Deerlake Middle SchoolPrincipal

9902 Deerlake WestLaura Brooks Tallahassee, Florida 32312

Office (850) 922-6545Assistant Principal Guidance (850) 922-6990 Zelena O’Banner

Fax (850) 488-3275

Assistant Principal Steve Mills

November 9, 2015

Dear Parents,

This year as our Intensive Reading course began, we had planned some changes in instructional delivery. We had hoped to add assignments and teacher direct instruction to support the Language Arts classrooms with vocabulary and writing, along with the Achieve 3000 Program. As we began to implement Achieve 3000 (the remedial computer program) and the additional assignments, it became apparent the changes were adding too much to accomplish during the class period and were taking away from the Achieve 3000 format.

At the 9 week change, we re-evaluated our plan and chose to eliminate the additional assignments and implement the Achieve 3000 to its fullest. The Achieve 3000 program is built on 5 components that support the current standards. These routines are used for every article that is read. It is important for the students to become familiar with this process of reading. These are also used in the Language Arts classrooms.

Achieve 3000 components/routines are:

  1. Before reading poll – before actually reading an article students complete an initial step to activate interest and prior knowledge to engage students in reading (all articles are non-fiction).
  2. Setting the purpose – as the student reads the article, they are highlighting important details (to build a “tweet” version of a summary for each paragraph)
  3. Activities – students answer eight comprehension questions (some are recall, inference, and general comprehension); students should go back into the article to find the answers for every question
  4. After reading poll – the students are asked to reflect on their before reading poll response to see if they still agree or have formed another opinion based on the reading
  5. Thought question – Students are given a prompt to respond to in writing. Having completed the “setting the purpose” assists them with this activity.

Scoring and Gradebook:

  • The Before and After poll activities are not taken for a score. However, they must be completed for the student to move onto the next routine.
  • Setting the Purpose and the Thought Question may be used as a classwork grade.
  • The Activities are scored for a grade. All assigned activities are entered into the gradebook.
  • Additional Activities beyond what is assigned can be completed to contribute to the student’s learning and their overall Activity average.
  • Tests are based on a chosen Article’s Activities. These are chosen by the teacher and the students are given the date to expect the test. The students will not be told what the article is ahead of time.

When looking at the student’s performance in Gradebook, please note the dates of work due and also the comments made by the teacher. Ms. Mitchell will indicate if the work has been received and pending grading. If the score is a zero with a letter Z, the student has not completed the assignment and still has an opportunity to do so.

From this point forwar, the only grades in Gradebook will reflect the Achieve 3000 routines. The components that are not graded but necessary to move on, are noted in Gradebook but do not carry a weight. They are there for students to monitor what work they need to complete. Ms. Mitchell also provides the students with missing assignment reports bi-weekly to assist with this, as well.

We are confident the revisions that have been made in the delivery of this course will provide our students with the best learning experiences. We appreciate your support through this process. Please do not hesitate to contact me () or Ms. Mitchell () with questions or concerns.

Thank you so much for your support,

Laura Brooks

“The Leon County School District does not discriminate against any person on the basis of sex (including transgender status, gender nonconforming, and gender identity), race, age, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, pregnancy, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, or genetic information.”