Program: STAR Reading Screeners

Description:
Within the last three years, Central Middle School started using the program STAR as a means to monitor
lexile and reading levels. We use it to progress monitor our students progress. Students complete a
screener four times a year (each nine weeks) and the STAR program reports tell the teachers how the
students are progressing. We use the reports while we have parent meetings, RTI meetings, and SST
meetings. They are a great way to report student progress to parents and teachers who are assessing
learning.

Change Agents:
The change agents are the students. The students are completing interventions who score below the
baseline score. The students then are monitored to see if the interventions are leading to student progress.
Progress is measured by taking four screeners per year to see if the student has gained more knowledge /
skills in reading. Students who are able to learn from their interventions usually increase their lexile score
and their reading level, even if it doesn't always show a large increase. Sometimes students do not show
progress. The one's who fall in this category are not monitored enough. I think one of the main problems
with the program is that we do not screen as often as we should. It should offer an assessment for each
intervention instead of multiple interventions within a nine weeks time.

Desirable and Undesirable Consequences:

For desirable consequences teachers have a way to collect data and make decisions about instruction based
on the data analysis that the program offers. Lessons can be more individualized for student success. Most
students actually do show progress, even if it is only small progression steps. On the other hand, students
who extremely struggle with reading, do not like to read, nor like to work on reading skills. I have found
that students who fall under this category despise the STAR program and are not motivated to do well on
their screeners. They get stuck in this cycle of having to take remediation reading courses and work on
interventions, and they are not motivated, so they simply lose interest in their ability to progress.

Direct and Indirect Consequences:

One direct consequence is that students are able to progress and increase their reading skills. This was the
number one goal when the program was adopted. We have seen so many struggling readers increase and
achieve their reading skills in order to attempt to get them up to grade level. As a result of the direct
consequence, the indirect results were that Central Middle school can become more competitive with other
county schools and state schools. It also indirectly helps us to perform at a higher level on state testing.

Anticipated and Unanticipated:

The anticipated result was increasing the reading scores of our students. But the unanticipated was that I
do not think that we anticipated finding the time to administer four screeners per year in our already busy
scheduling. The interventions take place during a connections reading class, but each year it seems that we
struggle to find ways to administer each screener because the problem is always the same: Finding where
we are going to give it in the busy calendar.

Diffusion:
Thinking about the CBAM process innovation configurations, stages of concern, and levels of use stick out as
the process involved with CBAM.

1. Innovation Configurations- During this phase, we probably had leaders who helped educate staff on
exactly how to use the STAR program and learn it's expectations. Professional learning opportunities were
available so that each staff member was under the same understanding of how to use the program and
interpret the results from it.

2. stages of concern- During this phase, the leadership who supported the STAR program surveyed the
teachers in order to get an understanding about the teachers attitudes towards the STAR program.
(Something that I think we should not, but have not... Is survey the students to get their attitudes about
the STAR program. I would be curious to see if the students are enjoying it). The leaders took the survey
results and listened to concerns that teachers had about the program.

3. Levels of Use- The staff met and determined what would be appropriate screener times and how often
we would screen the students. In this case of the STAR program, we decided that each nine weeks would
accurately measure student progress and allow students to focus on certain interventions in between
screeners.