rd
Leadership Advisory
January 24, 2014
Teri Brecheen
Executive Director of Literacy
Teri.Brecheen@sde.ok.gov

The Reading Sufficiency Act (RSA)
“Each student enrolled in K, 1 st ,
2 nd , and 3 rd grade of the public schools of this state shall be assessed at the beginning of each school year using a screening instrument approved by the State
Board of Education for the acquisition of reading skills including, but not limited to, phonological awareness, phonics, spelling, reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.”

The Reading Sufficiency Act
Grades K-3

Students are assessed using a state and district approved reading screening instrument at the beginning of the school year

Students are monitored throughout the year; further diagnostic assessments given as needed

Those not on grade level will receive extra an Academic
Progress Plan (APP)

The Reading Sufficiency Act (RSA)
Academic Progress Plan (APP)

These are individual reading plans, developed in collaboration with the parent, prescribing interventions aimed at removing specific reading deficiencies.

Parental notification by the school of the student’s reading intervention plan or
APP is required

The Reading Sufficiency Act

RSA ends the practice of social promotion.

Social promotion is the practice of promoting a student to the next grade level based on age.

This practice leads to missing skills in later years.

Ending Social Promotion
3 rd Grade Only
3 rd Graders who score Unsatisfactory on the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Test (OCCT) in Reading may not be promoted to the 4 th grade unless they meet one of six good cause exemptions.

Good Cause Exemptions
1.
Students identified as Limited-English Proficient
(LEP)/English Language Learner (ELL) on a screening tool approved by the Oklahoma State Department of
Education Office of Bilingual/Migrant Education and have a Language Instruction Educational Plan (LIEP) in place prior to the administration of the third grade criterion referenced test; and the student must have had less than two (2) years of instruction in an English Language
Learner (ELL) program.

Good Cause Exemptions
2.
Students with disabilities who are assessed with alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS) under the Oklahoma School Testing Program (OSTP) with the
Oklahoma Alternative Assessment Program (OAAP) qualify for the good cause
exemption. The student must be identified as needing special education services prior to the administration of the third grade criterion referenced test; The student must have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) in place prior to the administration of the third grade criterion referenced test and the student’s IEP must direct that the student is to be assessed with alternate achievement standards through the
Oklahoma Alternative Assessment Program (OAAP) based upon the OSDE Criteria
Checklist for Assessing Students with Disabilities on State Assessment.

Good Cause Exemptions
3.
To promote a student using an alternative standardized reading assessment, the following criteria shall apply: The student must score an acceptable level of performance on an approved alternative standardized reading assessment. The following are approved alternative standardized reading assessments that may be used to justify a good cause promotion. The listed score constitutes an acceptable level of performance, and the student must score at or above the following percentiles:


Stanford Achievement Test, Tenth Edition, (SAT 10) - 45th Percentile
Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) Complete Battery Form A,C or E, Level 9, Reading Comprehension - 45th Percentile

Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) Core Battery, Form A, C, or E, Level 9, Reading Comprehension – 45th Percentile

TerraNova, Third Edition Complete Battery Level 13, Reading - 45th Percentile
Alternative standardized reading assessments may only be administered following the administration of the Reading portion of the Grade 3 third grade criterion-referenced test. The spring test form of the exam shall be administered. An approved alternative standardized reading assessment may be administered at any time prior to the start of the next academic year, if there are at least 20 calendar days between administrations and different test forms are administered.

Good Cause Exemptions
4.
To promote a student based on evidence from the Student Portfolio, the
Student Portfolio shall include evidence demonstrating the student’s mastery of the
Oklahoma state standards in reading equal to grade level performance on the Reading portion of third grade OCCT. Such evidence shall be documented through an organized collection of work representing the student’s mastery of such standards, including a demonstration of mastery of all of the following essential components of reading:
Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Automaticity/Fluency, Comprehension and
Spelling/Writing. The student portfolio shall include clear evidence that the standards assessed by the Reading portion of the third grade OCCT have been met. Clear evidence must include multiple choice items and passages that are 50% literary text and 50% expository text that are between 200-600 words, with an average of 350 words. Such evidence could consist of: chapter or unit tests from the district’s adopted core reading curriculum that are aligned with the Oklahoma State Standards or Teacher-prepared assessments. Each standard and objective assessed by the Reading portion of the third grade OCCT must include a minimum of four work samples of mastery whereby the student attained a grade of 70% or above. Demonstrating mastery of each objective for each standard is required.

