Academics
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My name is Courtney Mason I am one of the Instructional Coaches at Harbor Elementary School. My position as an instructional coach is to support teachers. I provide teachers with professional development on curriculum or tests that need to be administered. Some of the tests you should be hearing about this year are:
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I-Ready Diagnostic – this is an adaptive test that matches the difficulty of test questions to the ability of each student. As students answer the questions correctly, the test becomes more difficult. As students answer questions incorrectly, the test becomes easier. In both scenarios, the test adapts to find the precise ability of each student in the quickest, most efficient way possible. Immediately after a student completes the i-ready Diagnostic, i-ready generated a unique automated lesson plan. The student’s placement in online instruction on their learning paths is determined based on Diagnostic performance in each domain. The domains are:
- Phonological Awareness
- Phonics
- High- Frequency words
- Vocabulary
- Comprehension: Literature
- Comprehension: Informational Text
- DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skill) is a series of short tests that assess K-8 literacy. It is a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of test of K-8 literacy skills, such as phonemic awareness, alphabetic principles, accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.
- SBA (Smarter Balanced Assessments: are aligned to Connecticut Core Standards in English language arts/literacy and Mathematics. A balanced assessment system which includes as summative assessment Given in the Spring and interim assessments given as practice at the end of units of study.
Curriculum:
In New London, all elementary schools use:
- Schoolwide Reading and Writing Curriculum.
- Illustrative Math.
- Science: Mystery Science.
- Fundations: Multisensory and systemic phonics, spelling and handwriting program grade K-2 Grade 3 later this year.
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