Student Support Services
One of the many benefits of having a small class size and a school staffed by skilled teachers, language (reading and writing) specialists, math specialists, a psychologist, and a very actively involved language coordinator, assistant principal, and principal, is the ongoing observation, assessment, and discussion about each child’s experience and progress in school. Each day there are many meetings and conversations that focus on how our students are doing, and after these meetings, we all go back and look more closely at children’s work, play, and overall development. With all this attention to our students’ progress, it is very common for questions to arise about individual children’s development. So what happens next?
When a parent or any one of the many people who work with a particular child asks a question about that child’s learning, the first thing we do is share the question with everyone involved and begin to take a closer look. We will make sure we find out how that child is doing in each academic subject, in his or her special subjects, and in his or her social and emotional development. In many cases, we will ask a language specialist or a math specialist to do some more specific evaluative work with the child. Linda Weiner, our school psychologist,Marilyn Wiles-Kettenmann, our language arts coordinator, or Rosemarie Buzzeo, our assistant principal, will also gather more information through conversation and work with a child. We bring our questions and our assessments together and meet with the child’s parents to share our findings and make a plan that will address our concerns. We call these conferences ‘team meetings.’ Often the plan includes adding new in-school supports and using new approaches to working with a child that we will try in school, as well as recommendations of ways that parents can support their child at home.
If the issues are academic, we will sometimes recommend that children join one of our after school academic support programs. On Mondays and Thursdays after school, we have a Readers and Writers Club for fourth and fifth graders. Staffed by the language arts coordinator and other faculty, the program helps students with their reading, writing and organizational skills. For children who need extra support in math, we offer a one- day-a- week after school program for each grade, first through fifth. These classes are staffed by teachers and assistant teachers, and sometimes by the principal and assistant principal, and they give students a chance to preview, review, and practice the math skills and concepts being taught during the day. Additionally, we offer a two-day a week summer math program for children in the first, second and third grades.
In cases where we feel that we cannot give a child all the support they need in school, we will sometimes recommend that the family consider arranging for an outside tutor. The school assists families in finding an appropriate tutor, and then we try to work closely with the tutor to make sure that all our work is coordinated and geared towards the child’s needs.
There are also instances when, despite all our own observation and assessment, we don’t feel we have a clear picture of what is interfering with a child’s progress. At these times, we will meet with the parents and recommend that they have an outside evaluation done by an educational specialist or child psychologist in order to give us more information. These outside assessments are called psycho-educational evaluations, and they provide us with a very detailed picture of a child’s cognitive strengths and weaknesses as well as a picture of the child’s emotional development. The school offers parents help in finding an appropriate evaluator, and when the evaluation is complete, we meet with the parents and evaluator to plan a course of action, including continued academic or emotional support, as well as ongoing assessment.
In all of these cases, we continue our observation, assessment, discussion, planning and communication with parents until we feel we have truly addressed each child’s learning needs.
Formal Assessments
In addition to the ongoing assessments that happen regularly in each classroom, there are two formal assessments that occur for all children in the younger grades, one in kindergarten and the other in second grade.
Kindergarten Readiness Screening
The kindergarten screening enables us to look at the development of each child’s pre-reading, perceptual/motor, language and number skills. Each child in the 5-6’s groups will have a turn to work individually with Linda Weiner, the school psychologist, or Marilyn Wiles-Kettenmann, our language arts coordinator. The screening takes approximately 30-40 minutes, and it has been our experience that the children enjoy the time and look forward to having their turn. The results are shared with classroom teachers and language specialists and with parents on request.
Second Grade Screening
During the second grade screening, each child has a turn to work individually with an adult, usually an advanced doctoral student in psychology with a considerable amount of clinical experience, on a variety of cognitive and academic tasks. Our goal is to gain a more complete understanding of individual children’s learning styles. All of the results are carefully reviewed with Linda Weiner, the school psychologist. After a child has completed the screening, parents are notified and invited to make an appointment with Linda Weiner to review the findings. The results are also shared with the child’s classroom teachers as our primary objective is to incorporate recommendations into the work done in the classroom, and, thereby, support individual student needs. Children do not require advance notice or preparation for the screening. Each individual screening is usually completed in about one hour and 45minutes over a few days.
Reading and Writing Assessments
At the beginning of every year the head teachers and language specialists collaborate to read with all of the children to understand the individual reading development of each child. The children in grades one and two are assessed using the Diagnostic Reading Assessment, Dolch Site Words, and PAF. The children in grades three through five are assessed using the Brigance and the Qualitative Reading Inventory. At the beginning of each year each child is asked to create a writing sample that is reviewed by the head teachers and the language specialists. The results of the assessments are used to plan specific supports to address the learning development and learning styles of the children. These assessment results are shared with parents in conferences and reports.
Math Assessments
Math assessments in the older grades (4th and 5th) occur through classroom work and homework, but also through quizzes and tests. In the younger grades (1st through 3rd), individual assessments are administered in the fall and spring of each year. In the first grade, the assessment is done by a teacher working one on one with a child in an interview. In the second and third grades, the assessment is a combination of an interview with a teacher and written work done under test-style conditions in the classroom. The results of the assessments are shared with parents in conferences and reports, and they are used to help us evaluate each child’s progress and to plan for their ongoing work.
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