Our literacy and/or math support is designed to provide intervention with the reading and math processes for students in need of additional support. This more specialized instruction is delivered during POLAR Time in small-group instruction focused on reading and math strategies and thinking processes. The goal is to accelerate each child's progress in order to become an independent reader and mathematician.

Eligible Schools

Jackson Local Schools literacy and/or math support is jointly funded by local and federal funds. The federal funds come from Title I. Not all of Jackson’s schools qualify for these funds. Selection of schools within the district is determined on the basis of the number of students receiving free or reduced-priced lunches. This year the Title I schools are Amherst and Lake Cable Elementary. In all buildings, additional support is provided by local funds.

Staff

Each grade level team is made up of teachers that have received additional training in reading, math or gifted education.  Literacy and/or math support is provided by classroom teachers, full-time reading teachers and part-time tutors during POLAR Time.   

Most others hold a master's degree and/or other specialist degrees in reading or math instruction or gifted education.  The district holds ongoing professional development utilizing release days (half day and full day), professional learning communities (PLCs), building leadership team (BLT) meetings, waiver days, online learning modules, and summer days.

POLAR Time

POLAR Time stands for Purposeful, Organized, Learning, and Review Time.  This is a 30-minute period when there is no new instruction and it allows teachers to intervene in areas of need.  We offer two POLAR Time periods - one for literacy and the other for math.

Reading Development

Learning to read is complex and made up of major concepts. The essential early literacy and reading skills help children develop as readers. These skills are:

• Print awareness and phonemic awareness
• Alphabetic principle and phonics
• Accuracy and fluency with connected text
• Vocabulary and oral language
• Comprehension

As a child grows older and demonstrates the key stages of literacy development, they will improve their reading and writing ability. Each stage of literacy development helps the child move forward and become a stronger student.

 

Beginning readers learn the following foundational skills

• Letter names and sounds
• Letter formation
• Phonemic awareness
• Concepts of print
• How to preview and discuss a book

Emergent readers:

• Know all the letters and sounds
• Match one-to-one
• Control left to right directionality
• Use meaning, structure, and initial letters for figuring out unknown words
• Form letters correctly
• Hear and record consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) sounds in sequence
• Monitor for meaning
• Reread a sentence to correct errors or confirm predictions
• Read and write about 30 sight words
• Write a simple message about a book with teacher scaffolding

Early readers are becoming proficient in the following skills and strategic actions

• Monitoring for meaning and structure
• Monitoring for visual information
• Rereading at points of difficulty to access meaning and structure
• Using a variety of strategic actions to solve words
• Reading easy and familiar books with phrasing and expression
• Retelling what they have read
• Reading and writing about 60-80 sight words
• Applying phonetic principles to problem-solve while reading and writing
• Writing a simple message about the story

As transitional readers progress through text levels, they become more proficient in the following skills and strategic actions

• Monitoring for meaning, structure, and visual information
• Rereading a phrase or word to access meaning and structure
• Using a variety of strategic actions to solve words (onset/rime, known parts, analogies, syllables)
• Noticing and self-correcting to fix errors without prompting
• Increasing fluency and phrasing
• Retelling narrative and informational text including key details
• Applying phonetic principles to problem-solve while reading and writing
• Writing a response to fiction and non-fiction texts

Fluent readers are ready for higher-level comprehension strategies, including

• Identifying main ideas and important details
• Making inferences
• Summarizing
• Drawing conclusions
• Analyzing relationships between characters and ideas
• Evaluating the author's purpose

Third Grade Reading Guarantee and Dyslexia

Ohio's Third Grade Reading Guarantee is a program to identify students from kindergarten through grade 3 who are behind in reading. Schools will provide help and support to make sure students are on track for reading success by the end of third grade. The ability to read is the foundation of learning. Research shows that children who are not reading at a third-grade level by the end of grade 3 are likely to have trouble learning in all classroom subjects in higher grades.

 

Each year, districts and schools must administer the reading diagnostic by Sept. 30 for grades 1-3 and during the first 20 days of instruction for kindergarten students. The results of the reading diagnostic determine whether a child is on-track or not on-track in reading. A child is on-track, or reading at or above grade level, at the beginning of each grade if the child is reading at the level set by Ohio’s Learning Standards for the end of the previous grade.

