Reading Instruction at Pinewood Elementary

           Here at Pinewood, we pride ourselves on the quality of our reading program. One of our main school wide goals is: Every student at Pinewood will demonstrate continuous reading growth, as their progress toward their reading goal is consistently monitored and assessed while receiving challenging appropriate reading instruction.  

Our teachers have worked hard to develop a plan to meet this goal and the needs of our students. Our program is designed to give each student instruction both at grade level and at their individual level. By coordinating schedules across the school, lowering group size and using our resources to provide additional teaching support to classrooms, we can provide a very comprehensive reading program to the students.

As a school, we have recognized two areas that are a focus for all the staff and students. Team Read is our all school reading program that encourages students to take what they learn about reading at school and apply it at home. By spending time reading at home and recording their minutes read, they become part of our reading team. We have also recognized that having a strong vocabulary can help student achieve at high levels. By focusing on key vocabulary at each grade level and specialist area, we hope to provide the students with the words and terms they need to be successful at school.

At the base of all our teaching, is good core instruction. Each child at Pinewood receives reading and language instruction at grade level. Each teacher teaches their homeroom students the skills that meet both the Mounds View Learner Outcomes and Minnesota State Standards for their grade level. They use resources such as the Houghton Mifflin reading series along with other materials to ensure every child is exposed to what they should know for their age.

In addition to receiving whole group instruction, each child also receives reading instruction in a small reading group. In these small groups, students are instructed at their skill level. They are exposed to books and skills that meet their individual need and help the child to grow at a pace that is right for them. At this time, our High Performing students also receive specific instruction to address their advanced skill and reading level.

For those students who struggle and need additional instruction, we have a very strong intervention program. For our Kindergarten students, we use a program that focuses strongly on letter names and sounds. In first through fourth grade, our program works on phonetic skills, fluency, vocabulary, spelling, handwriting and comprehension. This provides the students with structured, thorough instruction in the basics of reading. In fifth grade, our students use the Read 180 program that has both large and small group instruction

In order to make all of our programs work, we need to have the right students receiving the right instruction, and we need to make sure what we are doing is working. A variety of assessments are used to both place students in the correct learning group and to track their growth across time. The students take the NWEA MAP test to assess their growth from year to year and to provide teachers with information on what skills each student has mastered and where to take them next.  In addition, the students participate in a fluency assessment monthly to allow us to track their reading rate of growth. They also have multiple classroom assessments in which their classroom teacher tracks the progress of the core skills.

The combination of these programs and assessments gives our teachers a wide variety of options to help them best meet the needs of each student. It also provides students many opportunities to become the best readers they can be.