Reaching Struggling Learners
Reaching Struggling Learners
#74 Rethinking Student Goal Setting: From Test-Oriented to Skill Mastery
Are you ready to rewrite the playbook on student goal setting and progress monitoring? Join Jessica from Teaching Struggling Learners shifts the focus from tests to practical skills. We'll unpack strategies for setting meaningful yet attainable goals for students, centered around mastering foundational skills. We'll also explore effective ways to track these goals and ensure students can perform beyond the test environment.
On today's episode, we're challenging the conventional wisdom that test-focused goals are the gold standard in education. Jessica will shed light on the significance of setting skill-focused goals that promote thorough mastery of foundational skills, rather than merely gearing up for passing tests. Get a sneak peek into our next episode where we'll delve deeper into progress monitoring these skill-focused goals. Tune in, and let's rethink student goal setting together!
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5 Steps to Getting Started with Progress Monitoring
How annoying is it when you walk into a training that was supposed to answer your questions or solve some problems for you on one topic, but then you find out the training is given on a related but different topic. So a couple years ago I went to a training on how to teach phonics and how to increase fluency. Right, I needed that to help my students, but it was really about all the different components of reading and that we needed to make kids learn faster, but not the how behind it Didn't get into the specifics of the phonics and the fluency that I needed. The goal, you know, what I needed to get better at, wasn't what that professional development or that intervention was about. So when I had to do my periodic reports on my yearly goal, you know that I made for myself. It just didn't add up.
Speaker 1:We do this a lot, almost all the time, to kids. We make a goal, we provide interventions on a related topic, but then we progress, monitor something different. Today let's focus on the first and the last part of that, because the interventions are obviously going to be for another day.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis of Teaching Struggling Learners. I'm a boy mom and a veteran teacher. You're listening to the Reaching Struggling Learners podcast, where we talk all about helping students succeed academically, socially and behaviorally. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1:So we know that goals setting the right goal is very important. If our students are going to be making progress, we have to set a goal that actually fits what they need to work on, and then we also have to progress monitor that goal, or else what are we bothering to track? So, in order to create progress monitoring goals that make sense and are easy to track, the first thing is we have to make sure that we've figured out the most foundational skill. You can check out last week's episode for help on how to do that, but you can check out any episode. The fact is, if we don't drill down, if we don't figure out what that most basic skill is that the child is lacking in, we're starting off on the wrong foot. Guys, we have to start with what is the one thing that is causing the most simple thing, that is causing the problem for the student. Fix that and then we can get to the more complicated stuff In the most simple terms. The second thing we got to do is you got to say what it is you want the student to be able to do in this skill area, and we need to have kind of a timeframe for that. And, by the way. Don't round up to the next level. Stick with this skill, even if you don't think it's going to take forever. You don't think it's going to take very long. We can always up the goal when we're ready.
Speaker 1:Last week I used the example of I had a student that you know, seventh grader, and the student didn't know all the letter sounds. Okay, yeah, the student was really really struggling to read and we needed to work on CVC words and we needed to work on all these other things. But we had to start with letter sounds. And, okay, the student only needed to remember, needed to gain I think it was four or five extra sounds. Well, that's where we started. It didn't take very long. We got some good motivation in there right off the bat. But the fact is we had to start at that most basic level. And again, I know if you've heard any of my other podcast episodes I sound like a broken record, but we talk about the building of a house. You have to have the foundation. If letter sounds, well, phonemic awareness is really the foundation of reading, but if the student doesn't have letter sounds, the rest of the house is going to crumble. They're not going to be able to do all the phonics pieces that they need to, they're not going to gain the fluency, and then they're not going to have the reading comprehension that they need. Got to start at the most foundational skills. So then we have to make sure.
Speaker 1:Step three, make sure your goal is measurable. All right, so that means something that you can actually see here, record with numbers. For example, you can see here, count how many addition problems in math a student does correctly in a minute, or the number of sight words that they can read in a minute or two minutes or however long. You can figure out the fluency numbers, but you can't see or write down graph. You will do better or will improve or will increase. You're setting yourself up to fail if you're putting that kind of stuff out there. Set yourself up to be successful. Set your students up to be successful and be able to record real numbers.
