Measuring Student Progress
Posted on by Jenny Tracy
Learning to read is a process for all of us. It involves first developing an understanding of the names of letters, how to write them, and the sound(s) each letter makes, memorizing all those words that are hard to sound out, and then putting all that together to learn to read words and sentences, then paragraphs, and eventually books. As we move along this literacy journey, we eventually begin to read to learn. A similar process occurs with numeracy - learning the names of numbers, how to write them, then how to perform arithmetic that ultimately results in us being able to gain information through numbers and create information too.
At Horizons, we measure this process in weeks of growth using a tool called the STAR assessment. Through Horizons National we are equipped with this unique data tool to measure the impact of the work we do in literacy and math during our summer learning program. The relatively short test enables us to measure an individual student’s growth in weeks rather than in their grade level position. This method of measuring gains is particularly relevant to our primary goal of reversing summer learning loss.
This measure also aligns well with our focus on equity. Each student is measured according to their own growth - where they started and ended summer - and that way progress is individualized and our students, especially those who are struggling - often show the most gains over the course of the summer. We can also target individualized instructional practices toward areas in which individual students need more support which more efficiently enables growth.
In assessing the effectiveness of our program, we couple this data with all the personal, familial and community background knowledge we have about what has been happening in a student’s life. We know, for example, that Hurricane Helene will have an impact on student learning, but not necessarily the same effect on every student, as every household experienced the storm differently. Our long-term connection and long-term tracking of this assessment data, year over year, enables us to look back and see the impact personal or community events might have had on a particular student and how our work has impacted individual students and their learning trajectories.
Mission measurement is achieved by an assessment of individual student progress as well as an analysis of aggregate data. This process enables us to measure our organization’s effectiveness and continuously work to make improvements where needed.