Delia Garcia Archila

EED 520

Professor Connie White

April 14, 2022

The introduction for Reading Assessment: Artful Teachers, Successful Students

highlighted several roles that teachers adhere to everyday in their classroom. More specifically,
the role that deals with being responsible for guiding student success. This role focuses on the
responsibility teachers have for their students' success and purposefully notes differences
between accountable teachers and responsible teachers. The most significant difference
between the two is that accountability steers teachers to prioritize what their principal (including
superintendents and the school board) wants them to do and fulfill those expectations.
Whereas, responsibility displays teachers applying a close, dedicated lens to their students'
needs. In turn, the principals and other administrators follow suit. So, which path do you take
regarding a student's literacy progress? It should be noted that not many schools assign their
teachers responsibility for their students… So when a student is reading below grade level,
teachers mainly refer them for testing which results in the student being labeled as “learning
disabled.” Is this appropriate? Some people didn’t think so. Later in 2004, a general education
initiative known as Response to Intervention (RTI) was drawn up under the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). RTI is a research-based alternative to the labeling of
struggling readers as learning disabled. As part of RTI, districts are able to allocate 15% of their
special education budgets towards making sure all children are provided with the best possible
reading instruction. This meant that teachers could focus on the student and play an integral
role in their literacy development. However, there is debate as to who should be responsible for
building a strong literacy community for students reading progress. Education practitioners such
as school psychologists and special education teachers are more aligned with accountability
theories when it comes to a student’s reading levels and labeled as learning disabled. They do
not share the opinion that a child’s reading progress is the responsibility of their general teacher.
Whereas under the RTI, it becomes the responsibility of the classroom teacher to identify
student needs and contribute to their learning success. The teacher can then provide
supplemental instruction as they see fit. A significant resource that several responsible teachers
rely on are the Standards for Assessment of Reading and Writing (SARW). Simply put, the
SARW are a set of standards to guide decisions about assessing the teaching and learning of
literacy. The outlined standards within this document support teachers as the “primary agent” of
assessing information and influencing student learning and success. This can be done by
listening, watching, taking notes, and forming plans that fit each student’s needs. Taking
responsibility means steering towards being an active participant in the child’s learning
environment. As a responsible teacher, this is part of the assessment. This takes hard work, to
be sure. Harmony needs to exist in bringing assessment and instruction together. Making a
difference by getting to know each student, seeing where they are, and where they want to be.
Teachers using their knowledge and research data to comprise instruction that aligns well with
the student are called artful teachers. And the goal remains clear: no more proving whether
learning is taking place in the classroom, rather the task is to improve teaching and learning.
Sometimes, principals call upon their school teachers to become reading interventionists. When
offered the opportunity, teachers are to be enrolled in up to three years of graduate coursework
and one on one mentoring with a reading expertise to serve as the reading coach. This is all to
support the journey of not only the reading interventionists, but the journey of the student whom
they will be working with, too.