been retained?
kinderkate/SD - Destiny - I was speaking with a RR teacher that does that - 1/2 rr and 1/2 spec ed resourse teacher. She is not going to do it next year. It was just TOO difficult.
kinderkate/SD - Before or after having RR,Betty?
Mary K&1 - Betty, it has happened
Betty - I get really frustrated to get a student up to grade level and ready to go and then find out that teacher and parents are retaining!
Mary K&1 - Twice with me
jen - I had a student this year who i'm certain had a learning disability never discontinued but he worked harder than any student I have ever worked with but is still struggling seems he knows the strategies and verbalizes them well however he just can't get the sequencing of sounds we've worked so hard and i'm really proud of him did a btg with him to try to get help he is up and down i had hopes of discontinuing him early
Mary K&1 - Not this year, but one last and one the year before
kinderkate/SD - Kids are retained for many different reasons, Betty. I wouldn't take it personally - but I know it must be difficult.
Betty - This has happened every year for 3 years.
Mary K&1 - jen, I had one like that - he finally got identitied for spec, ed in grade 6!
Doug - mary- this would be very frustrating
jen - do you continue to work with a child when the decision is made to retain if it is made early
Betty - It is frustrating when you know there are kids who didn't receive services that are going on and in dire need of help.
Doug - jen- only a teacher leader can drop a child
MargSD - Thanks Doug I am always having to psycholically get one of my students of positive because he come wio me with this is too hard or the book is to long or there are too many words. This counceling time takes too much time. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Mary K&1 - jen, yes - there isn't any other thing to do - if the student isn't identified for spec. ed
Mary K&1 - Marg, how far into his program are you?
ME - Our TL says that when parents agree to retention we are to drop the child immediately
Mary K&1 - ME, what part if the world are you from?
TD - ME, I don't think this is common practice. Anyone else?
Betty - Are any of you full time Rdg Recovery?
TD - yes
Doug - Betty- do you mean 8 kids?
kinderkate/SD - Marg - is he really too tired or is he just saying that??
Mary K&1 - TD, not where I'm located
Betty - I will go full time next year in a school that has never received Title 1 services before.
MargSD - My negative child who always needs positive support is at level 9. He often reverts to invention when he finds it too hard. He does have one to one and can read when he takes time and puts the strategies in place. He isn't solid on all the strategies yet, but knows more than he thinks he does.
Carol - Hi! Anyone out there feeling like they need a year off from RR. I'd like to take a year without all the end of the year testing and paperwork
Mary K&1 - Betty, in our whole reagion, there's only one full timer as far as I know
Betty - Doug, is that all you do? No other teaching?
kinderkate/SD - I thought our TL said that if a child is being retained THAT is the intervention . I don't know how/when he is dropped though. Do you know, Marg?
candy - Mary K&1 - Are you a teacher leader? I've never heard that a child is to be dropped if they are going to be retained?
Mary K&1 - Marg, how long has he been in RR?
Doug - Betty- no. i do K in the afternoon
kinderkate/SD - What do you mean "Full Time RR"? 8 program kids?
Mary K&1 - candy, I haven't either - that was ME who said that's what they've been told, and no I'm not a TL
Betty - I have been doing 1st and RR for 2 years. Before that it was 3rd grade and RR.
MargSD - I think our TL said we were not to choose first graders who are in their repeat year of first grade as that is their intervention.
Betty - Next year the plan is for me to have 7 student.
Mary K&1 - kinderkate, 7 or 8 - yes
TD - 4 RR students and 2-3 Literacy groups(grades vary)
ME - Parents have to have signed the papers saying they agree to retention and then that becomes their intervention and they are to be dropped from RR
Mary K&1 - Marg, that is correct
kinderkate/SD - Our TL says that to have more than 4 program students would cause teacher burn out. We do have a few teachers that have 5.
TD - What is it like to serve 7 students?
kinderkate/SD - Same with us TD.
Betty - I guess I will find out.
ME - or at least that is what our TL says
TD - I wouldn't feel like I'd have enough time to effectively plan for each student
Mary K&1 - Betty, is your school fully implemented?
Betty - No, but it is getting close.
jen - is there a set amt of time which rr suggests be allowed for 4 students we have a 2.5 hr block and by the time you count travel time (big school) it rarely is enough
Betty - Right now we have 3 RR teachers in 3 schools. I can only do 3-4 students at a time and still teach 1st full time
Doug - jen- train them to run to you.
Mary K&1 - We have records collection this Friday, anyone else in the same situation?
Betty - I am looking forward to only doing RR.
TD - Betty, I don't understand? fulltime 1st and RR
Mary K&1 - jen, not that I've ever heard
jen - i just started testing today we have until june 8
kinderkate/SD - Do you get paid extra, Betty?
m.a. - Betty are you half day first gr???
ME - Bubble Bubble, my forms are due Wed of this week
Teach - Do you have an age limit for your rr kids
candy - Betty - How did you teach lst full time and teach 3 to 4 RR students?
Betty - I get an expense paid conference once a year.
