Interim Superintendent Tabitha Branum said she plans to update the board over the next four meetings about the district’s plan to tackle curriculum in order to “close the opportunity and learning gap." As part of these plans, the district outlined its goals in a video released on its website.
Over the past two years, RISD has updated its teaching standards and focuses when instructing reading and language arts districtwide. These updates were adopted to better reflect the state standards established, also known as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.
The district incorporated these updated standards for kindergarten through eighth grade in 2019-20 and for ninth through 12th grades in 2020-21.
Lindsay Mikulas, RISD’s director of reading and language arts, said the major goal of the district is to develop all students into accomplished readers and writers. Part of this foundation includes creating a desire for reading outside of class and allowing time during class for students to read and write independently of assignments.
“Mastering the skill of reading equips students to succeed in all areas,” Branum said in the district’s video. “As they progress through the grade levels, they move from learning to read and write to reading and writing to learn.”
Ongoing lesson plans for teachers include direct teaching, group learning alongside classmates and personal reading, according to Mikulas. She said each of these activities are important for developing better comprehension skills and will develop fluency and self-sustained readers.
This updated curriculum is expected to further incorporate multiple genres, especially nonfiction work. Branum said standardized testing will use nonfiction texts for 50% of their exams. Future testing will also ask students to analyze an author’s intent and purpose rather than seeking to measure simple comprehension. These changes were implemented in order to develop a curiosity for further reading and research, Mikulas said.
In comparison to state assessments, RISD improved its reading comprehension between 2017-19. The district hopes to improve in 2022 after scores dropped in 2021 due to the COVID-19 gap, Mikulas said.
The district plans to set up professional development pathways for its staff members in the future. These will be available for new and current teachers as well as campus administrators.
Other district plans include building instructional leadership specific to core reading, increasing test support for ACT and Texas Success Initiative testing, and implementing strategies for the next phase of State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, testing.
