School-Wide Screening: Jefferson Elementary School, Pella, Iowa (Spring, 2006)

Overview and demographics

Jefferson Elementary School has a total enrollment of 500 students, with two sections each of kindergarten through third grade and six sections each of fourth and fifth grades. Nearly equal numbers of girls and boys attend the school. About 14 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, and about 6.6 percent are served in special education. Five percent of the students are minority students, 95 percent are Caucasian, and six students are English language learners. Jefferson Elementary's responsiveness-to-intervention model uses the fillowing structure: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4, and special education.

Screening in reading

Kindergartners and first-graders are screened using Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessments in the fall, winter, and spring. The school also uses DIBELS fluency and accuracy assessments for students in the second and third grades and Fuchs' fluency and accuracy assessments for students in the fourth and fifth grades. In addition to the fluency and accuracy measures, students in the second through fifth grades are assessed with the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) in November and the Gates-McGinitie assessment in April. (Second graders are also given the Gates-McGinitie in October.) Jefferson Elementary also uses a variety of assessments to measure specific district benchmarks.

Screening data and reference points

When analyzing students' screening data, the school uses reference points, not specific cut scores. The reference points are used to indicate whether a student is performing below expectations and to guide school staff members as they determine appropriate interventions for students. The reference points, or scores, match up with proficiency scores of standardized tests.

No single score stands alone in determining interventions for students, but rather data from multiple sources (benchmark scores, fluency screenings, DIBELS, ITBS, Gates-McGinitie) are used to determine which students need instruction beyond Tier 1 and which interventions will be most effective in meeting student needs.

Progress monitoring data also guide the determination of the effectiveness of the interventions.

Fluency norms

Fluency norms are based on norms set by Houghton Mifflin, Jefferson's reading series. DIBELS probes are used for students in kindergarten through third grades, and Letter Sound Fluency Tests are used for students in fourth and fifth grades. To be considered to be making satisfactory progress, students at all grade levels must have 95 percent accuracy (total words correct/total words read) on the fluency probes. Charts are used to indicate words correct per minute on a one-minute timed reading.

Literacy day sessions and data

The Literacy Team--which includes general and special education teachers, Reading Plus teachers, Area Educational Agency staff, the curriculum director, and the principal--meets three times a year for Literacy Day sessions. These sessions occur just after district-wide student screenings and allow team members to review the district-wide screening data as well as data from the other school-wide screening measures. Data are then used to make necessary changes to current student interventions and to identify students who require more individualized and more intensive interventions.

For example, a Literacy Day Data sheet for a fifth-grade class would include the names of the students in the left-hand column and scores earned by each of those students on September fluency and accuracy measures and the Gates-McGinitie comprehension and vocabulary tests. A companion sheet, Literacy Day Notes, would also be used during meeting discussions. Again, student names would be in the left-hand column with adjacent columns for noting the student's areas of need, current interventions, and comments. As discussion progresses during the sessions, changes are made based on student data, students with skill deficits are considered for services, and students with extension needs are considered for gifted and talented placement.

RTI screening challenges

Time. Time is a big issue when conducting school-wide screenings. Jefferson Elementary staff members have trained a group of volunteers to administer fluency and accuracy screenings to reduce the time teachers spend on assessments. They also use associates and Central College students to help in various ways.

Appropriate screening materials. School staff members also appreciate the challenge of determining appropriate screening materials. They agree that some choices (e.g., ITBS) are easy; more difficult to find are screening assessments to match the skills for which they want to screen. Another challenge is to acquire and use multiple sources of data to help validate skill deficits.

Data-based decision making. Using the data to make appropriate decisions regarding interventions has also been a challenge for Jefferson Elementary staff. After being collected, data must be stored and sorted so they can be easily analyzed. While analyzing the data, decisions must be made about how to provide interventions to students when no current program matches their need.