Alva Review-Courier -

"We are excited and thankful for the program," South Barber Elementary Assistant Principal and fourth-grade teacher Kaynette Scheck told the board of education at their February meeting. She explained how their $13,000 investment last school year is already helping students excel in reading and math.

She was referring to the ReadyGen K-6th Integrated Literacy Program the board approved. After teachers using this new tool just one semester, Scheck said it's making a difference. Teacher Samantha Nichols said they've already seen improvements in reading and math.

"It's the best we've looked in the five years I've been here," Scheck said.

The goal of this assessment program is to help students become creative, critical thinkers, equipped with 21st Century skills. The word perseverance is stressed along with the "never give up" motto. "We want to expose our students to a variety of situations to get them thinking," Scheck said.

One of the obstacles the students face is "They are not prepared to write," Scheck said. "Students comprehension is shown in writing a paper."

Describing herself as a data person, she said some of the testing results data show an 86 percent improvement in reading comprehension.

"That's pretty amazing," she said.

Scheck told the board the assessment program SB was using (Ainsworth) was "ten plus years outdated. It didn't come close to helping us meet our (newer) rigorous state standards." She said that ReadyGen helps the teachers to better understand the state standards.

She explained with Fast Bridge, while the student is testing, the program automatically adapts to the students' learning level and then asks appropriate level questions. She said this is so beneficial to students, not to mention the time saving factors for teachers.

These assessments help identify students level of learning in Tiers. Tier I – average and above; Tier II – below average and Tier III – well below average. Scheck said they make this fun and call it Chieftain Challenge Time. "We're going there to get what we need!"

She explained how vital it is that students get the prerequisite skills they need as they go grade to grade. "What students do in kindergarten matters because they build on it in the next grade and so on."

She's excited to see students get real textbooks that actively engage them through ReadyGen. The program connects reading and writing every day.

Seeing the improvements already made in one semester, Scheck said, "Our teachers saw this and said if this is just the first year, think how we'll look in three years – five years?"