Over the past decade, the Annual Conference of The Reading League has become the definitive gathering for educators, leaders, researchers, and literacy advocates. Our Education Director Hayley and Assistant Education Director Lisa both attended The Summit.
Lisa had this to say about her time at The Summit:
“The Education Team is incredibly fortunate to have the chance to attend this two-day conference. The topic of study this year was data and assessment, which the Education Team and site staff regularly use to tailor a student’s tutoring program at New Haven Reads.
As a commitment to our students and their families, Ms. Hayley and I are frequently invited to attend PPT and 504 meetings to offer perspective and share data with our school partners. To date, we have attended over 35 school-based support meetings for our students–and that number grows each week.
It is no secret that students lose a significant amount of instructional time to assessment at school–particularly this time of year with the SBA and year-end testing. While growth data is essential to monitoring student mastery, it is an important balancing act. You never want to sacrifice the quality of a student’s intervention with the time-sink that can come with testing and data collection. The primary objective of this conference involved getting the most out of the data we collect without sacrificing instructional time.
One of my biggest take-aways from The Reading League Summit was how to hone in on individual student data and fold it into our approach with their tutoring program. We already use our own formative assessment within the student’s individual plans to gauge effectiveness along the way. When we attend special support meetings at the schools, we glean additional data that can strengthen our approach with our students. I definitely appreciated the new perspectives from TRL’s panelists, and I am confident that we will be able to even more effectively collaborate with our students’ support teams, caregivers, and tutors.”
