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October 4, 2012

Reading, math focus for DPS

Elementary students to see big push

Derrick Miller The Duncan Banner

DUNCAN — Duncan Public Schools have taken steps to improve student comprehension of reading and math in recent years.

The school district made 90-minute reading blocks essential for all students, and classes have moved to similar setups with math.

These are the two areas the Oklahoma State Department of Education requires school districts to focus on most.

At the elementary level, third grade is a big year when it comes to being at grade level with reading.

By fourth grade, students have to take a reading test to ensure they’re at grade level and to move on.

This year’s second grade students will face the third-grade retention cutoff.

Teachers are making strides to get students ready.

Plato fifth-graders Bryant Boydston and Jillian Orr said both subjects are well focused on in their classroom.

They said reading and math are important because they will have a lasting impact on their futures.

“All jobs contain reading and math,” Orr said.

The students said they get a lot of help and direction from their teacher, Lisa Lawrence.

This help ranges from guides the students take home to practice, answering questions and working on language to aid in reading comprehension.

When it comes to math, students are given multiplication tables they have to fill out in three minutes.

“It shows what you’ve been learning,” Boydston said.

They said there is also a lot of group work, where they can learn from their peers or help their peers along.

Boydston and Orr said learning can be an enjoyable experience.

“Math is fun,” Orr said.

During Tuesday’s class, the students were reading as a class.

While this might have meant students were sitting at their desks reading their classbooks five years ago, that isn’t how students in Lawrence’s class were doing their class reading.

Instead, the students, each with a pillow, sat on the floor in front of a SmartBoard.

The students took turn reading to the class.

But the reading also contained a game to test the student comprehension of the reading.

Students had to answer questions, and Lawrence went with the majority vote to determine the correct answers.

The students said reading and math have been large focuses since they were in kindergarten and expect their schooling to continue to put emphasis on those subjects.

“They’re really important,” Boydston said.

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