Shawano High trying to improve reading scores

Shawano Community High School is working to integrate reading in some form into every class, including physical education. The change is being made to improve the school’s reading scores on the state’s standardized tests, according to principal Scott Zwirschitz. Just coming off the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam in November, high school students will also be taking a battery of ACT exams this spring that will become the new measuring stick for the state standards. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction data shows that 35.5 percent of then-sophomores at SCHS in 2012 had a score in the proficient or advanced ranges on the WKCE. Another 53.5 percent had a score in the basic skills category, which is not a passing score. The state average shows about 36.1 percent of students scored in the proficient or advanced categories. “What we chose to do to try to increase those reading scores, is to develop different reading strategies to be used in the classroom,” Zwirschitz said. “What we’ve found is many times when someone is reading, the questioning that happens is a lot of recall — what year did something happen — in a social studies class?” The school had three inservices this year focused on reading and reading strategies, Zwirschitz said. One of the strategies is annotating, which requires students to take notes while reading. Another strategy is to make sure students use multiple sources to come up with positions. Zwirschitz noted that many people look only at one source, usually on the Internet, and believe it to be gospel. Strategies have to be used in a classroom at least once every two weeks, Zwirschitz said. That makes it possible for students to be exposed to those strategies almost once a day among their seven to eight classes. “The strategies are becoming more and more common with the students,” Zwirschitz said. “When I walk into a classroom, I seem them doing different reading strategies. I think that will only help our students moving forward.” Zwirschitz said that the school will not actually know if these strategies are working until freshmen and sophomores take the ACT Plan and ACT Explore tests in April.