For Pebble Creek Literacy classrooms and its students, I love this time of year. I call it “hitting stride” time. In the fall freshman are, well, freshman, and it takes much of the first semester to win students’ trust, teach them all the protocols and procedures and give them repeated practice with the strategies.

All our data indicates that about 2/3’s of the student gain for the year happens in the second semester, hence, “hitting their stride.”

Students who have been reticent often turn a corner, those that are just consolidating skills get more control, and those who came in at grade level can be taken to more sophisticated levels of thinking and learning.

It’s exciting.