And the results are in

96% at or above benchmark on end-of-year DIBELS testing

You may or may not realize, but beginning May 1, I will be offering a paid subscription option to Busy Bee Kindergarten. I explain my reasoning and what it’s all about in this post dated April 23, 2021.

In today’s post I share my end-of-year test scores because I want my readers to feel confident in my abilities. Trust me, I would not blog and share with all of you if I didn’t feel that I had something to offer, some way of making your teaching days easier and more rewarding. And some way of making sure your students get an amazing start to their educational journey. Yes, there are days when I feel impatient or tired or not inspired; but overall I love my work and I feel I am doing right by my students. I have heard from so many of you that you appreciate the blog. It’s important to me that you feel confident in my abilities.

---

Our district’s end-of-year DIBELS testing window opened last week and I jumped right in. It may sound counterintuitive to test my students—especially those who are just starting to get the hang of reading and writing—at the beginning of the testing window instead of three weeks later, but I have found that my students seem to be at their peak in April. Though I don’t make a big deal of the school year ending, the students somehow seem to sense it and their enthusiasm and work quality suffers somewhat during the month of May.

I am sharing my end-of-year DIBELS test scores with you because I want you to know that I do get good results. I reiterate that I want you to feel confident in my abilities, that I’m a blogger to whom you might want to subscribe. My testing data is how I know that my daily phonics instruction and my phonics scope and sequence is working. It’s how I know that the work I do with students in small groups is effective. And it reiterates to me that all the time I put into teaching reading has a positive effect on student writing (and vice versa).

Before sharing the end-of-year scores, I want to tell you about my students in August. It was a typical bunch in that a few knew many letter names and a few sounds; a few knew some letter names and no sounds; and, many knew very few letter names and no letter sounds. I teach at a Title I school and it’s common for students to arrive with no exposure to letters, writing their name, or counting. Parents tend to trust that we will teach them everything. This year, however, I had more “red” students than usual. If you’re not familiar with DIBELS, “red” means what it sounds like—likely to need intensive support. Thirteen students were red in August; that’s nearly half the class. Another six were yellow. Nineteen entered “below grade level.”

It has been an odd year in that my class list has stayed fairly stable. A few students trickled in late due to COVID (the online learning option didn’t work out so well for five-year-olds so parents brought them back to school) and I did get two students mid-year. But, for once, I got no new students in March or April. That meant no new students to hurry and catch up. I could continue to concentrate on the struggling learners who had been with me since August. And they deserved it.

So, what are results? By April, no students were red. Zero! Only one student was yellow—likely to need some support as she moves forward. But she’s a strong, strong yellow. She can read CVC words and beyond. She verbalizes things like “ay says a” and “the e is coming over here and making the o long.” Six students were green—likely to benefit just fine from core instruction. And the rest? Nineteen students in the blue zone! Above grade level!

End-of-year results: Red-0 Yellow-1 Green-6 Blue-19

These results do not come as a surprise to me. I work with these students daily and I know of what they’re capable. But it’s important to have the DIBELS data. It confirms my abilities to teach kindergartners to read. It confirms that my phonics scope and sequence is working. It confirms that my small group instructional sequence is effective. It confirms that the interventions (preventions) I conduct get students to where they need to be.

And, I hope it helps confirm for you, too, that you can trust in my abilities as I share ideas, materials, and techniques with you as we enter the 2021-2022 school year.

---

A few days after my last post, I received a message from a reader in Australia.

Dear Randee,
I have been really enjoying your blogs and hints, thank you from Australia. I am in my first full time year of teaching, and I am on a K-2 class in a small school. I am so tired, overwhelmed and also am starting to see how a few of my little ones are growing in their reading abilities, which is very exciting! I have a few other kinders who know their sounds, but just can't seem to translate that into reading words. I have some Year Two children who are seriously behind in literacy also.
I am going to ask my principal to email you so that I may buy a subscription. This sounds amazing. Thank you. I feel really confident in your abilities, and honestly, I don't know quite where you find the time!

Upon reading this, I imagined this first year teacher a half a world away. It sounds like she has no grade level partners; that would definitely be challenging as a first year teacher. It made my heart happy to know that my blogs and videos have been giving her ideas and support. This is the way it should be between teachers.

What really struck me though was this:

“I feel really confident in your abilities.”

I want all of you to feel confident in my abilities as I go forth in sharing ideas, materials, and what I’m learning about the science of reading and how it can impact our teaching. I sincerely hope you’ll consider the paid subscription and come along with me on the 2021-2022 teaching journey. The early bird special ends April 30.

Also, today’s writing should serve as evidence that my teaching is yielding quality results. Look at this writing! Kindergartners continue to amaze me. We must realize their full potential.

I am not able to post every piece of writing because of Substack post length limitations, so I eliminated students who wrote their last names and the two for whom I do not have permission to post.

As previously mentioned, the free subscription will continue, but those who sign up for the paid subscription will get access to so much more. Please consider it and take advantage of the early bird special ending on April 30th if you can.

Though I got amazing results this year, as I told my principal, “I can’t wait to do it even better next year!”