Living and Learning in Central Oregon

This is a short article that describes nine instructional practices that really make a difference in student achievement. They are taken from the book Classroom Instruction that Works (2001) by Robert Marzano. The nine strategies are:

• Identifying similarities and difference
• Summarizing
• Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
• Homework and practice
• Nonlinguistic representation
• Cooperative learning
• Setting objectives and providing feedback
• Generating and testing hypothesis
• Cues, questions, and advance organizers

Please take the time to read this article and reflect on it. Can you describe what you do for each of the nine? Write them down and share your notes, thoughts, and ideas with your colleagues.

When I read articles like this it helps us put our testing into perspective.  While I think that our fluency testing is important I also think that at some point it reaches a max point.  There is a direct correlation between 3^rd grade students passing dibels and 3^rd grader students  passing their comprehension tests.  But at what point do we scale back fluency and concentrate on comprehension and vocabulary building?  I recently had a meeting with Jon Bullock the principal of the high school on the topic of dibels.  Jon’s previous experience was as an elementary principal.  When he took over his former school only 50% of his students were reading at grade level.  When he left the school over 95% were at grade level. Dibel assessments and the interventions put in place after these assessments played a big part in this transformation. One of the statements he said that made me really think was “Show me the 5^th grader not passing his reading comprehension test and I will show you the kindergartner who did not pass his letter naming fluency.” Hmmm.

So what do you think?  Your comments are always appreciated.