 

Screening assessments are not designed to diagnose dyslexia but rather to identify risk. To effectively identify students with dyslexia or children at risk of dyslexia, schools must first start by screening all students. An effective screening process includes the full student population and, through a process of deduction, identifies students demonstrating risk factors. Risk factors include: inaccurate reading of text, dysfluent reading of text, difficulty with automatic word recognition, difficulty matching sounds to letters, difficulty blending and segmenting sounds in spoken words, and difficulty naming letters.

 

Once a student is identified by a screener as at risk, additional diagnostic, performance or other observation data may need to be collected to determine the student’s academic need in a specific component of reading. The school then applies instructional decisions to match the student with the right set of skills and instructional practices.

 

State law requires the State Board of Education to annually increase the promotion score on Ohio’s State Test for grade 3 English language arts until it reaches proficient for the 2024-2025 school year. Beginning in the 2024-2025 school year and each year thereafter, any student who scores proficient (700 or higher) on the English language arts scaled score will be eligible for promotion to fourth grade at the end of the school year.

In addition, the reading subscore alternative assessment score for Ohio’s State Test for grade 3 English language arts is 50 for the 2024-2025 school year and beyond. Any student who scores 50 or higher on the reading subscore will be eligible for promotion to fourth grade at the end of the school year, even if the student scores below 700 on Ohio’s State Test for grade 3 English language arts. Students in grade 3 must meet a minimum reading score. If that score is not met, the student will be retained in grade 3. More information on the Third Grade Reading Guarantee can be found here.

 

Parent Request Exemption

A student’s parent or guardian, in consultation with the student’s reading teacher and principal, may request that a student be promoted to fourth grade regardless of the student’s score on Ohio’s State Test for grade 3 English language arts. Students promoted to fourth grade through this exemption must continue to receive intensive reading instruction until the student is able to read at grade level.

Title I and Multi-Tiered System of Supports

Amherst and Lake Cable Elementary are Title 1, targeted assistance schools.  That simply means that the district receives a small amount of funding from the federal government, based on the number of students that are disadvantaged (based on free and reduced lunch calculations). Students have to qualify for reading or math intervention based on multiple assessments.

 

Jackson Local Schools has implemented a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) to help students meet their full potential in reading and math. As part of a multi-tiered system of support, the goal is to intervene early in order to address potential problems before they become overwhelming or students fall behind. The process offers educational tiered support for all students by increasing the level of intensity of intervention based on the learner’s needs.

 

Tier I

• The curriculum is taught to all students by the classroom teacher, Intervention/enrichment happens daily to help all learners succeed. To learn more about tier 1 instruction in Jackson Elementary Schools, please review Jackson Elementary Programs of Study.

Tier II

• Specific, additional intervention is provided to a small group in and outside of the classroom. Services can be offered between three to five days, lasting 90-150 minutes weekly. Progress is monitored through short, weekly, or bi-weekly assessments, Tier II is for students who need extra practice mastering skills needed for school success.

Tier III

• Specific, additional intervention is provided to groups of 1-4 students at a time. Services become more intense in time and frequency. Tier III is offered in addition to Tier II services. A child can move between Tier II and Tier III depending on success.

Universal Screening Assessments and Selection Process

Jackson Local Schools does screening at the beginning of the school year and repeats it two to three times throughout the school year to identify or predict students who may be at risk for poor learning outcomes. The primary goal of screening is to accurately identify students who might benefit from the MTSS process described above.

 

Students are selected for participation in the literacy and/or math support on the basis of multiple criteria. Our goal is that all students qualifying will be served in a capacity appropriate to the student’s needs.

 

At Jackson, the following reading diagnostics are given to all students. Each diagnostic assessment has a benchmark score.

 

 

 

Grade-level and/or building-level teams review the results of universal screening (tier 1 dyslexia screening) to identify students who are at risk. Because universal screening assessments (tier 1) are brief indicators, they often do not provide sufficient detail about a student’s skills to facilitate instructional planning. Intervention-based diagnostic assessments (tier 2 dyslexia screening) are administered to understand the specific skills in which a student needs instructional support. Reading interventions are determined using this information. English language instructors are part of this decision-making.