Carol - yeas Mary, besides testing my 8, I had to do three random samples for the new norming
Mary K&1 - jen, I have to pull a child from recess everyday or I wouldn't be able to get them all in - tight schedule also for me
kinderkate/SD - I don't understand, Betty. What does your schedule look like?
Betty - IT has been fun keeping up with 22 classroom students and the RR kids too. At least that is easier than when I taught 3rd grade and did RR too.
ME - Your lucky, we had to do 10 random sample children since we are a new site.
Betty - I take students before school and during breaks.
Mary K&1 - Teach - the only age limit that I know of is that they must be in 1st grade and not be repeating or IEPed
TD - Betty, you're crazy:)
Betty - I have been willing to do this because this program is so effective.
m.a. - Betty, you have us all confused. How many hours are you there?
Teach - Two of my weakest gr 1 kids have been refused help because they had a birthday and are now 7. Better kids who are 6 are getting this time
Gigi/MO - I'm turning ALL my STUFF in tomorrow!!!
candy - Betty - And you're still sane?
jen - we were new last year and we had to do 24 students 20% of our first grade for random sample
Mary K&1 - Gigi, who all do you have to test?
Carol - 10!! thats just too cruel. This is the part that makes me want to quit. I miss being with the kidsin their regular lessons
Betty - The wiring is getting rather frayed! LOL
kinderkate/SD - The guide book says the program child should have had one year of good teaching, but I've gotten some kids whose biggest problem was poor attendance rate in K.
kinderkate/SD - No - teach - here they would be eligible IF they had NOT been retained.
TD - We are told to look at attendance when selecting students to pick up
ME - Never heard of an age limit, anyone else?
Teach - I am becoming very frustrated because no other kids in my class get help except for rr.
kinderkate/SD - jen - how many rr teachers are we talking about doing 24 tests?
Destiny - Our school has been doing RR 2 years and guided reading groups longer than that. I am getting RR trained next year, would someone explain this sample is it the letter i.d, sentence dictation, reading level, word id (slosson, etc. ??
Betty - I am having a hard time imagining only having 7 students. It seems too easy though I doubt that will be the case.
jen - is school almost over what do you do with everything turned in It would be nice to have a bit of time we are not finished until the 2nd week of june
TD - I'm frustrated because our 1st graders get no other help other than RR and next year it won't be at our school
noa - I am currently interviewing for the upcoming school year -any suggestions as to how I should answer questions about RR if I'm not sure of the particular school's stand on it?
Gigi/MO - Mary---Past RR students, Current RR students and Random Samples althought I only had to do 3 RS and 2 of them went into RR!! One of my friends had to do 9 RS students on her OWN!!!
Mary K&1 - We give the OS, nothing else
Teach - I think that as the teacher who has the class day in and day out that I should be able to suggest the kids i feel need the rr time. Not a birthdate, Don't you all agree
Mary K&1 - Gigi - all your past students?
Mary K&1 - So your testing around 20 - 30 kids?
TD - Teach, yes, as long as other guidelines are followed
Gigi/MO - jen---We get out of school THIS THURS.!!!
ME - Each teacher in our site had to do 10 Random Sample children plus 8-10 RR children of another RR teacher (Can't test our own)
Gigi/MO - Mary---We give the WHOLE OS to the RR students that we worked with earlier this year!?!? Isn't that right?
TD - in Norfolk 100 random sample students are done in the city by approximately 35 RR teachers
Mary K&1 - That's just too much testing, ME - IMHO!
Teach - how many full RR teachers do you have per school?
Teach - what are your guidelines
Mary K&1 - Gigi, yes, but I never heard about testing past students until just recently - we don't do that here
kinderkate/SD - I agree , Teach, that age shouldn't matter. The guide book says that eligible students have had one year of good teaching, are in first grade, and haven't been retained. Then the assessments are made on the lowest 20 percent. The scores on this test determines who will get service. Sometimes, though, the classroom teacher doesnt' agree, but I do think the tests are an accurate assessment.
Mary K&1 - I'm the only one in my building - 4 first grades
ME - Currently I am the only RR teacher at my school. That meant I had to import someone to test my RR children and go to their school to test theirs.
Destiny - my school of 300 students has 2 half time RR teachers
TD - Teach, we have from 2- 4 full time RR teachers in about half of our 30 schools
Teach - what type of reports are you required to do as you work with kids in rr
Gigi/MO - Mary--How do you fill out the end-of-the year info on your scan forms?
Mary K&1 - Gigi, I test all the kids that I serviced this year, but not those who are now in 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc.
kinderkate/SD - How many first graders, Destiny? And how many students does each teacher take?
TD - in addition to regular RR reports, we do monthly status reports for the principal and an end of the year report
jen - we find that often the classroom teachers look at reading ability in a different view early literacy buyin is coming very slowly to our mature teaching staff unfortunately i question the year of "good" teaching
Mary K&1 - Gigi, when you say past students, do you mean just the ones from this year?
