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Lexington Public Schools SIP Action Plan
Cycle 2004-2008
Goal
The Lexington Public Schools goal is "All students will increase literacy across the curriculum." This goal was determined based upon the findings of the five school improvement committees. Each committee found and reported that our district had deficits in areas of literacy. The district-wide literacy area of concern was found to be vocabulary. As a result, our district has elected to implement a district-wide vocabulary program.
The Timeline
The vocabulary program will be implemented beginning August 2006. Our program baseline data is based upon 1st grade Dibels Scores, 4th grade Writing Assessment, and 3rd grade ITBS Total Reading Scores from 2004-05 through 2007-08. In the area of cohort data, we will look at ITBS scores from 2004-05 through 2007-08. We will use a yearly pretest and a posttest to measure the growth of vocabulary development at each grade level.
Strategies
- Each grade level/content area will have a preset list of essential content vocabulary to be taught during the course of one academic school year. Understanding these vocabulary words will help to improve Total Reading Scores by increasing overall comprehension at grade level.
- Increase the frequency of the use of grade level/content area appropriate vocabulary words in writing. This will be accomplished by the teacher modeling and prompting initially with the end goal of students using these words with a desired level of automaticity.
- All classrooms and schools will use L to J strategies to track vocabulary growth throughout the academic year. This will foster students to take further interest in their own vocabulary development by capitalizing on the use of a visual chart to show weekly gains.
Resources
Our primary resources for the area of vocabulary improvement are the professionals in the classroom. As a result of this understanding, our district elected to continue to involve all Lexington teaching staff in the creation of the vocabulary tool implemented. Each grade level was represented and selected a set number of grade appropriate vocabulary words with definitions. Representatives chose words found to be essential at that grade level/content area to create the highest level of impact on literacy. We have utilized Lee Jenkins, creator of the L to J approach to assessment, as an outside resource in implementing this process.
Personnel
Lexington Public Schools has decided that all staff will be involved in research, creation or selection of an intervention, implementation, and collection of data. All staff members will analyze the data collected throughout the SIP cycle to make informed decisions about instruction and effectiveness of the intervention.
Professional Development
- All staff will be trained to use L to J strategies to implement the district vocabulary intervention.
- Lee Jenkins will visit the schools to meet with individuals and small groups to give further support to teachers throughout the cycle.
- Teachers will be provided with vocabulary development activities.
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