The Cheney School District is making strides in innovating literacy throughout the district.
At the, Nov. 18 school board meeting Nicole Nanny, director of teaching and learning and Heidi Hoblin, K-5 literacy facilitator, gave a presentation on the literacy adoption and instruction throughout the district.
Nanny explained the district’s approach is to build teacher capacity, align the district’s standards with the state’s Common Core standards and increase rigor. Some new standards Cheney implemented include having students work with books and reading material that they can examine closely and are “really worth digging into,” as well as material that will challenge them.
“They’re not given something at a level they’ll be easily successful with,” Nanny said. “We want them to encounter texts they’ll struggle through and build strategies for that struggle. Everything we encounter in life isn’t something we already know how to do.”
Hoblin clarified that high school students would be using challenging texts. For first- and second-grade, teachers may have students read the same book over again and develop new strategies to go deeper into the text and write about it.
“You look for those words that were interesting and put it back into their writing,” Hoblin said.
Using Common Core standards, teachers are able to follow a student’s progress on a particular skill all the way to 12th grade. By the time a student is a senior, they should have a strong efficacy in concepts such as content knowledge, along with understanding other cultures as well as value evidence.
“We’re not just going to graduate students who just take your word for it,” Nanny said. “They’re going to go home and find out if what you say is accurate.”
Teachers have developed “literacy maps” to help align standards, materials and vocabulary. Staff has also implemented culminating performance tests to help align the work students have to do on the Smarter Balanced Assessment tests.
“Every grade level has a literacy map and culminating performance tasks,” Nanny said.
At the elementary level, staff has adopted “word study” into the curriculum, which helps students see patterns and as well as develop efficiencies in phonics, vocabulary and spelling. Since it is a new approach, staff is conducting a lot of training. Some teachers are visiting classrooms that have already implemented the system.
“We also have a book study so teachers can learn about the system,” Hoblin said. “There’s a lot of conversation going on between people who started using it last year. There’s a lot of excitement about it and some fear. It’s a new system that’s going to change the whole approach to words. It’s not just about spelling, it’s about understanding a word.”
Director Rick Mount asked how staff will change parents’ mindsets. Hoblin said staff created a parent letter that describes word study and details homework expectations.
Staff is also focusing on improving writing instruction at all grade levels. Hoblin said they have attended several professional development workshops and is working with several resources.
Staff is infusing social studies and a little math into English Language Arts. At Westwood Middle School, staff is conducting student learning protocol visits that are specific to differentiation.
“We’re constantly trying to improve,” Nanny said. “Teaching in the middle happens a lot at the middle school and because our language arts classes are not leveled, you have to find ways to differentiate.”
At Cheney High School, staff is having students create a portfolio. Every year students will create one writing piece for college that’s going to follow them throughout their high school careers. The high school also purchased 120 Chromebooks for its Language Arts Department for students to use for research, writing and editing.
“They’re going to reduce the amount of paper they use, get immediate feedback on their writing and have that digital classroom set up,” Nanny said. “Instead of buying a textbook that’s going to sit on a shelf, they’ve bought something that will open up the world to students.”
Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].
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