Dear Faculty,

At our Horgan faculty orientation meeting held August 31, our staff was asked to examine Standardized Test Data from the 2004 New Standards State Test. The following literacy needs were identified to improve student learning.

Areas of Focus:

• Summarizing/Paraphrasing
• Focus on relevant details (main ideas, supporting information)
• Analyzing graphs/charts, illustrations, graphics
• Making predictions and drawing conclusions, making connections to text
• Organization of thoughts in listening, speaking, reading, and writing
• Expansion of sentence structure
• Editing (conventions)
• Revising work to clarify, focus or expand topic
• Using language to justify conclusions and solutions
• Vocabulary Expansion (written, oral, listening, speaking)
• Problem Solving
• Increase quality of work instead of quantity
• Accountable Talk (metacognition)
• Modeling of thought process (talk out what you're thinking to students) procedures and strategies.