This Bright Spot comes from Fayga Ringel, a resource room teacher in a school in East Ramapo.

What student outcome was achieved?
Using strategies gleaned from two RSE-TASC regional trainings, Explicit Direct Instruction and Improving the Sentence, Fayga accelerated progress in her students’ reading and writing skills. She has noticed an increase in their reading fluency, reading comprehension and written expression. Students are also more willing to attempt more challenging academic tasks and are being rewarded with greater success.

What instructional practice or systemic change supported this student success?
After having students read a NewsELA article, Fayga wrote sentences and fragments on sentence strips and had students classify them as either a sentence or a fragment by recording their responses on sheet “wipe-boards”. This activity allowed for meaningful repetition of segments of the text in isolation, while simultaneously encouraging students to frequently reference to the text for evidence to complete the fragments.