First-Grade Promise is early warning system for kids

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The Youngstown City School District is implementing what officials call the First-Grade Promise, a system to identify first-grade and kindergarten children who aren’t reading at grade level.

For the last few years, schools have followed the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee, an Ohio law that flags third-graders who aren’t reading at a third-grade level. These children are offered interventions to improve their skills and those who aren’t reading at that grade level by the end of third-grade could be held back from fourth grade.

“We can’t wait that long and – more importantly, students can’t,” said Krish Mohip, the district’s chief executive officer. “We need to identify those students who are struggling as early as possible so we can provide the necessary interventions for them. Reading is too important for a child’s educational foundation.”

Mohip tasked Connie Coburn, a director of transformation who concentrates on kindergarten and first grade, to develop a solution to identify and help those children earlier.

All 873 kindergarten through first-graders in the city schools are assessed using Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, or DIBELS. These short assessments measure basic early literacy skills including segmenting, blending words, letter sounds and fluency. These assessments enable educators to learn in which foundational areas a particular student needs more help to become a better reader.

The lowest-performing 500 readers will receive iPad Minis. Using these devices, students will be provided prescriptive interventions. The assessment data collected through DIBELS will then uploaded into eSpark which generates interventions to improve each student’s early literacy skills.

Using this strategy, which Mohip dubbed First-Grade Promise, a child can be identified and helped by December of his or her kindergarten year.

“Research shows if kids are not at grade level by the end of first grade, they may never be,” he said.

The First-Grade Promise is being introduced this year in kindergarten and first grade. Next school, it will be introduced even earlier, in preschool.

Identified students will spend 30 minutes three to five times per week working on their data-driven, personalized interventions to bolster those skills.

Those students found to be reading at grade-level will be reassessed three times per year to ensure they stay on track. Those who may need some help get reassessed twice per month and the children needing the most assistance are assessed every week.

After students improve to their respective on-grade reading level, they should remain on target – as long as students are kept on track through second and third grades. That will enable more third-graders to move into fourth grade without problems, Coburn explained.