Week 02: Let's Think- School Literacy Profile

Samantha Vanden Berge

School- Old River Elementary

School Profile
Old River Elementary School (ORS) is located in the City of Downey, California. Old River
serves about 710 students in grades 4 and 5. Old River has a population that consist of 87%
Hispanic or Latino, 7% white (not of Hispanic origin) with African American, and the remaining
6% Asian and Filipino. Of those students, 25% are documented as English Learner students
whose primary language is Spanish. At Old River, both Title 1 and ELD programs are available
to students as well as Resource Specialist Programs (RSP), Special Day classes, along with
school-wide intervention programs to better assist with reading and math. At Old River, all
school wide forms are sent in both English and Spanish. There are also office aides who are
fluent in English and Spanish to better aid parents.

ELD Program
Currently Old River has an ESL pullout program. In this program English learners receive all
instruction in their general classroom. With the help from the ESL teacher, they are pulled out of
classroom every week to help with their English skills. The help they receive is designed to
strengthen the skills that are being taught in their general classroom. Their goal is to be
proficient in all areas of English.

Every day, students receive one hour of reading/writing support. This acts as ELD support for
those students needing help in fluency and comprehension skills. General Ed teachers as well
as teacher interventionist, and the ELD teacher work with students that are similar in reading
levels (see below for more information on how ORS test students for reading levels). During this
time students are broken up into small groups and receive instruction focusing on a reading/
writing skill using the Jan Richardson’s framework for guided reading.

In general, ELs are in the mainstream classroom the majority of the time. All classroom teachers
have been given professional development in Kagan structures in order to better facilitate
cooperative learning. In addition, ORS has many technology resources and programs to better
provide project based learning and provide students with more resources.

Extra Services
On top of ELD programs, students are also able to qualify for extra services if needed. To determine
which students need extra help in reading and/or math, Old River uses a variety of different criteria.
One being the California Standards Test, reading assessment done by the teacher (*running
records), and online reading assessment (DORA- Diagnostic Online Reading Assessment). In math,
ORS follows district wide test that meet the standards that are being taught inside the classroom.
School wide assessments such as the running records, DORA, and math are given four times
throughout the school year to help observe each student’s progress and record classroom growth.
Based off this criteria, students are then able to receive extra services if needed. These services
include being in intervention programs where they may work with the Title 1 teacher or two teacher
interventionist. They then work in small groups to in order to provide extra support in reading or
math.

*running records- a series of reading test by Fountas and Pinnell designed to determine what
reading level a student falls under. This test takes into consideration, fluency and comprehension. A
student is to read half of the story out loud while the teacher records errors in their fluency. The
student is then asked a series of questions focused on about, beyond, and within the text to
determine comprehension. Using a fluency and comprehension scale, the student score determines
their reading level.

Curriculum
The curriculum at ORS is based on the California state standards. We emphasize on making sure
that content is rigorous to meet the demands of the Smarter Balanced Assessment test. All
curriculum is outlined by the Downey Unified School District, where teachers from all schools come
together to create and work together to outline the year of learning.
For Language Arts, ORS focuses on the standards and create lessons that meet the demands that
are on the Smarter Balanced. For Writing, Downey utilizes the units of study from Lucy Calkins.
Which outlines units for teaching the different types of writing and how to organize and pull ideas
from students. For Social Studies and Science, ORS is very project based. Utilizing technology to
better explore topics. For Math, ORS focuses on Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) in which
students solve problems in a way that makes sense to them. Then they articulate these strategies to
peers which provides collaboration and student teaching.

Overall, many EL students succeed at ORS because there are multiple approaches to learning.
Teachers and administrators create an environment that encourages student driven learning. Thus,
creating an environment of respect and caring for one another.