Reading Interventions and Progress Monitoring

A school must create a RIMP (Reading Improvement and Monitoring Plan) for a student who is not on-track (reading below grade level). This plan explains the intervention a student will receive during POLAR Time. This intervention will be in addition to instruction during the English Language Arts block.

 

Jackson offers a variety of evidence-based interventions based on student needs. Your child’s RIMP will explain which intervention your child is receiving. The RIMP continues throughout the student’s K-12 academic career until the student is reading on grade level. Information about our reading and math interventions can be reviewed again here. This information is made available to families in their native language.

 

Structured Literacy Interventions

Structured literacy is a way to teach students to read. It is very direct, explicit, and systematic. This means that teachers focus on the exact skills that students need to know to go from speech to printed words, and instruction follows a specific order - from simple to more complex skills. Below is an overview of all the structured literacy interventions available and how progress for each is monitored.

 

Heggerty:  Explicit Intervention in Phonemic Awareness

 

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. This falls under the umbrella term of phonological awareness.  This understanding improves students’ word reading and comprehension and helps them learn to spell. Progress in this intervention is checked every two (2) weeks using Acadience Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF) and First Sound Fluency (FSF) probes.

 

Sonday:  Multi-Modal Approach to Structured Literacy

 

A multi-sensory, structured, explicit, systematic, sequential, cumulative, diagnostic and prescriptive instructional approach for reading and writing; which targets: phonemic awareness, sound-letter correspondence (phonics), spelling, handwriting, fluency, morphology, vocabulary, and comprehension. Teaching steps are the following: synthetic and analytic presentation, opportunity for practice, and teaching to mastery of a structured scope and sequence. Progress in this intervention is checked every 3 levels using Sonday Reading and Spelling Mastery Checks.

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Fundations:  Explicit Intervention in Decoding

 

Early, explicit, and systematic instruction in phonics can help strengthen students’ decoding skills.  Phonics instruction should follow a phonics scope and sequence. Progress in this intervention is checked every two (2) weeks using Fundations Progress Monitoring Probes.

 

Additional Literacy Interventions

Once students have a strong understanding of phonemic awareness and phonics for their grade level, they may need an additional literacy intervention. The following interventions provide targeted, small-group instruction in reading comprehension, word study, fluency, and guided writing. Students practice a variety of comprehension strategies in leveled readers and texts.

 

Leveled Literacy Intervention: Small Group Scaffolding of Complex Text

 

The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention System (LLI) is a small-group, supplementary literacy intervention designed to help teachers provide powerful, daily, small-group instruction for the lowest achieving students at their grade level. It is important for all students, including those who are reading below grade level, to access complex, rigorous texts daily.  In order to do this, teachers can provide scaffolded instruction for students, which can include, but is not limited to: pre-teaching vocabulary, focusing on language structure of complex sentences, teaching cohesive ties, teaching morphology, and decoding of multi-syllabic words. Progress in this intervention is checked every two (2) weeks using an oral reading assessment and a sight word mastery check.

 

Small Group Instruction: Explicit Instruction of Comprehension

 

Small group work where the teacher supports each reader’s development of effective strategies for processing new, complex texts at increasing levels of difficulty. The teacher carefully groups children according to need, selects a book to introduce and works with individual students as each reads the book in its entirety.  Discussion, focused teaching, and optional word work complete the lesson.  Before focusing intervention efforts on multiple, complex comprehension strategies, it is critical to ascertain if students need additional instruction in phonics, fluency, vocabulary, sentence structure, and text structure. Progress in this intervention is checked every two (2) weeks using an oral reading assessment and a sight word mastery check.

 

Reading Recovery (grade 1 only): Interventions Designed around Leveled Texts

 

A short-term, one-to-one, intervention for first grade students who struggle to learn to read and write. Children have daily 30-minute lessons with a trained Reading Recovery teacher for 12-20 weeks with the goal of accelerating learning to reach the class average.  One-to-one intervention using leveled texts whereby an instructional reading level is assigned to each student. Progress in this intervention is checked daily using an oral reading assessment and a sight word mastery check.

Math Interventions

Our math intervention during POLAR Time targets 5 different areas of math:  forward and backward number sense, structuring, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, and place value.  Each child works in one of the above areas until they reach grade-level expectations.  These math interventions are game-based and are developed by teachers who have specialized training in Math AddVantage.  Each area is described in more detail below.