Good Cause Exemptions
5.
Students with disabilities who participate in the statewide
criterion-referenced test and have an IEP may qualify for a good cause exemption. To qualify for this exemption, the student must meet the following criteria: The student must have been previously
retained in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, or third grade.
The student’s IEP must identify Reading as an area of education need for the student or identify some type of special education service in the area of Reading and reflect that the student has received intensive remediation for more than two years. Intensive remediation may include any type of program offering intensive reading instruction that is identified as appropriate by the IEP team.

Good Cause Exemptions
6.
Students who demonstrate a reading deficiency and have been previously retained may qualify for a
good cause exemption. To qualify for this exemption, the student must meet the following criteria: The student must have been previously retained in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, or third grade for a total of two
years and the student must have received intensive
reading instruction for two or more years.

Principal and Superintendent
If the principal determines that the student meets one of the good-cause exemptions and should be promoted, based on the documentation provided, the principal shall make a recommendation in writing to the school district superintendent.
After the review of the documentation, the school district superintendent shall accept or reject the recommendation of the principal in writing.
Documentation submitted from the teacher of the student to the school principal that indicates the student meets one of the good-cause exemptions and promotion of the student is appropriate.
Teacher
The principal shall review and discuss the documentation with the teacher.
Principal and Teacher

1.
Requests to exempt students from the mandatory retention requirements based on one of the good-cause exemptions shall be made using the following process:
2.
Documentation submitted from the teacher of the student to the school principal that indicates the student meets one of the good-cause exemptions and promotion of the student is appropriate.
3.
The documentation shall consist only of the alternative assessment results or student portfolio work and the IEP.
4.
The principal shall review and discuss the documentation with the teacher.
5.
If the principal determines that the student meets one of the good-cause exemptions and should be promoted, based on the documentation provided, the principal shall make a recommendation in writing to the school district superintendent.
6.
After the review of the documentation, the school district superintendent shall accept or reject the recommendation of the principal in writing.

The Research

95% of kids can learn to read…

Brain research informs us that reading is teachable to 95 percent of our students. Yet 10 to 40 percent of them will have difficulty learning to read and will need specialized instruction.
95%

Children who have reading problems in 3rd grade have reading problems in later grades. They fall further behind each year they do not receive support.
More than
1/3 of poor children enter formal kindergarten classes already behind their peers…
By 4 th grade, more than
50% of these children will not meet the standard for reading proficiency.

19 Year Old Dropouts by 3rd Grade Reading
Scores
88%
11%
Non Proficient Readers in 3rd grade
Proficient Readers in 3rd grade

rd
4
6
8
-- The Annie E. Casey Foundation

NAEP
200
195
190
230
225
220
215
215
220
210 208
Average NAEP 4th Grade Reading Scores,
Florida, Oklahoma, and National Average 1992-2013
226
225
224
220 220 220
220
215
217 218
216
219
217
217
212
214
217
213
214
214
215
207
205
205
1992 1994 1998 2002 2003
National Average
2005
Florida
2007
Oklahoma
2009 2011
227
221
2013
217

Poor readers at the end of first grade are at very significant risk for long term academic difficulty.

88% probability of being a poor reader in fourth grade if you were a poor reader in the first grade. (Juel, 1988)

87% probability of remaining an average reader in fourth grade, if you were an average reader in the first grade.

6
5
4
3
2
1
K
In
“
Phonics
”
Ability Of Children
Who Begin First Grade In The Bottom 20% In
Phoneme Awareness And Letter Knowledge
(Wagner, Torgesen, Rashotte, et al., 1997)
5.9
Low
Low PA
Ave. PA
2.3
1 2 3 4
Grade level corresponding to age
5

Left Hemisphere p. 26

Before
After
LEFT RIGHT p. 26