The Atlanta Constitution cites comments from former Massachusetts Education Commissioner David Driscoll, who is on the National Assessment Governing Board.

Driscoll notes that twenty years ago reading scores were higher than math scores.  Now a “flip” has occurred, and math scores are higher.

…the flip reflects the success of math instruction, which is almost exclusively taught in math classes in schools. It is different for reading proficiency, which is a product of how much students read outside school and how much reading they do across curriculum, not just in reading and English/Language Arts classes, he said.

The Christian Science Monitor reported:

At the announcement of the results, Doris Hicks, a member of the governing board and principal of a New Orleans charter school, spoke about the reading results, saying that she saw the flat performance as “losing ground.”

“We need to emphasize higher-order thinking skills when it comes to reading,” Ms. Hicks said, pushing comprehension over simple regurgitation.

In the past year, we here at Merit Software have made great strides toward improving reading instruction. We are optimistic about the future.

Less than one year ago, our first web-based reading program was launched.  The program, Reading Skill Builder, is a comprehension and assessment tool for students reading at a 3rd through 8th grade level.  It is, along with other Merit web-based language arts programs, routinely used in schools every day.

Our new web-based products incorporate the latest in educational pedagogy, including the use of context-clues, textural evidence support, plus academic vocabulary exercises.

In addition, teacher-training offerings have been greatly expanded.  We encourage educators to let us help them set up their learners’ accounts and show them, quickly, how to get the most out of their Merit online products.

Published by the Alliance for Excellent Education, the report examines whether formative assessment can improve students’ writing skills and what techniques are best to help them improve.

Student writing skills can be improved by having teachers provide students regular feedback, track their progress, and encourage them to evaluate their own skills, finds a new report, “Informing Writing: The Benefits of Formative Assessment.”

Merit web-based writing programs can help teachers accomplish the three tasks outlined in the report.

The screen shot below shows how teachers can:

• View student writing within an online portfolio to give feedback. (See “View Student’s Work” in blue box.)
• Determine if students have viewed editing sections for self-assessment purposes. (See “Section Progress” in green box at left in the screen shot.)
• Monitor the writing progress of entire classes as they work. (All student records can be accessed by using the double arrows shown at top of screen shot.)

Click here to enlarge image.

Here is a link to the report:
http://www.all4ed.org/files/InformingWriting.pdf

Click here to learn more about Merit web-based writing programs.

The following are categories we identified:

Resources

“Support and materials that are relevant to at-risk students” are cited by a professor in British Columbia, Canada.

An elementary school reading specialist in North Dakota stresses “The greatest challenge that I currently have in helping at-risk students is not having the resources available to differentiate my instruction to meet the individual needs of each student.”

Support

A teacher at an international school in Rome, Italy, mentions “Meeting their learning needs and helping them feel successful at the same time.”

A teacher at the Department of Education, Puerto Rico, cites the importance of “Helping students lose the fear of participating in class.”

An administrator in New South Wales, Australia, stresses the importance of “Improved recognition and support at school of at-risk students.”

Issues Outside of School

A lead teacher in Texas cites the challenge of creating and sustaining “Parent involvement.”

An Indiana teacher cites “Lack of family support and poor background knowledge.”

A Mississippi director mentions “Attendance and challenges at home.”

Assessment

An educator in Western Australia stresses the importance of “Assessing their needs correctly and using appropriate strategies to help them.”

Communication and teaching methodology

An exceptional needs teacher in North Carolina mentions “Making it interesting and relevant to their world.”

A Wisconsin educator cites the importance of “Establishing mutual trust.”

A special education teacher in Indiana stresses “Keeping them focused and excited about learning.”

A technology contact in West Virginia presents the challenge of  “Differentiating the instruction to allow them to express themselves on a level that is appropriate to the grade level while utilizing their unique skills.”

A classroom teacher in Florida cites the challenge of “Presenting the material in such a way that they can grasp and retain it.”

What do you think of these comments?  And, what ideas of your own would you like to share?  Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

To deal with this issue, some have called for the elimination of standardized tests.   However, we feel that accountability data is too important to stakeholders to drop completely.

Hopelessness about how to improve student achievement is one of the reasons teachers felt compelled to cheat on these standardized tests.

If teachers had a better way to know where students stood academically, if they had a better idea about the areas where their students needed help, if the teachers felt they had a chance to help all their students, then perhaps there would be less incentive to cheat.

And it goes without saying that if students received the evaluation, support, and direction they needed, their scores improve.

Teachers need useful, formative assessments to help them determine each student’s strengths and weaknesses.  Administrators need a way to know during the school year if their teachers are actually helping their students.  Students deserve to learn and achieve.

All groups need a partner to show them how this can be done.  This is where Merit Software fits in.

Grammar Fitness Online is a 100% web-based teaching tool. The program provides students with interactive grammar exercises to help them master difficult points in English grammar.

After an assessment, students advance through the program at their own pace. Students receive personal help and feedback while they work. Instructors can see gains, in real-time, through an easy-to-use tracking tool.

The Association of Educational Publishers’ annual awards program and its seal of excellence are widely recognized by educators, administrators, and parents as a mark of outstanding educational value.

Grammar Fitness Online is a finalist in the Distinguished Achievement Awards for Reading and Language Arts, Grades 9-12 Curriculum category.