Teach - our rr teachers do other testing too. we have 2 part time for 50 kids
kinderkate/SD - In our district I think fully implemented = l rr teacher to 2 first grade classes.
Gigi/MO - Mary---SORRY!!! SORRY!!! That's what I am saying also!! We're saying the same thing!! When I said past RR students---I meant this year!!! SORRY!!
Destiny - we have 57 first graders and each teacher sees 3 students each and also teaches a small reading group of 6 students during the primary reading block
Teach - yes but kids who are struggling with most aspects of reading are at risk and should be helped now
ME - Does everyone do the scantron forms?
Mary K&1 - kinderkate, that's one way to define it - I hear that fully implemented really means that there's enough RR teachers to service everyone in the building that needs it - in some schools that would mean more RR teachers - if there's a high number of low progressing students
Teach - our rr teachers see 4 kids from each of 2 grade 1 classes for 30 min per day
kinderkate/SD - Or, Mary K that full implementation means getting to the bottom 20 percent during the year.
Gigi/MO - ME--You bet and mine are pretty much done for this year!! What a good feeling!!
ME - We have 1 RR teacher for 40 first grade students and that is not enough in our school!!
kinderkate/SD - You are all SCARING me - I am 2 months from the end of the year and no one has mentioned all this assessment YET!!!!!!!
Mary K&1 - kindrkate, yes - I don't come near that - being the only one in the building
Destiny - we have 86 percent of our first graders at grade level or above and 94 percent if you don't count student with i.e.p.s!!!!
nette - full implementation,,yeah,right
kinderkate/SD - ME - I think that is the average - 1 rr teacher for 2 classes (40 students in SD district)
Mary K&1 - We have 1 RR teacher for 70 - 80 kids!
nette - hey,we have one for 96 kids,,me
kinderkate/SD - Yes - Mary K - I know the feeling. We have been adding rr teachers each year. Next year IF we get our 6th rr teacher we will have one per 2 classes.
Gigi/MO - Yeah--really!! Bubble, Bubble, Bubble...
Mary K&1 - only about one third of our 1st graders are on grade level! It's frustrating!
kinderkate/SD - Wow - Destiny - what do the regular class room teachers do for literacy??
Teach - what official reports are you given from rr teachers
Destiny - if you count level 16 and above as grade level
Mary K&1 - Teach, I don't know what you mean - we are the RR teachers
kinderkate/SD - I don't even know if we are THAT high , Mary K - but we also have a high percent of ELL's.
Destiny - we follow the fountas/pinnell style of guided reading and we have 5 multiage k-1 classrooms that also do writer's workshop, journals, shared daily reading, daily news writing, and other activities we all switch kids and jobs for reading block1
ME - We really need another teacher to reach some of the children who won't end up SpEd. We had six first grade students qualify this year, some of whom had finished their 20 weeks of RR first
kinderkate/SD - 16 and above - Destiny - ??? Sounds like you don't even need RR!!!!!
Teach - as a rr teacher do you have official forms that go on file or home to parents
nette - wow destiny,I am exhausted reading that,what do you teach?
kinderkate/SD - How many students during the reading block, destiny?
Destiny - 3 years ago we only had 55 percent of our first graders to level 16 by May
ME - Destiny, How do you feel about Guided REading? We are considering going into it next year.
kinderkate/SD - OK - destiny - share your school's secret!!!!!!
Destiny - sorry for the lengthy response, this year I teach K-1 full inclusion multiage (we also do Animated Literacy by Jim Stone a must for literacy) I am going to do RR next year half time and special ed. half time.
Destiny - there are 107 K and 1 students and 5 classroom teachers and 2 paras and 2 half time RR teachers we have 2 classrooms of animated literacy or writers workshops for the K students and all 1s are in phonemic awareness concepts of print activities at teh beginning of hte year or in groups of 6 to do leveled lessons. Anyone reading above level 20 goes into a large group for novel studies
Destiny - I will be trained in the fall right now I just help the RR teacher grade sentence dictation, teach guided reading, take guided reading courses, and many workshops on fountas/pinnell
kinderkate/SD - Before you all go - I need some suggestions. I've been studying the "When It's Hard to Remeber" part of the GB. Any more suggestions???????
Mary K&1 - kinderkate - if you find any, I'd like to know also - that's the hardest trait to overcome
Sadie - kinder... I don't remember (just kidding) What is the child having trouble with?
Mary K&1 - The hard to teach - any takers for kinderkate's question?
ME - Occasionaly (ok rarely) I have had to make flash cards for Wh and th words and go over them during familiar reading time and then send them home for additional practice. That seemed to clear up some confusions and allowed us to move on.
kinderkate/SD - You're right, ME! Those words do seem to be problems for many.
Mary K&1 - Well, our time is over - please come back next month - see you then, I must now leave
kinderkate/SD - Thanks Mary K.
Sadie - Time to go to. See you all next month!
mary/wa - did I miss everything??
kinderkate/SD - Only the whole meeting, Mary LOL
mary/wa - that'll teach me to live on the west coast!
