A $750,000-plus Eligibility Partnership Grant administered through the Idaho State University Intermountain Center for Educational Effectiveness (ICEE) is proving to be effective in teaching teachers the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP), which in turn prepares the educators to better teach all subjects to English language learners and students with poor basic English skills. The implementation of the grant, in the second of its three-year length, is receiving positive reviews across southern Idaho.
"For students with low vocabulary relating to being second-language learners or children from poverty – the two groups where poor vocabulary takes place the most – SIOP provides the scaffolding or modeling so that the vocabulary becomes more meaningful," said Earnie Lewis, principal at West Canyon Elementary School in Canyon County's Vallivue School District.
"SIOP gives teachers the ability to not just provide instructions, but helps them find out what the children are learning and what a child is gleaning from a lesson. We've seen a marked improvement in student achievement. In one grade level, we had a 28 percent increase of second-language learners earning passing ISAT (Idaho Standard Achievement Tests) scores from fall to spring semesters."
The SIOP grant was set up to teach fourth- and fifth-grade teachers how to implement the new teaching methods, but now is being implemented schoolwide at West Canyon Elementary.
Meanwhile, across the state in Blackfoot, administrators who have been introduced to the SIOP method through the grant are now implementing its methods districtwide.
"The SIOP model really emphasizes that teaching is truly an art form," said Christine Silzly, principal of Groveland Elementary School in the Blackfoot School District. "It connects student backgrounds with what we want them to learn using the skills and practices of the SIOP model."
The Blackfoot School District is making SIOP training a requirement for all certified staff at all grade levels.
"I've been impressed with this great teaching strategy," said Silzly. "Many of our elementary teachers use the model on a daily basis, but it is essential for middle and high schools to incorporate the SIOP model because many students with language barriers enter the educational system at all levels."
Dr. Charles Zimmerly, the SIOP grant's principal investigator and coordinator for research services for the ISU Idaho Center for Effective Education, said he hopes at the end of the grant's three-year cycle in 2007 that the state Legislature will approve additional funds to offer the SIOP training statewide to all school districts.
In the meantime, only 14 of Idaho's school districts identified as "high-need" school districts have received funding for SIOP training. "High need" for this grant was defined as school districts where more than 50 percent of the students receive free or reduced-priced lunches, or schools that have a significant population of English-language learners.
The approach to implementing the grant has been collaborative, rather than competitive. Zimmerly wrote the grant so that it is a cooperative program among the state's universities, including Albertson's College of Idaho, Boise State University, BYU-Idaho, College of Idaho, ISU, Lewis and Clark State College, Northwest Nazarene University and University of Idaho. The ICEE oversees the grant administration, but all of these colleges and universities are actively implementing the grant and are receiving grant funding.
"I knew about the SIOP method before, but the grant just made it possible to have the funds to have the training right here in our classrooms," Lewis said, "and have the right people connect with our teachers."
For additional details on the SIOP teaching methods, visit www.siopinstitute.net/.