1. LLL Listening and Language Lab May, 2013By
Melissa Butler, SLP
Lila Nappier, Intervention Specialist

2. Hard at Work!

3. Introduction
50 first, second, and third grade students at Jordak Elementary, along with 12 educators were benefited and directly involved in implementation of the Listening and Language Lab (LLL). The measurable goal from the project was to move Jordak’s “at risk” reading students (as noted with dibels assessment) out of that category by the next benchmark. In addition to the dibels oral reading fluency assessments, the pre and post test from Hear Builder Following Directions Screener was given to determine improvements in listening skills. The final results of the dibels assessments revealed the following:
Students who participated in the program as measured by their spring benchmark:
“low risk” “some risk” “at risk”
These results indicate that 50% of the students who participated in the program moved out of the “at risk” category by the spring benchmark according to the dibels assessment.

4. Results for Hear Builder
When looking at the pre and post results of the Hear Builder program, 45 out of 50 students improved their scores from the pre test with an average improvement that went from 69% pre test score to a 78% post test score.

6. Results for an individual student

7. The original amount of students and educators involved in this project had to be modified due to the availability of the volunteers to oversee when the students were taken to the laptop lab. The students worked on software programs such as Hear Builder and My Reading Coach while in the lab. These programs focused on improving the students listening and following directions skills, phonemic awareness skills, phonics and word recognition skills, and decoding and fluency skills.

8. With the LLL, outcomes were evaluated using the curriculum based measurement of Dibels and the Hear Builder pre and post test Following Directions Screening Test. The more time a class devoted to the programs, the more their students improved. The most successful aspect of the project was the pre and post test of the Hear Builder Following Directions program.
Many students responded to this intervention and as noted in their post test, rapidly improved their listening skills. The largest barrier to LLL was recruiting volunteers and training them. Some pictures and highlights of the program were submitted to the local newspaper, however, the article did not print until the end of the year.
Hopefully, by viewing it in the newspaper, more volunteers will come for the next school year. Some of the volunteers had limited computer knowledge, and as a result needed extra time and support.

9. Newspaper Article

10. The teachers have used the results of this project to assist them in sharing intervention data in team meetings to facilitate the intervention process.
The LLL has also strengthened our overall curriculum by targeting “at risk” readers and having a research-based intervention program to assist them in moving out of this category. It has also assisted classroom teachers by tracking data on the students for them to determine progress.
Others have been encouraged to apply for student achievement grants offered through the NEA foundation by introducing information about the LLL in county-wide PLC (special services) meetings and sharing with other neighboring school districts and sharing the information about the grant through an article in a local newspaper.

11. This is a training letter that was sent to each teacher:

12. My financial invoices are included in the next 3 pages
My financial invoices are included in the next 3 pages. Four laptops- $1,172.67, My Reading Coach Software- $3,150.00, and Hearbuilder Software- $ Our school district had matching funds to buy earphones, HearBuilder Screening Test, and will renew SD Learning program for next school year.

16. Thank you to the NEA foundation for your support!

21. Thank you again NEA Foundation!