Speaker 1:For example, I've seen a lot of times that a student will increase star scores or map scores or what have you. That's a long-term goal. Yes, we would like all of our students to increase their star scores or their map scores or their F-CAT scores or whatever it is in your state. But the fact is, those screeners, those tests, they test so many different skills and so that's like saying, putting down on paper, the student will get better in reading. Okay, how do I put a number to that? How exactly do I put a number to that? And I've seen some schools, school districts, teachers who had some extra star tests or whatever laying around and they made those poor babies take those tests over and over and over again and they would bring those to the meetings and say look, look, they're doing better, they're doing better. Yeah, you're right, that student is absolutely doing better at taking that test, but are they learning the skills that they need to be able to perform the skill outside that test? We don't know. So that's why it is really, really important that you have to have a goal that is skill focused.
Speaker 1:If the goal that you make is the student will increase star scores or will increase map scores or something of that nature that is based on a test that we generally give three times a year, honey, you don't have a goal. You have wishful thinking, because you don't know what all it's actually going to be going into making that student actually become successful in the skills that they have deficits in. So make your goals skill-focused, not test-focused. So let's say you have a student, like my student, for example, who was doing great and did not know like four or five of the letters and that was it. So how do you make a goal when you know you're in your school, you are only going to be able to meet every six to nine weeks, which is typical. You only get to meet on a student every six to nine weeks because that's when you get the data and all the things.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know that that child is going to probably you know meet the goal of. The child will be able to identify all the letters of the alphabet and will be able to identify the most common sounds. You know that they're probably going to move past that pretty quickly now that you've identified it. So some simple things. To make a goal a little bit more difficult if you're limited by your school or your district is to add a time frame and make it related to something that will help them with the next few skills up. Okay. So, for example, for my student, if I had had to have a time frame of six to nine weeks, then I would have said that the student would be able to identify all the most common letter sounds in a minute or would be able to identify, you know, the all the letter sounds when used in CVC words. So that uses what they need and just bumps it up just enough.
Speaker 1:And again, just because your goal, the student meets your goal, doesn't mean that that's the only thing you can work on. If that student, if your student is, has met their goal but you're not meeting for three more weeks, okay, continue your progress monitoring on that. But use what they've learned. That's the beauty of the reading and the math is the progress monitoring the skills that they're using, the more basic skills. If they have passed that that goal, have mastered it. Okay, they're still using those skills in the higher levels. So wonderful, your student is able to to identify all the letter sounds. Can they identify them in CVC words? How about CVC e words? How about we're not just doing the most common sounds anymore? You can extend this when you need to and just put it in your notes. It's not that big a deal. So some tricks, tips and tricks to just increase a goals.
Speaker 1:Difficulty is make sure that you, you, you can look at that fluency, put a time limit on it and all that. And then, for students who are reading words for example, you're trying to get them to read CVC words, okay, but you think they're going to master that in a couple weeks? Alright, wonderful, maybe they could read those words in a sentence instead of individual. Okay, if you're doing addition and subtraction, maybe, instead of just doing addition problems, maybe they can do the addition problems in a minute, a certain number in a minute, or maybe that. If you're working on subtraction problems, okay, can they do it when it's mixed problems? So they've, they've already mastered addition problems. They've met, they're almost done with mastering subtraction. Maybe you can add it in that they can do mixed problems now and again. You can have fluency in there.
Speaker 1:There's lots of different ways to take the, the goals, the small skills that you're working on, and expand them up just enough to keep the kiddos challenged but also to show that progress and to keep it still on the same level that it needs to be for the student.
Speaker 1:The biggest thing is the takeaways I guess from this episode that I hope you run away from is number one do yourself a favor and make your goals skill focused, never test focused, because, oh goodness, we've already got enough of an emphasis on tests. Let's work on the skills that the kids need. And the next thing is don't be afraid to make your goals at that lower level, because it is so much better that you go slow and that those kids really, really master 100% not 80%, 100% of those foundational skills, because that's just going to make every other skill above it that much stronger. So I hope you took something away from this that was, you know, going to be helpful. Next week, we are going to be talking about how to actually make sure that you're progress, monitoring that beautiful goal that you just made, that you spent, that skill focused goal that you just made. And until next time, may your coffee be strong, your students calm and your administrators supportive. Bye.