Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening (PALS)
When I read this section of the book (pg. 36), I was curious about what this thing was, so naturally, I decided to figure out what it was and what it measured.
So what is PALS? Below, I've copied and pasted PALS and Your Child:
PALS is the state-provided screening tool for Virginia’s Early Intervention Reading Initiative (EIRI). The purpose of the EIRI is to reduce the number of children with reading problems by detecting those problems early and providing research-based, small-group intervention. By screening K-3 students with PALS, participating school divisions identify struggling readers and receive incentive funds for intervention. All students not meeting the Entry Level benchmark for their grade level must receive intervention services in addition to their regular classroom instruction. Virginia is unique in providing funding to school divisions for intervention based on a statewide literacy screening (http://pals.virginia.edu/parents-child.html).
So what does it measure? This screening seems to measure everything as far as reading and comprehension are concerned, even a child's ability to recognize songs! Is is really fair though to measure a child on recognition of songs? I don't know how fair that seems. I'm a white male, and I can't think of any common African American children's songs, so how should we expect African American children to reciprocate? It seems that these children may be penalized, and possibly classified for their inabilities to recognize nursery rhymes? Sounds kind of silly, at least to me.
PALS is a screening that is conducted in the Fall and Spring, and is used for Pre-K through grade 3. All new students to a school in Virginia are required to take the screening, as well as students who received the intervention throughout the summer. All kindegarten students are required to take the screen in both Fall and that Spring.
According to the website, PALS is an early intervention strategy to catch children who may show early signs of struggling with reading and comprehension. The idea of early intervention is key, but I feel there's a fine line between accurate early intervention classifications and misidentifying students. Not only is this a costly blunder, but every student has a right to a least restrictive environment and deserves nothing short of that.
Brendan Ayers
References
http://www.academics.spps.org/sites/6ad609b4-0b3a-44ef-a102-a0447e8b216e/uploads/PALS_Oct_1_09_2.pdf
http://pals.virginia.edu/
Brendan,
ReplyDeleteI also researched PALS because I had no idea what the program was. It seems kind of similar to our Head Start program in the sense that it is an early intervention strategy for students before entering school. I did not see whether it was based on income or did. Did you happen to read about that?
-Stephanie
Brendan,
ReplyDeleteI also was not aware of PALS and I'm glad to see that you did some research on it. I agree with you that reciting songs can be difficult for any young child. At our school we use a screening test called Bracken's. It focuses on letter recognition, sounds, numbers, colors, and words. You are right, screenings of any type should be evaluated for usefulness.
Melissa