The Distinguished Achievement Awards (DAAs) are judged according to category, subject area, and grade level.

Entries are evaluated on traits such as efficacy, usability, and overall educational value. The full list of finalists for this year’s DAAs is posted online at www.AEPweb.org/awards/finalists.htm.

Distinguished Achievement Award winners will be announced at the AEP Awards Banquet & Gala, June 8 at the Omni Shoreham in Washington, DC.

I like Merit because it is not just drill and kill. It helps my students think and dig deeper, which helps them learn the skills I am teaching. It also helps them get ready for standardized test formats.

I have 5 computers set up with the Merit Basic Skills Pack and when time allows, I have students practice the skills I teach in class. Thank you for making such a great difference in children’s lives.

During the competition Watson was able to access answers to a variety of questions. However, it wasn’t superior to humans on every question. The machine did better in certain categories than others.

It’s important for us to think about what computers can and can’t do. Computers can’t create without input from humans. They can only respond to human programming.

At Merit, we have significant expertise in knowing what technologies are capable of doing for people. We have high standards about how to make computers useful instructional tools. We know how to make computer programs that are relevant and fit into a context for people that they can relate to. It also helps that we are very good at explaining to people how to use a program. This level of support enhances the teaching and learning processes immeasurably.

Two new Merit programs, Grammar Fitness Online and Confused Words Fix-Up, are good examples of the need for this level of expertise.

In many schools today, particularly at the secondary level, students need remedial help. However, schools do not have the structure, personnel, or budget to provide this service. Remediation needs to be done in class in a way that enables teachers to track progress for diverse groups of learners.

Grammar Fitness and Confused Words Fix-Up provide this service in key areas of English grammar and vocabulary. The programs are easy for instructors to learn to use. Plus, teachers receive free and unlimited support from Merit support specialists.

In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying.

The following are among the techniques that have been shown to be effective for motivated students:

• Alternating study locations, which improves retention.

• Mixed-practice: that is, the idea that studying distinct but related skills in one sitting is more beneficial than focusing intensely on one skill at a time.

• Spacing study sessions, which improves later recall without requiring students to put in more overall effort.

• Tests and quizzes, which can be very effective tools for learning. The process of retrieving an idea improves later recall.

In addition, the article challenges the idea that “forgetting” is bad for learning. Forgetting offers opportunities to relearn something and to reinforce awareness and understanding of the subject.

This article also helps explain why Merit Software is such an effective learning tool for so many users – from school students to adult learners.  The design of Merit programs is aligned with all of the cognitive techniques outlined in the article and facilitates maximum learning.

• Merit programs provide both focused and mixed practice of a variety of related skills.

• The programs are organized with logical stopping points. Progress monitoring enables students to stop and then resume working on skills over several sessions.

• Students are given many opportunities to apply and reinforce their learning with Merit. If students forget a skill or need to refresh their knowledge of a skill, the programs will direct them to suitable activities to relearn it.

• Merit’s learning platforms enable students to alternate their study locations with ease. Networked versions let students log on to different computers in the lab or classroom. The online versions may be accessed anywhere, anytime.

 
Learn more about Merit Software at www.meritsoftware.com

Read “Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits”.

Are Common Core standards an effective tool to reform U.S. public schools?

The new standards have a strong possibility to help improve overall student performance. The standards shift the focus from learning grade-by-grade rules and the practice of “teaching to the test” to standards that are aligned with college and workplace expectations.

The most apparent shifts in the new standards come in English language arts. There is more emphasis on analyzing and writing throughout the curriculum. The standards call for students to read texts of increasing difficulty and to learn to clearly synthesize information from them and to communicate their ideas and understanding.

Research conducted on students using Merit Software in schools demonstrates the importance of incorporating writing into the curriculum. Most notably the evidence showed that improving reading, grammar and writing skills of secondary level students was correlated with gains in social studies and science test scores.

This research supports the conclusions of the writers of the Common Core standards and their emphasis on writing and language arts literacy.

Merit’s newest products are engaging, easy-to-use tools that help teachers implement writing and language arts exercises in online versions. These editions of Grammar Fitness, Paragraph and Essay Punch, as well as the creation of Book Punch, help a wide range of students improve and develop language arts literacy skills.

Instructors will benefit from materials and training to help them provide differentiated, personalized, instruction in the Common Core standards skills and content areas.

While the standards allow room for teachers to reach the goals in the context of their own teaching style, what materials do think would help you with your students?

The authors of the report, Steve Graham and Michael Herbert, present compelling evidence that by including evidence-based writing practices in the classroom, such as teaching students how to write more complex sentences and other writing processes, teachers could do a better job of improving students’ writing and reading skills.

Writing instruction mostly occurs at the elementary level, but only for 20 minutes a day, says the report. In more than half of U.S. high schools, students do not write more than one paragraph a month that involves analysis and interpretation.

Writing instruction is infrequent in science, social studies, and even language arts classes. Many teachers do not feel adequately prepared to teach writing.

Many schools, tutors, parents, and self-motivated students are using Merit writing software to fill this void.

The most popular resources are Essay Punch, Paragraph Punch, and Book Punch.

What do you think? Should more writing lessons be included in the curriculum? Share your thoughts with us.