1.Student and Family Experiences with the Third Grade Guarantee Mandate Jennifer Zajac July 23, 2013

2. Introduction Beginning 2013-2014 school year, elementary school students in Ohio will be subject to the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee Students will perform at a score of 392 or better on the third grade Ohio Achievement Assessment in reading or they will be retained (Lieszkovszky, 2012) Schools are required to include parent communication, diagnostic testing, improvement plans, interventions and progress monitoring. If students fail to make appropriate progress, they will be retained 3. Introduction 2 key components to Ohios Third Grade Reading Guarantee Classroom intervention (RTI) Retention 4. Literature Review - RTI Little data regarding student/family experience Teachers perceive to be beneficial Provides early intervention Targeted intervention (individualized) Increased collaboration Teachers feel it shows social and academic improvement in students 5. Literature Review - Retention Research on retention is questionable Researchers of retention argue that effective interventions are needed in order to aid struggling students rather than repeating the academic content taught the previous year. Research on retention leans towards proving that retention at an early age does not lead to achievement growth in the long term (Chen, X., Liu, C., Zhang, L., Shi, Y. &Rozelle, S., 2010; Goos, M. Van Damme, J. Onghena, P. &Petry, K., 2011; Moser, S. E., West, S. G, & Hughes, J. N., 2012; and Range, B. G, Holt, C. R., Pijanowski, J., & Young, S., 2012) Retention costs more than $14 billion a year (Dawson, 1998 ) U.S. Department of Educations civil rights office shows inequity in retentions with increased retentions among black and Hispanic students (Robelen, Adams & Shah, 2012) 6. Research Issues If retention is not proven to be an ineffective intervention, why are nearly 10% of students retained at one point between grades K-9? Range, Holt, Pijanowski& Young (2012) looked at perceptions of retention and found that 64% of teachers and 68% of principals believe in retaining students despite evidence that it does not improve academic achievement. High-stakes testing and demand for accountability RTI proves to be an effective intervention yet little experiential data exists 7. Research Questions The goal of the research is to learn how students and families experience the new Third Grade Reading Guarantee, the intervention process and retention. How do students and families experience the Third Grade Reading Guarantee? What does the child experience in the third-grade classroom as a result of this mandate? What do the parents experience? Finally, how will students who have been retained experience the retention itself, what will it look like for them? 8. Methodology constructivist approach attempts to shed light on the experiences of students and families as they go through the process of meeting the Third Grade guarantee descriptive case study of students identified as struggling readers in the third grade in a medium-sized rural community during their third grade-year and the year following 9. Methodology A sample of five students and their families, at least three of which would be considered high risk for retention, minority or low socio-economic status (Merriam, 1998) Two-year study students third-grade year and the following year 10. Data Collection Formal Interviews Informal Interviews Participant Observation Document Review 11. Data Analysis Interpretive analysis (Hatch, 2002, p. 181) Reviewed for a sense of whole Coding Summary reports (member checking) Trustworthiness Attention to the details of the narrative derived from observations and interviews Naturalistic generalizations 12. Conclusion Goals 1) provide experiential data that can be pulled from to inform policy decisions regarding intervention and retention, and 2) to fill a gap in existing research on retention