Improve Early Grade-Level Reading

Enhance Teacher Child-Interactions

Teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom include both instructional aspects in the classroom (e.g., management of time and activities; how much instruction occurs and in what type of setting) and emotional aspects of the classroom (e.g., teacher-child interactions; sensitivity of the teacher’s behavior). [i]

What Can Policymakers Do?

· Require assessment of the quality of K-3 classrooms using standardized, systematic method(s) that evaluate not only classroom structure and climate, but also the interactions between teachers and students. Ohio ’s Teacher Quality Partnership is using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) in quality rating systems for early care and education programs as a tool to evaluate classroom quality; school districts are using it in a similar manner. [ii] CLASS is fundamentally a standardized lens for looking at the interactions between teachers and students in the classroom.

· Establish and support data-driven instruction. The mayor of New York City is using Success For All (SFA) at failing schools. SFA is a comprehensive approach to supporting young learners and closing achievement gaps, from preschool through third grade. A central component of SFA is “relentlessly continuing with every child until that child is succeeding.” [iii] Doing so requires on-going, data-driven decision-making that is based on individual assessments of each child’s strengths and weaknesses and coupled with extensive review and analysis by classroom teachers (and other instructional coaches) on how to alter classroom instruction and educational supports to enhance the child’s learning and development.