General


Published: November 26th, 2018

Parents Are Key Partners in Supporting Reading Success

Schools cannot do this work alone, parents are key partners in supporting their child’s reading success. Both teachers and parents should work together to ensure that students are strengthening their reading skills and are meeting milestones each year, so they are ready to advance to the next grade. There are multiple ways to support your child’s reading outside of the classroom.

  • Read something every day. Reading just 20 minutes each day can help your child’s reading skills.
  • Choose books of interest to your child to read.
  • Ask your child questions about what they read. Talking about the words in the book helps them understand what they are reading.
  • Make sure books are around. Your child will be more likely to pick up a book and read if they are out in the open and easy to find.
  • Sing rhyming songs, read rhyming books, and say tongue twisters with your child. This helps them learn new sounds in words.
  • Talk to your child. Use trips to the grocery store, dinnertime chats, and driving in the car as a time to introduce new words and practice their speaking skills.
  • Talk about letters and sounds. Help your child learn the names of the letters and the sounds the letters make.
  • Have your child write. Writing grocery lists, notes, or letters helps children connect spoken words to written words.
  • Take advantage of community resources. Ask your child’s teacher or school librarian for help picking out books. Visit your local library for events and programs like reading clubs.
  • Reading doesn’t end when the school year ends. Help prevent the “summer slide” by reading over the summer months to better prepare your child for the next school year.
Posted in General, MOWR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , |
Published: July 28th, 2017

Move On When Reading: 2017-2018 Resources and Information

Welcome back to the start of a brand new school year! We hope that you all had a wonderful summer! As you begin to tackle your long to-do list for the beginning of the school year, we wanted to provide some important information and guidance related to MOWR. While this email is lengthy, it should serve as a resource for the entire year.

As you may know, the main focus of Arizona’s MOWR legislation is to promote early identification and intervention for struggling readers so that they are reading at or above grade-level by the end of 3rd grade. As part of this commitment to early literacy, Arizona statute requires schools and districts to annually submit K-3 literacy plans and assessment data to the Arizona Department of Education. Districts with letter grades of C, D, or F must submit literacy plans and data every year. Districts with letter grades of A or B submit during odd numbered school years, for example the upcoming 2017-2018 school year. Beginning this year, MOWR funds will be released for all LEAs only upon the submission and approval of the MOWR literacy plans.

Last spring, the Arizona State Legislature adopted new recommendations that have changed some of the requirements for reporting. If you have not done so already, you may view a brief video overview of these changes on Youtube.

As promised, we have developed updated guidance resources to help you navigate the changes and understand the MOWR requirements for the 2017-2018 schoolyear. Please click on the links below to access these resources. MOWR information and guidance can also be found on our Move On When Reading .

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Additionally, we will be hosting live webinars to walk through the literacy plan portal and to answer any questions you may have. These webinars will be most beneficial for school and LEA approvers with no previous experience with MOWR literacy plans or those who would like a refresher. These webinars will be offered on an ongoing basis.

As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Move On When Reading.
The MOWR team thanks you for taking on these important responsibilities and for your continuous commitment to Arizona students. We wish you a successful school year ahead!

Sean Ross, M.Ed.
Director of English Language Arts and Humanities
K-12 Academic Standards
Arizona Department of Education
Phone: 602.542.5342
Fax: 602.364.0902
Sarah Bondy, M.Ed.
K-3 Early Literacy Specialist
K-12 Academic Standards
Arizona Department of Education
Phone: 602.364.2355
Fax: 602.364.0902
Posted in Funding, General, MOWR, Uncategorized | Tagged , |
Published: May 15th, 2017

Important MOWR Updates

2016-2017 INFORMATION

Download the PDF version here


The 3rd grade AzMERIT reports were released this week to district testing coordinators. The MOWR results can be found in column Z of the data spreadsheet. If a student’s score on the reading portion of the AzMERIT demonstrates that the student’s reading level falls below the MOWR cut score, the student should be retained and provided the intervention and remedial strategies consistent with ARS §15-701 , unless that student meets one of the exemptions listed in the statute. A student who is retained and receives summer school reading instruction or interventions may be promoted to fourth grade if sufficient progress is made as demonstrated through local reading assessment data.

2017-2018 INFORMATION

For the upcoming school year, all schools and districts with K-3 students will be required to submit a K-3 literacy plan on or before October 1, 2017. The literacy plan is intended to guide the comprehensive programming of K-3 literacy within schools to support the goal that all students read at grade level by the third grade.

As you may know, there have been recent legislative updates that revise Arizona’s Move on When Reading statutes. These recent changes to the MOWR legislation require augmented reporting requirements within the literacy plans.

Below is a brief overview of the new and continuing required elements for the K-3 literacy plans. The full text of SB1131 can be found HERE.
Components for 2017-18 click to download file

We know that changes bring questions, and we are here to help. We are in the process of creating guidance to support your understanding and compliance with these new requirements. These guidance materials will be released throughout the summer so that they are in place for the start of the next school year when you complete your K-3 literacy plan. Please visit the MOWR webpage during the summer to check for updates and new guidance documents. If you have questions at this time, please email MOWR

Posted in Funding, General, Uncategorized |