Plain Local School District in Canton, OH has implemented Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready® Diagnostic & Instruction and Ready® programs.
“We needed to find a way to streamline this process and free up more time for teaching and learning to take place, and i-Ready provided us with that solution,” said Cassandra Sponseller, director of teaching and learning and director of gifted programs at Plain Local School District. "Through using the program, we’ve been able to eliminate 102 different assessments across K-8 while still being able to collect the robust data needed to meet our requirements and effectively inform our instruction.”
Built for the Common Core, i-Ready combines a valid measure and personalized instruction in a single online product. The adaptive diagnostic identifies student needs down to the sub-skill level and generates a combination of online instruction and downloadable teacher-led lessons for each student’s diagnostic result.
In addition to using i-Ready, teachers use Ready to provide guided reading and math instruction and to provide students with additional opportunities to practice key skills. “While it was originally intended to be supplemental, Ready has really become a core part of our instruction,” said Sponseller.
Since implementation of i-Ready and Ready, students in the district have advanced six percentage points on Ohio’s Fall Reading Assessment for the Third Grade Reading Guarantee, while districts in the county declined an average of eight percentage points. Additionally, 434 of the district’s 435 third grade students demonstrated the reading proficiency needed to be promoted to fourth grade under the Third Grade Reading Guarantee requirements.
