November 2006

Spring Reading First Academies

Enrollment for spring Reading First academies (in Charlottesville, Newport News, and Roanoke) closes on February 8th. There are still spaces available. If you wish to enroll, please create an account for yourself on this website, if you do not already have one, and complete enrollment. Click here for more Spring Reading First Academies information. Reading First Event - Site Registration.
Our website will require site REGISTRATION for anyone wishing to ENROLL for a Reading First event. Please select “registration” on the above menu to create a new account if you are sure you don’t already have one! (If you are an RF school, please check with your Coach. You may already have an account!) Once you have created an account, you will be able to see events as they are added and enroll in them online as soon as the enrollment period opens!

Please Note
You may enroll in any summer academy using this site except for the Virginia Commonwealth University academies. Please register for these at http://www.soe.vcu.edu/tra.htm

Email address verification
Many of our registered users still need to verify their email address via the online procedure. If you need help, information about email verification can be found on your My Account page, the Email Verification menu item, and in the FAQs.

Email is our primary means of communicating news and events to you. Email verification is required in order to enroll in events so it is very important that you complete this process. Please LOG IN and VERIFY your email as soon as possible!

February 2006

Clarification of testing by the Virginia Department of Education
Reading First

Clarification on Required Assessments

The Virginia Reading First approved application to the U.S. Department of Education requires four types of assessment: screening, progress monitoring, diagnostic and outcome. Each year of the grant the reading skills of all students must be assessed with screening, progress monitoring, and outcome measures. Diagnostic assessment is only administered to students whose screening scores or progress monitoring scores indicate the need for further assessment.

Screening: PALS-K and PALS 1-3, with the *Word Use Fluency section of DIBELS 6th edition *Word Use Fluency was added to screen for receptive vocabulary - a Reading First requirement.

Progress Monitoring: The LEA could choose a progress-monitoring instrument. The VDOE recommended PALS-K and PALS 1-3.

Diagnostic: The LEA could choose a diagnostic assessment. VDOE recommended PALS-K and PALS 1-3 for kindergarten and first grade students.

Outcome: Stanford Reading First Edition for grades K-2 and English SOL for grade 3.

Screening

Since the department could not provide the testing materials or needed training before the start of the 2003-2004 school year, the Word Use Fluency section of DIBELS was not administered during the first year of Reading First. Starting in the fall of 2004, the Word Use Fluency section of DIBELS will be administered. It will be given each time PALS 1-3 is given. Thus if you use PALS 1-3 for progress monitoring, you will also use the Word Use Fluency section of DIBELS.

During the summer of 2004, VDOE will provide training to all Reading First coaches in administering the Word Use Fluency section of DIBELS. The coaches, in turn, will train the teachers in their schools.
Materials for Word Use Fluency of the test will be downloaded from the Departmentís web site by each reading coach. The estimated time for administering this section of DIBELS is one minute per child.

Progress Monitoring

Progress monitoring is a classroom-based instructional reading assessment that evaluates children’s learning based on a systematic review by teachers of children performing academic tasks that are part of daily classroom instruction. This type of ongoing assessment will determine if students are making adequate progress or need more intervention to achieve grade level reading outcomes. For Reading First purposes progress monitoring should have benchmarks, reliability and validity.

The core reading programs all come with progressing monitoring assessments. These assessments along with the mid-year PALS assessment and Word Use Fluency section of DIBELS meet the Reading First requirements for progress monitoring. Since the core reading programs have multiple options for assessing student progress, the districtís Reading First reading specialist will work with each principal and coach to decide which core reading program assessments will be administered and how often they will be administered.

The Hampton Roads spring session
The Hampton Roads spring session Grades 1 and 2 academies are now registering. Academy sessions will be held on these dates: Feb 11, March 11, April 29, May 20, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the UVa Hampton Roads Center in Virginia Beach. Attendance is limited to 25 people in each academy (Grades 1 and 2).
Please use this form and FAX to 434-924-6339. If you have any questions, please contact Donna Rose in the Reading First office.

Announcement for Open Registration April 25th
Registration for teachers who are not in Reading First schools (K-3 and Title I teachers and their administrators, and K-3 special educators) will open on April 25th. On that date, the “REGISTRATION” link on the top menu of our website will connect teachers to our registration site.

When you come to the registration site, you will be asked to fill out an on-line survey and then select your Teacher Reading Academy. To make the registration process more efficient, we recommend that you make your academy date and site selection with a back up choice in case of unavailability before coming to the registration site. We also suggest that you allow yourself fifteen to twenty minutes to register and that you print out the confirmation page upon completion of your registration.

We look forward to working with all of you this summer.

Next page - Previous page