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Number
of Schools: There are currently 52 middle schools
implementing the Success for All Middle School program.
These schools are located in 16 States and jurisdictions:
Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois,
Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri,
New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, and Washington.
Program
Description: The Success for All Middle School
is a model of middle school reform based on the Success
for All (SFA) reading program—a comprehensive,
effective, and replicable program for the elementary
grades. Primary goals of the middle school program are
to assess student strengths and weaknesses, fill in
existing gaps in their skills, and provide a bridge
to more challenging content with practical applications.
We also hope to strengthen students’ relationships
with both family and community. The SFA Middle School
expects eventually to incorporate cooperative learning
strategies into all subject areas and to integrate language
arts throughout the school day.
Traditional instruction focuses primarily
on course content. The SFA Middle School, however, emphasizes
not only the facts that students are expected to know,
but also the meaning behind those facts. Not just how
to do something, but why it works. SFA middle school
students learn effective strategies to extend their
knowledge beyond the facts at hand. They learn to think
critically, to be intellectually engaged, to relate
what they already know to new situations, to take the
initiative and act on their beliefs—and in doing
so to make a difference in their lives and those of
others.
Children in the Middle School Project
are exposed to reading in each of their classes. Such
integration is important. But so is a structured time
devoted to reading instruction—readers of all
levels profit from specialized work to develop and enhance
their skills. As a result, SFA requires that middle
grade students devote an additional sixty minutes to
reading every day.
Reading classrooms are grouped by
reading level to facilitate student learning. At eight-week
intervals, children are assessed and regrouped according
to the progress they have made. Students who improve
dramatically may be reassigned at intermediate stages.
Those who read significantly below grade level benefit
from Stage One, designed specifically for upper elementary
and middle grade students who have great difficulty
reading.
For students at or above grade level
in reading, class time can be spent on study and research
skills, math support and enrichment, or other desired
extensions and activities.
The daily reading period:
- Allows schools to customize instruction
for individual students
- Grounds beginning readers in the
basics of reading
- Helps weak readers steadily improve
their reading skills
- Offers tips to help good readers
become even better
- Provides a flexible time for academic
support or extensions
- Prepares all students for success
in middle school and beyond
The centerpiece of the middle school curriculum is a
two-hour core humanities block that combines social
studies with language arts. The SFA Middle School takes
an integrated, comprehensive approach to these subjects,
including well-designed student materials and extensive
professional development to help teachers become proficient
in teaching all aspects of the course.
In the middle school humanities block,
students learn about the world by experiencing it in
simulated form, by conducting experiments, and by investigating
important real-world problems and topics in cooperative
groups. The world outside the school is a crucial part
of the program, accessed by means of field studies,
telecommunication, computer technology, and the involvement
of members of the community.
The humanities block also integrates
reading and writing strategies to facilitate the language
arts component. Children make extensive use of writing
skills and reading of expository and narrative texts,
as well as math, science, and fine arts. In addition,
students are continually encouraged to ask questions,
to collect data, to investigate, and to predict the
impact of actions or events. Yet students do more than
study real-world problems—they also take an active
part in planning and implementing projects that contribute
to the community.
- Time for in-depth study
- Occasions for reading, writing,
and language arts
- Opportunity for learning in context
- Experience with expository texts
- Chances for students to take the
initiative in their studies
- More ways to engage and challenge
children
A full range of science units for grades six through
eight complement the reading curriculum and the core
humanities block. The middle school science program
springs from instructional methods already implemented
by WorldLab, a proven model of science education currently
in use in a number of SFA elementary schools.
The middle school science curriculum
makes extensive use of hands-on investigations, simulations,
and experimentation to introduce students to science.
Students work in teams throughout the units. Experiments
are supplemented with a period of observation, research,
and interesting activities that both build on children’s
own experiences and help students ask meaningful questions.
Middle school science units provide
the guidelines and all materials teachers need to present
information in an engaging, integrated, and active manner.
Science class is a laboratory where students can use
and enhance the skills they learn in other components
of the SFA Middle School, including reading, writing,
and mathematics.
- Builds on children’s observations
and experiences
- Creates critical thinkers
- Sets a model for inquiry, data
analysis, and problem solving
- Emphasizes the connections between
society, science, and technology in daily life
- Spawns positive attitudes about
science
- Provides opportunities for integration
of curriculum
- Establishes habits of mind for
a lifetime
Given the many ways in which technology has transformed
the twentieth century, it is imperative that schools
incorporate existing and emerging technologies into
the classroom. Students will be required to use diverse
and powerful technologies in high school, college, and
beyond. In middle schools, they learn the basics on
which to build.
Teachers and students alike must take
every possible opportunity to use computers, the Internet,
video and cassette recorders, and other available media.
Computers, in particular, are valuable educational tools.
Before leaving middle school, children should be familiar
with word processing, publishing, data storage, conducting
analyses, making projections and displays, using spreadsheets
and databases, and accessing the outside world through
resources available on the Internet. Many of these skills
are incorporated directly into SFA Middle School lesson
plans.
Because technology changes rapidly,
schools allow for ongoing teacher training to ensure
quality classroom instruction for students.
The Success for All Middle School program attempts to
reduce special education placements, in favor of inclusion
classrooms. The more that learning disabled students
are able to accomplish in regular classrooms with the
help of their teammates, the more confident they will
become and the more success they will have with their
schoolwork.
Classroom strategies and the middle
school curriculum are designed to give learning-disabled
students the greatest chance for success. Because students
learn in different ways, all instruction incorporates
a combination of sight, sound, movement, and touch whenever
possible. The repetition helps reinforce concepts, and
it ensures that no one misses out due to a momentary
lapse in attention.
In an SFA Middle School, most children
who would ordinarily be in special education now remain
in the regular classroom programs and are served flexibly
by supplementary services (one-to-one tutoring, family
support services, social skills training, behavioral
intervention, speech or language assistance, or other
services). Those who still require special education
participate as fully as possible in regular classroom
programs, and they are released from special education
as soon as they no longer need it.
Research:
The Success for All Middle School design is one of few
comprehensive, replicable models for middle schools
serving many at-risk young adolescents. Consistent data
indicating whether and how this model can be successfully
replicated across a wide variety of circumstances will
provide an important tool for educators concerned with
the success of these children. This data is being gathered
through achievement measures in several subject areas,
implementation ratings, and interviews with SFAF trainers.
Preliminarily, we have compared the
gains made by SFA Middle Schools to the performance
of non-SFA control sites in five states participating
in the Middle School Study. By looking at each school’s
performance on standardized tests, it helps determine
how effective the program has been in each SFA school.
Performance data was collected from each state’s
department of education website from 2001-2002. SFA
schools gained more on the state test than each of the
control schools. Even though each state has a different
standardized tests, the SFA Middle Schools had greater
gains than the controls for each pairing of schools
after only one year of implementing Success for All.
These early results are derived from
a much larger study, funded through the U.S. Department
of Education and due to be completed in 2004. The complete
evaluation focuses on the implementation of the SFA
Middle School model, the impact of this model, and the
relationship between implementation and impact. NORC
is conducting this evaluation.
For more information, please
contact Cheryl Sattler, Education Policy and Constituent
Relations Manager, at 1-800-548-4998 x2583.
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