Another kind of student data

Today I'm pasting the contents of an email sent by Lauren Ponti, one of our ELD teachers, to the staff.  This thoughtful note is a testament to the collaborative spirit and mutual respect on our team; it is also proof that we are beginning to expand our notion of what it means to look at student data. Yes, we value test results and analyze them thoroughly, using them to adjust our instruction in meaningful ways, but we also look at other (less conventional) data sources to help us get a robust picture of our students' growth.  Questions we now want to ask are:  

• How many of our students can articulate their favorite authors and preferred genres?  
• How many of our students already have their next "someday" book picked out?
• How many of our students have at least one friend whom they can count on to recommend them great books?
• When we take field trips, how many students pull out a book to read on the bus?

Read Ms. Ponti's email after the jump.

Hi all,

I just wanted to give all of you a shout-out as about the immense turnaround that Everett has taken to promote a culture of literacy amongst our students and community. As a teacher who does not directly implement Balanced Literacy or a lot of the independent reading systems in my classroom like all of you do, but works with students around literacy across all three grade levels (and our most struggling readers) I feel like I have a unique perspective on a sample of our school population. Things that I've seen and LOVE!:

1) No matter the grade level or pathway (newcomer, dual immersion, mainstream) I can ask students to take out their Independent Reading book and they ALL do it in seconds. ALL kids have a book on them and know what independent reading looks like.  (Ie when I administered the CLA tests, all students had a book on their desk to read when they finished, in English or their home language)

2) I can ask ALL students to do the "five finger test" on a book and they ALL know what I'm talking about (even though I have not taught it in my classroom explicitly)

3) I have students asking ME what I'm reading!

4) I see students on Muni and waiting for the bus with BOOKS!!!

5) Students know what book they want to read next and can take ownership of getting a new book. Often times my students will peruse my library and say, "You know what Ms. Ponti, there is X book that I want to read in X's classroom or in the library. Can I check out the book from there instead?" Kids know where books live and aren't just grabbing any book off the shelf!

6) All kids know book genre's and use this to select new books. When I ask kids what type of books they like, they can tell me a genre or an author. This would have NEVER happened before.

8) I have kids begging me to read INSTEAD of going on the computers! What?!?

These are just some things that I have noticed in my classroom that I know are the results of our common systems, expectations and HARD WORK on your part! I have been thinking about it a lot lately and just wanted to share. 

Keep up the great work, I know it is paying off for our kids!!

-Lauren