OUTCOMES FROM IMPLEMENTING STORYWORKS Currently, Cypress-Fairbanks is the largest district in the state to earn an A (exemplary) accountability rating from the Texas Education Agency, which considers student achievement, academic progress, and closing the gap for different demographic groups. According to Jones, Storyworks has contributed to the district’s academic success. She explained that the Texas state reading/ELA assessment (STAAR) is multigenre, and Storyworks provides lots of high-quality reading experiences across different genres, and it includes support resources with rigorous questioning that address higher order comprehension. Walker Elementary School’s ELA instructional specialist, Hancock, finds that Storyworks contributes to vocabulary development. Matzke’s ELA instructional specialist, Bergholtz, sees Storyworks as helping to improve students’ writing ability because of the frequent extended constructed response prompts. Teachers and administrators agree that using Storyworks has increased students’ engagement with and excitement about reading, helping to develop lifelong readers. At the conclusion of her interview, Walker principal Dameron expressed her strong feelings about Storyworks . “We love it. We definitely utilize it. We don’t ever want it to leave.”
SCHOLASTIC STORYWORKS SUCCESS STORY: CYPRESS-FAIRBANKS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT 8
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs