STAR Expansion Announcement

Submitted by Melissa Zervos on Fri, 05/21/2021 - 11:03
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STAR Expansion:

The new STAR contract is expanding the reach of EBRI training for instructors.  The initiative is now offering States the opportunity to engage local program instructors in a new regional cohort training pilot model. This opportunity is for States that have not been previously been engaged in STAR training and is a great opportunity to access high-quality professional development in EBRI for instructors. 

STAR:

  • Meets the requirements around professional development offerings on the essential components of reading. This will help meet your WIOA state leadership requirements
  • Is a hybrid online delivery package. This allows states to reach all local programs (urban and rural) and decreases face-to-face time which will also decrease costs of bringing teachers and trainers together.
  • Allows states to have the internal capacity to sustain, expand, and ensure the integrity of EBRI for intermediate-level readers. After the initial STAR training, STAR provides an avenue for trainer certification allowing states to continue to sustain STAR after the national STAR training team has left the state.

States who already are a part of STAR will be contacted in the next few months to discuss current STAR training and the recertification of current trainers in order to update their current trainer’s skills.

Contact the project team if you would like to have a more detailed discussion at projectstar@manhattanstrategy.com.

 

Comments

Thanks for this update Melissa!

I am so thrilled to see STAR expanding and becoming more available to states. I learned so much about evidence based reading instruction through my certification as a STAR trainer. Following the principles of evidence based reading instruction taught through STAR can make a huge impact on the intermediate level readers (grade levels 4 to 9) in our programs. For more information about STAR, please click here. 

If you have been involved in the STAR initiative in your state, we would love to hear some testimonials about its effectiveness with your students! 

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing CoP

Minnesota became involved in STAR in 2008. Since then, hundreds of ABE managers and teachers have been trained in evidence-based reading instructional practices -- even during the pandemic! If you would like to read our 10-year collection of program/class, teacher/administrator, student, and volunteer Stories of Success, please open this PDF at https://atlasabe.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/MN-STAR-Successes-2018.pdf

Many thanks for sharing Minnesota's successes with the STAR reading program Marn!

To lead off a STAR training, I would always share the Bell Dolainski report (available HERE in the LINCS Resource Collection). Here is a brief excerpt from the report:

"Is EBRI [Evidence Based Reading Instruction (EBRI) - what the STAR initiative trains instructors to do] improving student outcomes? Although not conclusive, the results we are seeing thus far are encouraging. In the 2009-10 school year, attendance data revealed that students in classes with an EBRI-trained teacher had a 24% completion rate vs. 10% of students in similar classes with untrained teachers. In reviewing pre- and post TABE reading scores from 96 students who received EBRI instruction in five separate EBRI classes during a 20-week period between September 2009 and March 2010, we found that:

  • 89 students (93%) improved their TABE scores
  • 45 students (47%) improved by 2 grade levels or more
  • 29 students (30%) improved sufficiently to exit the ABE program. In other words, they achieved a 9.0 grade level equivalent (GE) or higher on the TABE
  • The average increase in GE was 2.5."

Instructors were always amazed to see these results. Minnesota's data correlates well with the results above.

Who else will share the results they have seen with EBRI? 

Thanks in advance,

Steve Schmidt, Moderator

LINCS Reading and Writing Community

So, my state directors have decided against becoming involved with STAR. A couple of us in our state are VERY interested in STAR training. Is there any way that we can tag on with a neighboring state to get STAR training?

Thank you, Michelle.  I also have not had the opportunity to engage in STR Training, and am interested to know if there are opportunities to benefit the students I teach when I'm not formally involved through a state contract. 

Thank you for your question Michelle, and I look forward to talking next week.  If others are interested in opportunities available for training during the STAR expansion please contact the STAR at projectstar@manhattanstrategy.com to discuss the training possibilities in more detail.