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Forward and Backward Number Sense

Students learn the names of numbers (number words), symbols for numbers (numerals), and the forward and backward sequence of numbers starting with single digits and moving up as grade-level expectations require.

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Structuring

Students work on combining and splitting apart numbers without using counting by ones.  Students develop their understanding of doubles and the five and ten as reference points.  Example of work in structuring:  Break 2 into 1+1 and 3 into 2+1 or 1+2

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Addition and Subtraction

Students build off of the understanding of the structure of numbers (see above) and develop a range of strategies in which to add and subtract.  

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Multiplication and Division

Students work to conceptually understand multiplication (equal groups or repeated addition) and division (sharing or repeated subtraction).  Students develop a range of strategies in which to add and subtract. 

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Place Value

Students develop a sense of the relative sizes of numbers.  They learn ways of relating multi-digit numbers to each other, as well as learn about decimals and how to organize numbers based on their grade level expectations.

Ways to Help at Home

The partnership between the school and home is critical to support student success.  

• Click here to learn what your child should be learning.  
• Click here for resources for helping your child at home.  These resources are available to your child to use during the school year and throughout the summer.

 

Parent Involvement

Parents of students receiving literacy and/or math support in Jackson Local Schools will be involved in the following ways:

• Letters of enrollment will be sent to the parents of the qualified students at the beginning of each year or as identified for service.
• Parents of students receiving literacy and/or math support will be invited to attend a conference in the fall and spring. The purpose of this meeting will be to disseminate information about the interventions offered during POLAR Time and the various ways we support students during the year.
• Teachers will be available for parents to communicate any concerns, comments, or suggestions that may arise. Timely responses to parent inquiries will be made.
• Teachers will provide ongoing feedback about students’ progress including written communications, and parent-teacher conferences.
• Parents of students receiving literacy and/or math support will receive literacy and math materials in order to support their child’s learning.
• Throughout the school year, parents will be given opportunities for feedback. This will include ongoing needs assessment at monthly parent meetings and a spring evaluation to assess the year.
• Parent input from the ongoing needs assessment and program evaluation surveys will be documented and recommendations will be considered.  Any questions/concerns regarding the program will be addressed in a timely manner.
• Amherst Parent Involvement Policy
• Lake Cable Parent Involvement Policy

Jackson Local Schools Parent-School Compact

PURPOSE: To improve student achievement by a shared parent, student, school, and teacher partnership. 

 

COMMITMENT FROM THE SCHOOL: Jackson Local Schools will strive to do the following: 

• Provide a high-quality education, taught by Highly Qualified Teachers, in an effective learning environment that enables our students to meet state standards.
• Information about our reading and math supports can be reviewed again here.
• Hold parent-teacher conferences, during which the student’s growth will be discussed as they relate to the individual student’s achievement. 
• Provide parents with frequent reports on their child’s progress.
• Provide parents opportunities to volunteer, and participate in classroom activities, and parent-family activity nights.
• Involve parents in school-wide programs planned by our parent-teacher groups or the district.

 

COMMITMENT FROM STAFF/TEACHER: Jackson Educators agree to be academically responsible in the following ways:

• Provide a high-quality curriculum that enables the student to meet state performance standards
• Notify parents of changes affecting attendance, achievement, grades, or behavior 
• Provide open communication between parents and teachers 
• Provide opportunities for parents to volunteer, participate, and/or observe in the classroom
• Participate in conferences and report student progress 

 

COMMITMENT FROM PARENT/GUARDIAN:  As a parent or guardian who has responsibility for the student, I will attempt to attend at least one parent-teacher conference to discuss my student’s academic development. I will read each progress report and talk about academic development with my student. I understand that I will have reasonable access to my student’s teachers along with opportunities to participate in my student’s class. As the parent/guardian, I agree to support the learning of my student. Below are examples of how to assist your student:

• Establish a time for homework and monitor for completion
• Participating in conferences 
• Establish a place for study
• Monitor attendance
• Read and practice math facts nightly
• Read each night with my child
• Read and discuss progress reports
• Support the school in its efforts to maintain proper discipline