District literacy coordinator reports reading gains after first-year DRA reintroduction

Paulina Gonzalez, Plainview ISD's literacy coordinator, presented the district's DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) results and said the district saw measurable growth after reintroducing the assessment this past academic year.

Gonzalez said 1,196 students from kindergarten through fourth grade were assessed and that dual-language students (assessed in English and Spanish) were included. She told the board the first-year baseline showed many students below grade level at the start, which she attributed in part to the district's lapse in routine DRA use for several years. "When we did test at the beginning of the year, it's going to look a little scary. So you see all the red. Most of our kids, that were below level," Gonzalez said, adding that middle- and end-of-year assessments showed improvement.

Gonzalez described instructional priorities for the year: daily guided-reading groups that incorporate phonics and writing, progress monitoring and family engagement to encourage 20 minutes of nightly reading. She noted language differences in decoding between Spanish and English and said the district's kindergarten instruction is predominantly Spanish (reported percentages in the meeting: kindergarten ~80% Spanish, first grade ~70%, second ~60%, third ~50%). Gonzalez asked the district to adopt a stronger phonics program aligned for both Spanish and English in addition to the current HMH curriculum.

Assistant and instructional leaders said the district will support teachers through walkthroughs, planning time, and modeling by veteran teachers, and that staff planned to begin more formal supports the following week. Trustees asked for and received class-size and staffing clarifications during the presentation: the district said kindergarten class sizes ranged "anywhere between 22 and 24" and that staff had added teachers as enrollment increased.

Gonzalez said the district aims to focus on prevention rather than intervention, noting a national trend of slow reading development and that it often takes three to five years for district-level changes to show significant results. She also raised the importance of consistent progress monitoring and family reading logs to support improvement.

Ending: Trustees praised teachers for the progress and said the district will bring improvement plans aligned to assessment results later in the year; no formal policy vote was taken during the presentation.