Mika Roark

Coaching Session #7 – Reflection and Commitment to Change in Practice

Coachee: Mika Roark

Date/Time: April 29, 2026 12:30 p.m.

Next Coaching Date/Time: May 13, 2026 12:30 p.m.

Overarching goal with students: I will work with five students that are in a fluency support group by providing supplementary passages and texts that match the topic of the curriculum (for example, space or immigration) to assist students’ knowledge of the vocabulary found in assessment passages about the topic. I will track students’ progress by using their December CBM fluency scores as the baseline. My goal is for each student to improve their score 5% by March 13, 10% by April 17, and 15% by May 15.

Problem of practice goal: Mika would like to see if the use of individual fluency component checks with students impacts their fluency score on their spring FastBridge CBM. Rate, accuracy, phrasing, expression, punctuation are the individual fluency components we will be working on. Mika has posters that the students review in each fluency support session, and she has made smaller, individual ones for each student in the group. As students are reading during small group time, she can point to the component that the student needs to focus on giving them immediate feedback “in the moment.” This eliminates distractions for the other students in the group.  After the students have finished in the group, Mika will have the students rate themselves on each of the components to get their perspective on how they are performing for fluency skills. Mika will also be noting their progress during group time.

Coachee reflections on student progress toward goal:

Coach reflections on student progress toward goal and coaching session:  Mika’s students are still making progress even with the kinds of interruptions that are common at the end of the school year. The early morning storm on Monday was particularly disruptive to students and impacted their ability to stay focused and work on their skills this week. Mika continues to use reflection to think about how the students are performing for fluency and comprehension. She has plans in place for continuing her work until the end of the school year so that students are getting consistent practice with their skills.

The Problem of Practice is a lot like setting a SMART goal:

• A focus on the instructional core,
• Our work on the goal is actionable,
• Action toward the goal is directly observable,
• The work is connected to a broader strategy of improvement, and
• The work is high-leverage and may result in important changes to instruction and student learning

Focus questions:

What steps have you taken to work on the individual components of fluency with the students in the small group? Mika has been working on the individual components of fluency with her students, but it is difficult to tell if it’s working yet. She feels she needs more time for implementation to work, giving the practices time to feel more natural, and more like a routine the students expect. Daily implementation will continue until it does start to feel routine for the students.

What do you still need to do to accomplish your goal? What assistance do you need? Mika needs the consistency of meeting regularly with her small group, having the individual mini-conferences with them, and keep everything routine for the students. She doesn’t feel like she needs to implement anything else—just giving time for the current practices to work. No assistance is needed because she has all the resources she needs for implementation. The students have not been on top of things this week. The early morning storm on Monday caused students to be off-task. They know that school is winding down. It’s nicer outside, they want to be outside. The students have, overall, been very chatty.

What is the evidence that you can use to demonstrate progress toward each of the components of fluency? Students were assessed for fluency April 23, 2026. The assessments did not go as well as Mika would have liked it. The students were reading the words correctly, and they were not as robotic with their reading, however, they were not reading at the pace she would like. Scores look like they are going down, however their skill levels are going up. Unfortunately, the assessment tracks the students WPM, and comprehension was not factored into this set of scores. Mika is not as concerned about their WPM.

What changes have you seen in your students since working on the individual components of fluency? A couple of students are getting better at expression; it is improving. These are quieter students and that skill is difficult for them. They are hard workers and don’t want to make mistakes and don’t take risks while they read. Two, in particular, have really been working on expression while reading. Their improvement in expression has helped them understand what they are reading. They are also paying closer attention to punctuation.

How have the mini-conferences with students been helpful?  Mika has been able to hold some mini-conferences. She has focused her efforts on the students that were in the original fluency group (there are too many students in the group at this point). Mika is still guiding the discussions during conferences and the students are not necessarily choosing the area they want to focus on improving for fluency skills. Mika’s goal is to do the group, send kids back to their seats to do work, and then conduct the mini-conferences the last two minutes. She is able to confer with one student per day after group sessions.

Before our next meeting, Mika will be giving the CBM to her students and will be able to report their progress.

Working on Next Steps

Work on implementation of your goal for problem of practice by the next coaching session.

Keep working on steps toward goal with your identified students that you want to meet by May 15.

You can create a video if you like, but that is no longer required.

At the final coaching session, we will discuss what the small group of students need during the summer months and going into the next grade level to maintain their skills.