Bronx, NY
Background:
- One of the lowest performing middle schools in New York City
- Joined New York City Department of Education’s (NYCDOE) Middle School Quality Initiative (MSQI) in 2012
- Generation Ready is NYCDOE’s lead partner in MSQI
- The principal and teachers were committed to providing a safe and stimulating learning environment
- Currently Emolior is in the third year of MSQI
- Emolior struggled to improve learning outcomes for students
Focus of Services:
- Provide support for both the tiered intervention in Grades 6 and 7 and the ELA teachers as they introduced a new curriculum across the school
- Increasing students’ ability to comprehend complex text and improve outcomes for students through explicit teaching of comprehension strategies
- Introducing small group work so students can collaborate in text-based discussions
- Generation Ready consultant and Emolior teachers worked together to analyze and use student assessment data from the comprehension assessment Degrees of Reading Power (DRP)
- Use data to develop a tiered intervention strategy where students receive appropriate interventions
Results:
- All ELA classes now have explicit teaching of comprehension strategies in place and students are more deeply engaged in increasingly complex texts
- Increased focus on data resulted in students being grouped and regrouped following analysis of DRP data
- ELLs are provided with reading instruction to suit their developing level of English competence
- Instruction is aligned across the grades and to student needs in meeting the CCSS from year to year
- Resources for ELA are engaging for students and teachers have a wide variety of materials to enhance the curriculum
- DRP results for the 8th grade students who participated in MSQI since February 2012 show an increase in comprehension
